Good morning, everybody. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Thanks for joining us this November. Whenever I'm supposed to come up without a bumper video, the video that we played between the last song and the sermon is called a bumper video. Whenever I'm supposed to come up during a prayer and there's not a bumper video, I'm always terrified that I'm standing on the stage at the wrong time. There was a time at my old church where I was the host. I had Haley's job. They paid me for it. She does it for free. And I was in the front row, and I thought that the guy gave me the nod. You know, just this is it after this. And I was like, okay. So I come up, and he's standing back looking at me, and he goes, and he just strums the next song and goes, and I literally just walked up and looked at him in horror and then walked off the other side of the stage and sat down over there. And that was a congregation of like 700 people and they were all laughing at me. And I deserved it. That's germane to nothing. I'm just inviting you into the fear that I still fear, feel when I'm standing right here as Aaron is praying. Thank you to Kyle, our student pastor, who stepped in for me last week and did a phenomenal job as he continued on with the series. I appreciate that, man. We are in a series called The Songs We Sing, looking at some of the songs that we sing as a congregation, finding them in Scripture, allowing Scripture to imbue them with a greater meaning for us. And it's been really, really fun to move through this series, hear you guys responding, hear you guys singing, know that these things are connecting and that these songs can have deeper meaning for us. I continue to believe and emphasize that getting together and singing together on a Sunday morning as a body of believers is the most important thing that we do on Sunday mornings together. So I'm glad that we're continuing to do that. This week, we're looking at a song called The Battle Belongs. Next week, I'm preaching on a Christmas song, O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, kind of to transition us into the Christmas season. So I'm looking forward to sharing that with you guys next week. But this week, as I said, we're focused on a song called The Battle Belongs. It's one that we've sung around here for a while. You probably know it, but in case you don't, I'm just going to read you the chorus. This will not be on the screen, so you'll just be forced to pay attention to me. But the chorus goes like this. So when I fight, I'll fight on my knees with my hands lifted high. Did you guys think I was going to sing this to you? No way. Oh, God, the battle belongs to you. In every fear I lay at your feet, I'll sing through the night. Oh, God, the battle belongs to you. This song comes directly out of, I think, two stories in the Old Testament. Now, as we sing this song, there's songs about you guiding me through the shadow and through the valley. That comes from Psalm 23. There's words about his ways being higher than our ways. That comes from Romans 11, that if God is for us, who can be against us? That comes from Romans 8. So there's different lyrics in the song that come from different places in scripture, but the heart of the song itself comes from two fantastic stories in the Old Testament. Now, if you spent any time at all at Grace, you know that I love my Old Testament. I love my Old Testament stories. It's a really, it tends to be a more entertaining read than the New Testament once you get past Acts, right? So I love the narrative stories of the Old Testament. So if you have a Bible, the one I'm going to focus on primarily today is in 2 Chronicles chapter 20. If you don't have a Bible, there's one in the seat back in front of you. 2 Chronicles can be hard for some of us to find because maybe we don't have a lot of experience there. It's in the first third of the Bible. There's a lot of pages in 1 and 2 Chronicles, so you're bound to find it if you thumb through a little bit. If you see kings, you're gaining on it. And if you see Ezra or Nehemiah, you've gone too far. All right. So Chronicles chapter 20. And in Chronicles chapter 20, there's a guy who's the king named Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat is the king of Judah. By this point in history, the kingdom has split. After David, we have Solomon. And after Solomon is the king, we have Rehoboam. Rehoboam was a cruddy king. He was a jerk. He was a dummy. And so Jeroboam took the northern kingdoms referred to for the rest of the Old Testament typically as Israel. And Rehoboam kept the southern kingdom typically referred to as Judah. For the rest of the lines of those kings and those stories are told in 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles. The northern tribes of Israel had no good kings. They all did what was right in their own eyes. They all betrayed God. Southern Israel, depending on who you talk to, Judah had between three and five good kings. As I kind of dug into the research, in my opinion, they had three good kings. We're going to talk about two of them this morning. One of them was Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat, 2 Chronicles chapter 20, receives word that the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Ammonites and the Meubites, I don't know how to say the last one, Meubites, were gathering together to attack him. Clearly, they felt like they had seen a weakness and they were ready to exploit it. Now, Judah is not a geopolitical player. They're just trying to carve out their place in the world. They're by no means a superpower. They're not scaring anyone. And so these three tribes assemble against him and decide now's the time we're going to strike. We're going to come in and we're going to conquer Judah. We're going to conquer Jerusalem and overthrow Jehoshaphat. And so word of this planned attack and the three tribes uniting against Jehoshaphat gets back to him., these three tribes have amassed against you. They're coming in to take over. They probably have the advantage. What do you want to do? His very first reaction is he was afraid. After he processes the fact that he's afraid, what should I do? He prays. He prays and he assembles all of Judah. Everyone from the different towns, the different tribes in Judah, come to Jerusalem, fast with me. Implicit in fasting is praying. Pray with me. Let's seek the face of the Lord and what we should do. So that's what they did. All the people of Judah gathered in Jerusalem. And they got on their hands and their knees and they cried out to God and they said, what do we do? God, what do we do here? We're going to be attacked. What should we do? And so they respond in prayer. And God answers them in this way on down the passage, verses 15 through 18. And he said, We say the battle belongs to the Lord. That's where it comes from. It's from the high priest reassuring Jehoshaphat, don't worry about it. Do not be afraid. Do not be dismayed. This battle's not yours anyways. This battle belongs to God. Verse 16. And here's the scene. Jehoshaphat gets word that the Moabites, Ammonites, and the Miites are coming to attack them and overthrow them. He's scared. He prays. He gathers the people of Judah to pray with him. Father, what would you have us do here? At the end of the prayer, the high priest says, the Lord has directed me. And you're supposed to do not be afraid. Do not be dismayed. This is not your battle. This is God's. Go out and align yourself for battle. And the instructions that follow are, lead with the Levites and let them sing worship. Lead with worship and lead with praise. And that's what they did. He fell on his face. He praised God with all the people. And it's important that we understand that worship isn't just singing. Worship can be praying. Worship can be a posture. Worship is living a life of sacrifice. Worship has a large definition. And so he falls on his face. If you're hearing these instructions, he falls on his face with the rest of Judah and they pray to God. And then the next morning they get up. They're not fearful. They go out to the battle lines. They put in front of them the worship pastors, which has to be the worst possible idea, right? Like if we needed to defend grace, would you want Aaron and Greg to do it? Or would you want people with like military experience? I'm just asking the question. I don't think you would want me to do it, but they're not the tops on the list is all I'm saying. But they put the skinny jeans and the beards out in front. This is who we're going to lead with. By the way, all these jokes, none of this is my insight. These are all Aaron's jokes. I'm stealing them. This is a sermon he's done before, this part of it. So I'm authorized to use these things. I mean, just so we're all clear about how tough I am, I raked for like 45 minutes last week. My arm was sore for a day, and I got a blister on one of my fingies, even though I was wearing gloves. All right, so that's what we're dealing with here. But they put the worship leaders out in front, and they praise God. And as they praise God, God incites a riot in the camp of the three different tribes. They conquer each other, and they walk away dismayed. God's army doesn't have to fire a single arrow or throw a single spear. The battle is won because it belongs to the Lord. There's another wonderful example of this, and I believe it's referenced in the chorus when it says, everything I lay at your feet. And I think the most descriptive example of this is in 2 Kings chapter 19. It's a story of Hezekiah. Hezekiah was another one of the good kings of Jerusalem, or yeah, of Jerusalem and of Judah. And what's going on here is that Hezekiah receives word that the king of Assyria, Sennacherib, is sweeping through the Middle East and is storming towards Jerusalem intent on conquering it. And this isn't three random roving tribes that happen to exist around you, Moab and Amman. It's not those places. This is Assyria, the precursor to the Persian empire. This is Sennacherib, a name that strikes fear in everyone that hears it. This is a big deal. And Sennacherib on his way deploys basically propaganda in Jerusalem. It's a letter that he sends that he writes to the people of Jerusalem that says, hey, you're going to want to get out of Dodge because I'm coming to wreck shop. And if you're still there when I get there, you and your family's going to die, just so you know. And someone takes that letter and they hand it to Hezekiah. And this is Hezekiah's response in verse 14. Verse 19. The propaganda letter is brought to King Hezekiah. Hezekiah knows. If Sennacherib wants Jerusalem, he's going to take it. They have as much chance of defending Jerusalem from Sennacherib as my daughter Lily has defending her Reese's peanut butter cups at Halloween from me. I'm going to win that fight. And so what does Hezekiah do? He doesn't do what you think he should do. What he should do is assemble the generals right away. Assemble the quartermaster right away. Assemble the treasurer right away. Whoever's in charge of agriculture, how we're going to feed the people, get them in the room. He needs to assemble the cabinet right away. How do we defend Jerusalem? Someone start boiling some oil. I saw that on Netflix one time. That seems to be a thing you should do when you're defending the city. Get everybody together and let's come up with a plan to repel the Assyrian army. That's what we need to do. That's not what he does. He takes the letter. He goes to the temple. He lays it down at the feet of the Lord, and he prays. And he says, God, this is an affront to you. What would you have us do? His first response is to pray. And similarly to Jehoshaphat, God directs Hezekiah, don't do anything. Don't fire an arrow. Just watch, and I'll win. And the next morning, he incites a riot in the camp of the Assyrians. They rout each other, and they walk back to Assyria licking their wounds. God's armies didn't have to fire an arrow. Because they're good kings, Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah responded in prayer to everything that came their way. And so, of course, when I read these stories and I reflect on them, and I think about these were put here over a thousand years ago for us today. What is it that I should take from them? I think there's myriad applications here. But the biggest one to me is to simply ask, is this what I do? Is this what we do? When I encounter a situation that gives me pause, is my reflexive response to pray? When I'm fearful, like Jehoshaphat was, is my first response to go and pray, or is my first response to go and plan? I don't know about you, but when I'm in a stressful situation, when I feel disappointed or when I feel overwhelmed or when I feel like there's a big task in front of me, the very first thing I do is come up with a plan that I believe in. As soon as I have a plan that I can work, I feel very comforted in life. So the first thing I do in stress is I sit down, I think it through, I make a plan, and then I begin to work the plan. The problem is, prayer didn't precede that plan. It didn't follow that plan. It's just my plan. And I'm not, certainly didn't bring anybody here to make you feel bad about your prayer life. So I'll let you join in judging me about mine. And if it applies to you, fine. But when I read these passages, I can't help but ask myself, how much of my parenthood is prayerless and just reflexive? How much of my marriage and my love for Jen is prayerless and just a representation of my effort? How much of my career? How much of my interactions with others? How many of my important, maybe even difficult conversations? How many small groups in Bible studies have I led prayerlessly just going into them on my own? Is it my reflex in times of stress, in times of trepidation, in times of challenge, in times of fear, in times of uncertainty? Is my reflex to pray or is it to plan? Is it to seek the face of the Lord? Or is it to call a friend? How much in your life, this is where I'll put it on you, how much in your life, in your coming and in your going, as you enter into situations, as you face new situations, when you get phone calls, as you respond, how much in your life do you stop and you pause and you lay down at the foot of God and you say, God, I need you here. I'm not big enough for this. How much of that do you do and how much of it do you just take on yourself and charge right ahead without ever once stopping to pause and pray? I've joked often, and I will do it one day, that one day I'm going to give a sermon on reading the Bible. And I'm going to come out. I'm going to say, good morning. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. You should read your Bible more. Let's pray. I'm going to do that one day. Because I genuinely think that when I come out here and I tell a group full of Christians who in your heart love and seek out God's word, when I say, hey guys, we should read the Bible more often, that the Holy Spirit can take it from there. He doesn't need me to talk for 29 and a half more minutes to make that an effective message. I'm probably just going to mess it up. That's enough for the Holy Spirit to go and work. And similarly, this morning is simply that. Hey guys, pray more. Pray more reflexively. Pray more regularly. And grain it into yourselves. Let the Holy Spirit work it into your psyche. Pray more. Because here's what happens when we pray more. I was reflecting as I was preparing. If we can be more like Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah, if we can be people who respond in prayer and not panic or plans, what can happen for us? Because remember, everything that God tells us to do, he tells us to do because it's best for us. So why is it best for us to stop at every moment, every day, and pray multiple times a day? Why is it better for us to pray and consider more? Here's what I think. Prayer provides perspective, place, peace, and priorities. Prayer provides perspective, place, peace, and priorities. Not for nothing. That's the greatest alliterative sentence I've ever written in my life. I'm going to graduate now as a pastor. I've reached the mountaintop, I think. Prayer provides us with perspective. It puts things in their proper focus. I have a son, John, he's two and a half, and he's in that season where every time we go up the stairs, it's an adventure, right? And you always ask him when you're about to go up the stairs, you don't want to upset his delicate sensibilities. Johnny, do you want to hold my hand? You want to do it yourself? And he usually says, I do it myself. Okay. And so he uses the wall and the railings and different things, and he takes the steps one at a time. And I'm right behind him. If he falls, I'm going to catch him. It's going to be okay. But he likes to say, I do it myself. And then I let him do it himself. Listen, every time we go into a situation or circumstance or a scenario, and we do it prayerlessly, what we've just done is we've looked at God and we've said, I do it myself. Do you need help with your career? No, I got this. I'll do it myself. Do you need help in your marriage? No, I got this. I'll do it myself. I can hold your hand. I can guide you through this. I can show you the way. No, it's good. I'll do it myself. This big goal in your life, I'll do it myself. Reconciling a relationship, I'll do it myself. Raising your children, I'll do it myself. Every time we enter into anything prayerlessly, we are saying to God, I'll do it myself. Thanks. When we don't pray, we make ourselves too big and God too small. When we don't pray, when we don't pray about whatever it is, about a health issue, about a relationship, about a career, about parenthood, about our marriage, about trying to transition into being adult parents of adult kids, and that relationship is different, and I don't really know what to do with my hands anymore. I just need to know I need to give them some space. When we approach that prayerlessly, we make God too big and ourselves too small. We forget who we are and who he is. But I want us to actually acknowledge and admit that that any time we approach anything, whether it's just a small sales meeting, a regular business meeting in our place of work, a board meeting or an elder meeting, when we approach a small group, when we approach a delicate conversation with our spouse or with our kids, when we sit at our desk or wherever it is we sit on Monday morning and think about the week ahead, when we do any of those things prayerlessly, we make ourselves far too big and God far too small. And we say to him, I've got this. I'll do it myself. God in his goodness climbs those stairs right behind us, but he's willing to hold our hand and walk us up there if we'll reach for him in prayer. So not only does prayer give us perspective, but prayer puts everything in its proper place, right? Because when we pray, here's what we admit, whether we consciously acknowledge this or not. God is in charge. I am not. This situation is in his hands. When we pray, that's what we acknowledge. God's in charge. I am not. This situation is in his hands. God's the creator of the universe. I'm not the creator of the universe. He's in charge. I am not. And this situation is in his hands and better off for it. When I think about this, that prayer puts us in our proper place, I'm reminded of Genesis 1. Genesis 1.1. God created the heavens and the earth. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And I love to ask the question, why does the Bible begin that way? I don't think it just begins that way because that's where the story begins. I think it begins that way because it sets up the fundamental relationship throughout all of Bible and all of life. God is the creator. We are the creation. This is it. All sin in our life is getting confused about that relationship. That's all it is. God is the Lord. I am not. God is the creator. I am the created. All sin in our life is when we choose to ignore that and say, no, no, no, I'm more important than him. That's it. And so what prayer does is put us in our proper place. What prayer does for us in a humble, quiet way is what God had to do for Job in a bombastic way in Job chapter 38. When Job's tired of life, he's tired of suffering and goes to God and he's like, hey man, you owe me some answers. And so in Job 38 and on, God gives Job those answers, but they're not the ones he wants. He says, Job, you've forgotten your place, pal. You don't know who you are and who I am. You've forgotten. And then Paul reiterates this in Romans 11, when he says, who can understand the mind of God? His ways are higher than our ways. And so when we humble ourselves in prayer, particularly when we bow on our knees if we can, it puts everything in its proper place. You are God. I am not. You're in charge. I'm reliant on you. The situation is bigger than me. It is not bigger than you. I know that you know my kids better than I could ever know them. I know you love them more than I could ever love them. So I'm trusting them with you. Tell me what my part is and I'll do it. Often your part is to hang back and sing worship music and let God do the dirty work. I know that you know my wife better than I'll ever know her and that you love her more than I can ever love her. So can you just show me what my part is in loving her? Can you just help me with that? God, I know that my career, for whatever reason, is important to you. I don't know why it's important to you. I don't know what the end game of it is. I don't know what you would have me to learn or gain there, but I know that it matters to you where I work, who I work for, and how I carry myself in the workplace. I know that matters to you, God. So I'm going to trust you with it and walk in the steps that you would lay out for me. When we pray, it gives us the proper perspective and it puts everything in its proper place. And then, when everything's in its proper place, prayer gives us peace. It offers us peace. I love that in worship, sometimes the Holy Spirit does things like this. In worship, Aaron referenced Philippians 4, 8. Finally, brothers, whatsoever things are true, noble, of good report, honorable, godly, trustworthy, think upon these things. And he was right. That verse is preceded by two verses that tell us what we should do in times of worry. Philippians 4, 6, and 7. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, through prayer and supplication, and with thanksgiving, present your request to God, and the God of peace, who transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. So Paul writes in Philippians, don't be anxious for anything, which for most dudes, it's like, okay. And for most women, it's like, what are you talking about? Like, I'm anxious about you saying that. Be anxious for nothing. But in everything, through prayer and petition and with thanksgiving, present your request to God. And what will happen when in everything we present our request to God, when in everything we pray, when in every circumstance we reflectively fall on our feet and say, God, what would you have us do? What happens when for everything we present our petitions to God and we have the proper perspective with that thing and who God is and we put ourselves in our proper place and we put God in his proper place and we put the situation in its proper place, then what happens is we are given the peace of God that passes all understanding and he guards our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus. Prayerful people are able to walk in a peace that no one else can understand. Why? Because that peace is guarded by God. Because they walk in an understanding that God's got this and I don't and it's okay. The people in your life who pray the most are probably the most peaceful. They have the hardest feathers to ruffle. Now some of my friends are the most anxious and the most prayerful. Those things go hand in hand for them. But at least they've learned to reflexively pray. But when we are people of prayer and we're assured of perspective and place, we can't help but feel peace that follows that. I remember very vividly coming to Grace in April of 2017. And when I got here, I made this point before, I will not belabor it. Things were comically bad. We were going to shut the, if they didn't hire a senior pastor in April, they weren't making it out of May, no doubt about it. And no one who was here at that time would argue that. And I remember getting here and finding out more about how dire it was and going, whoa, well, this is career suicide because no one is going to look at the resume of a guy who's been a senior pastor exactly one time and ran it into the ground in six weeks. That's lifelong small group pastor territory. And then when I get old, they make me care pastor. That's what that is. But in prayer, I honestly, like I wasn't nervous. I wasn't worried. I didn't even really care because it was out of my hands. I knew that God loved this place. I knew that God cares about me and he cares about the people who call this place home. And I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is where God wanted me to be. And so I literally thought back in April of 2017, well, God, you brought me here on purpose. I know you did. It was either to grow it or to kill it. Either way, it's what you want. Let's ride. Let's see what happens. Now, we still don't know that he didn't bring me here to kill it, but so far, it's been to grow. So far, he's walked alongside us, and he's shown up again and again. Whenever we sing that song, Evidence, those are the kinds of things I think about. When we put things in their proper perspective, and we put ourselves in our place through prayer, we can be given the peace of God through prayer. And once we are walking in the peace of God through prayer, when we reflexively go to pray, we can pray with the proper perspective. It gives us the right perspective from which to pray. Because if I want to kneel down and pray for my children, John and Lily, I need to first acknowledge, God, you know them better than I'll ever know them. You see their entire future laid out in front of them. I don't know what they're going to do today. Hopefully, shut up, because we have a seven-hour drive. But I don't know what they're going to do today. You know what they're going to do in 30 years. I don't know how to best love their little hearts and souls. You knit them together. You know them intimately. So it inclines me with that admission to say, God, how would you have me pray for my children? God, what should my heart for Lily be? God, how can I best pray for John? And so when we walk in prayer, it inclines us towards his wisdom and we begin to blanket our prayers with this question of what is wise to pray. Not reflexively, what do I want to pray? What do I feel like praying? What do I want most in the moment? But God, because I know that you know this situation, you know me, you know the other people, you know everything happening, you know them intimately, because I that you know way more than I do about all the things what God is wise to pray. And that question begins to mature our prayers. When I pray for Sunday mornings, I never ever pray that the sermon would be good. I've never once prayed that I would do well. I think that's the wrong perspective. I pray and I write it every week to the elders. Every week to the elders I send out, let's all on these days, let's pray for this thing together. And Sunday has never changed. The prayer for Sunday is always, would the service be exactly what God wants it to be? Good, bad, or ugly, would what happens in here be what God wants to happen in here? When I pray for the band, when we have our pre-service meeting at 915, and sometimes I'm asked to pray over that, I always pray, God, would you help us to care about the things that you care about and not care about the things that you don't care about? Which is code speak for, if the host messes up, but it doesn't detract from the spiritual point of the service, who cares? If the basis starts with the wrong note, don't get bent out of shape about it. God doesn't care about it. You shouldn't either. Let's pursue the throne and praise God together. God, help us to care about what you care about and not care about what you don't care about. The more we walk in prayer, the more we keep the perspective in place right, the more peace we experience. And in that peace, we begin to pray wise prayers. God, how can I pray in accordance with your will about this? So here's what we're going to do. I'm going to invite Aaron and the band, Greg, back up. Back up. And instead of me finishing my sermon on prayer in prayer, I'm going to invite you to a time of prayer. I'm pretty certain if you're a thinking person that at some point during this sermon as I've talked about, hey, in this situation do you respond in prayer? Have you offered that up to prayer? Have you been trying to do this prayerlessly or with your own plans? I would be willing to bet that God has brought something to mind for you. That there's something or someone or some things in your life that probably do need some prayer. And maybe you haven't given them the prayer that they need. Maybe there are things you've been praying for very regularly for a long time, but you just want to lift them up again. So I'm going to step off the stage, and I'm going to give us all some time to pray. Lift those things up to God. Your children, your spouse, your loved ones, the family you'll see this Thanksgiving, that career thing that's just been eating at you, the bills that you don't know how you're going to pay, the health issues of you and your loved one that are just driving you nuts. Whatever it might be that God's brought to mind, take a few minutes and pray for that. And as you pray, Aaron's going to sing over us a little bit, and then at some point he'll invite us to stand. And we'll close out singing The Battle Belongs. And we'll let that be our battle cry that reminds us that our very first reaction, our very first reflex, no matter what's happening in our life, should be to go to God in prayer. Let's pray together, silently.
Amen. Good morning, Grace. Good morning online. Thank you, Steve. That was wonderful. It's good to see everybody. We've got some new folks venturing in this week, Braving the Elements. My name is Nate, for those of you that I haven't gotten to meet yet or for those watching online. This is the last part in our series called A Time of Kings. And as we think about questions like that, I really believe that there's one loud message that should come from the book of Kings. And I want us to see that this morning. And as I think about Kings, and remember I call it a book because originally it was written as one big long book. So as I think about the book of Kings, I really have realized as we've studied it together that this is a tragic book. This book is really sad. It's really sad because of the hope with which it starts and the devastation with which it ends. If you think back to the very beginning of the book of Kings, if you have a Bible at home, you can flip it there. If you have a Bible with you, you can look at 2 Kings 25. That's where we're going land today, and then we're going to jump to, I think, Samuel, and then Revelation, and John. So, you know, we'll be all over the place this morning. But if you think about the way that Kings begins, it's like the climax of hope. David is the king. You'll remember in the very first week of this series, if you've been watching along or listening along, that David is the king, that the nation of Israel clamored for a king, and Samuel the prophet said, you don't need one, God is your king. And they said, we really want a king. We think that a king is going to bring about all the promises that God made to us, because they are God's chosen people. They live in an awareness of the promises that they have received, that the land of Canaan, that Israel is going to be theirs, that they're going to have a multitude of descendants, and that one of their descendants is going to bless the whole earth. And so they cling to these promises. And they don't see them coming to fruition in the time of judges. It was a dark time in the nation of Israel. And they said, you know what? If we have a king, that person can lead us into prominence and be God's chosen person. And so they elected Saul. He made the most sense. He was head and shoulders above everybody else. He was really good looking. When you looked at him, you thought, that guy should be king. If you need a good picture of who Saul was, he looked a lot like me. But that didn't work out. And David is God's chosen man to be king, and he was a great king. He established Israel into international prominence. He, in him, was this man who walked closely with God, who wrote the Psalms, who led well, who conquered enemies, who won victories, and certainly this king is the king that's going to lead us in the prominence that we have been promised. And David asks the father, can I build your temple? I want to build your home. He goes to God and he says, I want to build your home where your presence can reside with us. Because all the way back in the desert, when Moses was in charge, 450 years prior, God gave him instructions about setting up a tabernacle that could move with them. That's where they put the Ark of the Covenant. That's where they had the Holy of Holies. That's where the presence of God rested among his people. And it was time to build God a permanent home. And David said, let me do this. And God says, I can't let you do that. There's too much blood on your hands, but I'm going to make you a promise. And we're going to look at that promise in a minute. He said, among those promises, your son is going to build my house. And so the book of Kings picks up with the end of the incredible reign of David that has launched Israel into international importance. This high watermark in the kingdom. And then he has assembled all the goods and materials so that as soon as his son Solomon takes over, he can build the temple. And he does. And much of the beginning of Kings is dedicated to the dedication and construction of this temple. And there's a beautiful prayer that Solomon prays for the people then and for you and I. It's really wonderful. You should go read it. It's this high watermark in the history of Israel. It's the culmination of 450 years of hope. And you have to think, man, look at us. These kings are bringing about the desired results. They're pushing us into prominence and they're bringing about the promises of God. This king thing is really working out. Hope is high. Then Solomon's son is terrible. They descend into civil war, and the northern tribes never get a good king. The southern tribe gets some that they get to hope in. And in the northern tribes, when it looks like hope is lost and they have evil kings like Ahab, they're putting their hope in kings, and it's not going to be Ahab. He's not going to bring about the future that God desires for us. But God does bring some strong prophets into the reign of Ahab. He brings Elijah, who wins the victory on Mount Carmel, against the 450 prophets of Baal. And you read that and you go, okay, now, now God's promises are going to come true. Now we're going to have the king that we are waiting for that's going to set everything right. It seems like the tide has turned and the hearts of God's people are going to be turned towards him, but they're not. And then God sends Elisha to secede Elijah, and he does twice the miracles that Elijah does. And it's this glimmer of hope that maybe the hearts of God's people will be turned to him, but they're not. And then God sends sporadically these good kings, Hezekiah, who defeated the armies of Sennacherib through prayer, by taking the threatening letter and laying it down before the Lord in the temple and saying, God, please protect your people. And God does because of Hezekiah's faithfulness. And you think, maybe this is a good king. Now, as you're reading the narrative and you're following along and it's just bad news, bad news, bad news, this is when there's going to be good news. And by the end of his life, he's no good anymore. We wait for some generations and Josiah, this glimmer of hope that we talked about last week, comes along. And he eradicates all of the idols and he turns the hearts of the people towards the Lord. But God says, you know, it's too late. My people are already turned away from me. I'm going to take the kingdom from you in four kings. And sure enough, he does. Jehoahaz and Jehoakim and Jehoachin and then Zedekiah and then it's done. Four generations. And the very end of Kings, this book that began with so much hope, a king is going to come and he's going to set everything right and the world for God's people is going to look exactly as God intended it to look. The book of Kings ends like this in chapter 25. I'm going to read you a summary of what's happening in verse 8. This is pretty much what they're looking at. That's the scene as we finish this hopeful book. We watch king after king come in. Maybe he's the one. Maybe the prophet's the one. Maybe the tide is going to turn. And we're waiting for the hero. We're waiting for the uptick. We're waiting for the climax. There's going to be a resolution to this. And at the end of the story, King Nebuchadnezzar sends in his army. They burn down God's temple, Solomon's temple that he built. They burn it down. They burn down the palace. They burn down the homes of all the prominent people in Jerusalem. And they tear down the walls. It's left in shambles. It is an ash heap of a city, and they take all the richest and wealthiest and most capable with them, only leaving behind the most impoverished and the most destitute. That's the picture of God's chosen people at the end of the book of Kings. It's utter devastation. It's utter and complete devastation. And you're reading this book and you're waiting for someone to come along. You expect to turn the page and then it's like, but then this happened and it's not. It's just somebody else telling the story, telling the same stories in Chronicles. There's no page turn here. You're expecting the hero to come. You're expecting the king to come, the right one to come along and restore everything, and it doesn't happen. As I'm studying in my office this week, I'm going, man, this really stinks that the book of Kings ends this way. Really find another story to just talk about and maybe we'll just let them discover this on their own, their own leisure. But it dawned on me that the devastation in Kings is very purposeful. This is really the point of the book. It's meant to end this way when we place our hope in earthly kings. The devastation is designed to display the reality that an earthly king will never be enough. The devastation in kings is designed to display the reality that an earthly king will never be enough. They kept waiting on an earthly leader. They kept waiting on someone to come and sit on the physical throne and usher them into prominence and make them a great nation, and it just wasn't going to happen, and God was letting them slowly, painfully realize the thing you're hoping in to fix your lives is not the thing that's going to do it. Boy, that's a whole sermon in and of itself, isn't there? How many slow, painful lessons have we learned putting our hope in the wrong thing? But it's meant to show his people an earthly king will never be enough. And if you're paying attention to the Old Testament, if you're paying attention to the things that God is saying to his people, even in the time of kings, when their hope is placed in an earthly king, if you're listening to what he's saying to his people, you will hear that he is telling them you are looking for the wrong kind of king. I referred earlier to 2 Samuel 7. This is where God made David a promise. It's referred to as the Davidic covenant. It's where he doubles down, he triples down, he reminds the people of his promise to them. And he promises that he's going to send a king to sit on David's throne. And these are the words of God. Look at what he says in verse 14. He says, So he's talking about Jesus here. He's going to be a son for me. He is going to pay a penalty for you. And then when he does that, he's going to sit on the throne forever. This is kingdom language. This is king language in the middle of the time of kings that they're not listening to. And then God sends prophet after prophet that we have in the major and the minor prophets in the rest of the Old Testament to tell them of their coming king, of the coming Messiah, most pointedly in the book of Isaiah. When Isaiah tells God's people, Isaiah is a prophet during the reign of Hezekiah, one of the good kings during this time. And he says that God is going to send someone and that by his stripes we will be healed and that he will be Emmanuel, God with us, and that he will be the King of kings and the Lord of lords. What God is trying to communicate to them that they can't seem to capture is that what they really need is a divine king. What they need is Jesus. What they're waiting on is the Messiah. They continue to look to an earthly king to make their problems right, to make things go away, to confirm and restore the promises of God. And what God is trying to tell them all along, through his promise to David, through the voice of his prophets, is, hey guys, you're looking for the wrong king. You're not paying attention to the right things. You don't need another earthly king. You need a divine king. You need Jesus. And this language isn't just in the Old Testament. We see king language throughout the Bible. You'll remember, if you were here in the spring of 2019, we went through the book of John for I think 12 or 14 weeks. And one of the themes we see is the people of Israel when they meet Jesus continually clamoring to make him king. He had to disappear from their midst so that they wouldn't start a revolution too early. He had to heal people and say, but don't tell anybody because he didn't want word to get out that the Messiah was here. He didn't want to foment revolution. This is why he did his ministry in the far-flung corners of northern Israel rather than coming down south to the capital of Jerusalem until later in his life because he knew that it would set into motion a series of events that he could not reverse because they were clamoring to make him king. They were clamoring so badly to make him king that at the end of his life when he was on trial with Pilate, the Roman governor, Pilate, he was accused by the people who were trying to kill him of being someone who was leading a revolution, who claimed to be the king of the Jews. And he's trying to overthrow Roman rule. And Pilate, you should care about this deeply. And so Pilate asked him, they say you're a king. Is that what you? And Jesus says, yeah, but not of this. You can have this. This is too small for me. I don't want this kingdom. I have a kingdom, but it's not here. If it were here, my angels would come and defend me, but they're not, because my kingdom is eternal. My kingdom is divine. My kingdom is universal. And with his death, he bought our citizenship into that kingdom. And then, as the narrative of the Bible continues to press forward, and we continue to wait for our king, along with the children of Israel, when is our king going to return and set things right? When is he going to restore things to the way that he intended them to be? And we fast forward to the book of Revelation, where we see more king language. In Revelation chapter 6, we have the cries of the martyrs. It's are the exact cries of the hearts of the saints in 2 Kings 25. And God's chosen people are in the middle of total devastation. Their hearts cry out, God, when will you make this right? How are you letting this happen? Why are you letting King Nebuchadnezzar do this? This is evil, God. This is not your plan. This is not your promise. Why is it going this way? Why are you allowing this devastation? It's the same cry that was in the hearts of the martyrs in Revelation 6. God, how long will you let this happen before you avenge what they've done to us? How long will you watch devastation occur in your creation? It's the same thing. It's the same cry of the hearts of the people who had to witness the terror of slavery, who had to endure the persecution of Nero, or the persecution that continues to happen in closed-off countries to this day. It's the same devastation that cries out to God in our own lives when we have a diagnosis or we have a loss or we exist in the rubble of a relationship. And we say, God, this doesn't feel right. How much longer will you let this happen? We need our king to make it right. And in Revelation 19, we get it. It's the most hopeful chapter in all the Bible when we see the king that we've always wanted, that we've always hoped for, that the nation of Israel longed for without realizing it. I love this passage. I always get emotional when I read this passage. Revelation 19, beginning in verse 11. This is the appearance of Christ as king as we finish the Bible. The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True. and fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty on his robe and on his thigh. His name is written King of Kings and Lord of Lords. That's Jesus. And when he comes to make the wrong things right and the sad things untrue, when he comes to fix the devastation, when he comes to restore his creation and claim his throne, he is no longer coming as the Lamb of God. He is coming as the Lion of Judah. And he's going to answer those cries of our heart. And he's going to respond to the devastation. And he's going to speak right to the hearts of the people in Israel, watching their loved ones be carried away as slaves. As the palace burns and the walls lay in rubble, he is going to speak directly to their hearts as he establishes his divine eternal kingdom. And so what I want us to see as we think about the book of Kings and the lessons that we learn from it is that the entire book is meant to end in devastation and allow that devastation to point God's people for their need for Jesus so that they can see that Jesus is the hope of God's people in the midst of devastation. Kings ends that way on purpose. It's not a mistake by God. It's not like God was watching history and go, well, that didn't work out as expected. I was really hoping one of these kings would be the guy. He knew that it would end bad. He told Samuel when they were clamoring for a king, he says, you give them one, but it's not going to end well. And it didn't. He knew this was going to happen, but he let it happen so that his people would see their need for a divine king, and that devastation would point them to Christ. Jesus was their hope in the midst of devastation. And in the same way, our lesson from Kings is that Jesus is our hope in the midst of our devastation too. When things aren't going right, when we identify with the martyrs crying out to God, how much longer are you going to let this happen? You've made me some promises, God. You've said that everything I pray will be yes in your name. You said that if I ask for things that you will give them to me. You've said in Romans 28 that one day everything's going to work out for the good of those who love you and are called according to your purpose. When's that coming, God? Because this stinks. That frustration and devastation is meant to point you to Christ and remind you that we all collectively are waiting for Revelation 19. We all collectively are waiting for the return of our King who will make the wrong things right and the sad things untrue, who will sit on the throne of David forever, who will restore his creation to exactly what it is meant to restore, who will bring about the reality of Revelation 20 where it says God will be with his people and his people will be with their God and there will be no more weeping and no more crying and no more pain anymore for the former things. All the things that caused devastation, all the things that caused us to cry out with the martyrs, those things have passed away because Jesus has won a victory over them. And for all of eternity, we exist in a perfect kingdom with our perfect king. Kings is designed to help us anticipate that future and cling to that hope. And when we experience devastation in our own life, that is there to point us to our need for Jesus. Sometimes it's a simple devastation of our souls. We come to the end of ourselves, and we realize that our way is not working. We realize that there is something about this life that is making me unhappy. There is something that is missing. There is something that I need. That devastation is designed to point us to our need for Christ. If you're here this morning or you're watching online and you're experiencing that devastation of your soul, you need Jesus. You don't need another earthly king. You don't need another earthly fix. You don't need to read another book or a new regimen of discipline. You need Jesus. The devastation of our relationships points us to our need for Jesus. When people disappoint us, it points us to a person who won't. When we lose someone that we love so much and we cry out and we say, God, this isn't fair. Why'd you take them? It was too early. Our King has died for us and conquered that death to assure us that we will see that person again one day. So we turn our eyes with hope to Revelation 19 when faithful and true comes out of the sky. When Jesus comes as the Lion of Judah to restore his kingdom and restore order to the way that it should be. And the devastation of finances and the devastation of just life events and the devastation of disappointment, big and little. Little disappointments are meant to turn our eyes to Jesus and say, yeah, this place isn't perfect. We need you to come make it perfect, God. We usher in, we pray for your return. Come soon, Lord Jesus. Big devastation, huge things from which we don't know if we will recover are intentionally designed to point our eyes towards Christ and say, yes, Jesus, this stinks. We are waiting for you. We are yearning for you. We are inviting you in. Come soon, Lord Jesus. The devastation in Kings is intentionally left in the Bible and is allowed intentionally to occur so that it will forever point God's people to Jesus in the midst of their devastation. If we remember nothing else from the book of Kings, remember that the whole book is designed to point us there. And remember that if you are experiencing some form of devastation or disappointment or disillusionment in your life, that the point of that, just like the point of it happening in Kings, is that you would point your eyes towards Christ and eagerly anticipate the return of your King, who is going to make all the wrong things right and the sad things untrue. Let's pray. Lord, we love you. We are grateful for you. Jesus, we need you. Come soon to get us. God, you have watched from your throne all kinds of devastation. You have watched all sorts of divisiveness and violence. You have watched evil. And you are as fed up with it as we are. God, now in our time, it's hard to turn on the news or pick up your phone and not see something that disappoints us, something that breaks our heart, something that seems evil. God, you see it too. We need our king. Would you send him soon to rescue us? And God, while we wait, would you set our eyes on him? Would you set our gaze on you? Would you fill us with your spirit and give us the peace of hope? May we be a people who continually turn our eyes towards you. It's in our king's name that we pray. Amen.
Amen. Good morning, Grace. Good morning online. Thank you, Steve. That was wonderful. It's good to see everybody. We've got some new folks venturing in this week, Braving the Elements. My name is Nate, for those of you that I haven't gotten to meet yet or for those watching online. This is the last part in our series called A Time of Kings. And as we think about questions like that, I really believe that there's one loud message that should come from the book of Kings. And I want us to see that this morning. And as I think about Kings, and remember I call it a book because originally it was written as one big long book. So as I think about the book of Kings, I really have realized as we've studied it together that this is a tragic book. This book is really sad. It's really sad because of the hope with which it starts and the devastation with which it ends. If you think back to the very beginning of the book of Kings, if you have a Bible at home, you can flip it there. If you have a Bible with you, you can look at 2 Kings 25. That's where we're going land today, and then we're going to jump to, I think, Samuel, and then Revelation, and John. So, you know, we'll be all over the place this morning. But if you think about the way that Kings begins, it's like the climax of hope. David is the king. You'll remember in the very first week of this series, if you've been watching along or listening along, that David is the king, that the nation of Israel clamored for a king, and Samuel the prophet said, you don't need one, God is your king. And they said, we really want a king. We think that a king is going to bring about all the promises that God made to us, because they are God's chosen people. They live in an awareness of the promises that they have received, that the land of Canaan, that Israel is going to be theirs, that they're going to have a multitude of descendants, and that one of their descendants is going to bless the whole earth. And so they cling to these promises. And they don't see them coming to fruition in the time of judges. It was a dark time in the nation of Israel. And they said, you know what? If we have a king, that person can lead us into prominence and be God's chosen person. And so they elected Saul. He made the most sense. He was head and shoulders above everybody else. He was really good looking. When you looked at him, you thought, that guy should be king. If you need a good picture of who Saul was, he looked a lot like me. But that didn't work out. And David is God's chosen man to be king, and he was a great king. He established Israel into international prominence. He, in him, was this man who walked closely with God, who wrote the Psalms, who led well, who conquered enemies, who won victories, and certainly this king is the king that's going to lead us in the prominence that we have been promised. And David asks the father, can I build your temple? I want to build your home. He goes to God and he says, I want to build your home where your presence can reside with us. Because all the way back in the desert, when Moses was in charge, 450 years prior, God gave him instructions about setting up a tabernacle that could move with them. That's where they put the Ark of the Covenant. That's where they had the Holy of Holies. That's where the presence of God rested among his people. And it was time to build God a permanent home. And David said, let me do this. And God says, I can't let you do that. There's too much blood on your hands, but I'm going to make you a promise. And we're going to look at that promise in a minute. He said, among those promises, your son is going to build my house. And so the book of Kings picks up with the end of the incredible reign of David that has launched Israel into international importance. This high watermark in the kingdom. And then he has assembled all the goods and materials so that as soon as his son Solomon takes over, he can build the temple. And he does. And much of the beginning of Kings is dedicated to the dedication and construction of this temple. And there's a beautiful prayer that Solomon prays for the people then and for you and I. It's really wonderful. You should go read it. It's this high watermark in the history of Israel. It's the culmination of 450 years of hope. And you have to think, man, look at us. These kings are bringing about the desired results. They're pushing us into prominence and they're bringing about the promises of God. This king thing is really working out. Hope is high. Then Solomon's son is terrible. They descend into civil war, and the northern tribes never get a good king. The southern tribe gets some that they get to hope in. And in the northern tribes, when it looks like hope is lost and they have evil kings like Ahab, they're putting their hope in kings, and it's not going to be Ahab. He's not going to bring about the future that God desires for us. But God does bring some strong prophets into the reign of Ahab. He brings Elijah, who wins the victory on Mount Carmel, against the 450 prophets of Baal. And you read that and you go, okay, now, now God's promises are going to come true. Now we're going to have the king that we are waiting for that's going to set everything right. It seems like the tide has turned and the hearts of God's people are going to be turned towards him, but they're not. And then God sends Elisha to secede Elijah, and he does twice the miracles that Elijah does. And it's this glimmer of hope that maybe the hearts of God's people will be turned to him, but they're not. And then God sends sporadically these good kings, Hezekiah, who defeated the armies of Sennacherib through prayer, by taking the threatening letter and laying it down before the Lord in the temple and saying, God, please protect your people. And God does because of Hezekiah's faithfulness. And you think, maybe this is a good king. Now, as you're reading the narrative and you're following along and it's just bad news, bad news, bad news, this is when there's going to be good news. And by the end of his life, he's no good anymore. We wait for some generations and Josiah, this glimmer of hope that we talked about last week, comes along. And he eradicates all of the idols and he turns the hearts of the people towards the Lord. But God says, you know, it's too late. My people are already turned away from me. I'm going to take the kingdom from you in four kings. And sure enough, he does. Jehoahaz and Jehoakim and Jehoachin and then Zedekiah and then it's done. Four generations. And the very end of Kings, this book that began with so much hope, a king is going to come and he's going to set everything right and the world for God's people is going to look exactly as God intended it to look. The book of Kings ends like this in chapter 25. I'm going to read you a summary of what's happening in verse 8. This is pretty much what they're looking at. That's the scene as we finish this hopeful book. We watch king after king come in. Maybe he's the one. Maybe the prophet's the one. Maybe the tide is going to turn. And we're waiting for the hero. We're waiting for the uptick. We're waiting for the climax. There's going to be a resolution to this. And at the end of the story, King Nebuchadnezzar sends in his army. They burn down God's temple, Solomon's temple that he built. They burn it down. They burn down the palace. They burn down the homes of all the prominent people in Jerusalem. And they tear down the walls. It's left in shambles. It is an ash heap of a city, and they take all the richest and wealthiest and most capable with them, only leaving behind the most impoverished and the most destitute. That's the picture of God's chosen people at the end of the book of Kings. It's utter devastation. It's utter and complete devastation. And you're reading this book and you're waiting for someone to come along. You expect to turn the page and then it's like, but then this happened and it's not. It's just somebody else telling the story, telling the same stories in Chronicles. There's no page turn here. You're expecting the hero to come. You're expecting the king to come, the right one to come along and restore everything, and it doesn't happen. As I'm studying in my office this week, I'm going, man, this really stinks that the book of Kings ends this way. Really find another story to just talk about and maybe we'll just let them discover this on their own, their own leisure. But it dawned on me that the devastation in Kings is very purposeful. This is really the point of the book. It's meant to end this way when we place our hope in earthly kings. The devastation is designed to display the reality that an earthly king will never be enough. The devastation in kings is designed to display the reality that an earthly king will never be enough. They kept waiting on an earthly leader. They kept waiting on someone to come and sit on the physical throne and usher them into prominence and make them a great nation, and it just wasn't going to happen, and God was letting them slowly, painfully realize the thing you're hoping in to fix your lives is not the thing that's going to do it. Boy, that's a whole sermon in and of itself, isn't there? How many slow, painful lessons have we learned putting our hope in the wrong thing? But it's meant to show his people an earthly king will never be enough. And if you're paying attention to the Old Testament, if you're paying attention to the things that God is saying to his people, even in the time of kings, when their hope is placed in an earthly king, if you're listening to what he's saying to his people, you will hear that he is telling them you are looking for the wrong kind of king. I referred earlier to 2 Samuel 7. This is where God made David a promise. It's referred to as the Davidic covenant. It's where he doubles down, he triples down, he reminds the people of his promise to them. And he promises that he's going to send a king to sit on David's throne. And these are the words of God. Look at what he says in verse 14. He says, So he's talking about Jesus here. He's going to be a son for me. He is going to pay a penalty for you. And then when he does that, he's going to sit on the throne forever. This is kingdom language. This is king language in the middle of the time of kings that they're not listening to. And then God sends prophet after prophet that we have in the major and the minor prophets in the rest of the Old Testament to tell them of their coming king, of the coming Messiah, most pointedly in the book of Isaiah. When Isaiah tells God's people, Isaiah is a prophet during the reign of Hezekiah, one of the good kings during this time. And he says that God is going to send someone and that by his stripes we will be healed and that he will be Emmanuel, God with us, and that he will be the King of kings and the Lord of lords. What God is trying to communicate to them that they can't seem to capture is that what they really need is a divine king. What they need is Jesus. What they're waiting on is the Messiah. They continue to look to an earthly king to make their problems right, to make things go away, to confirm and restore the promises of God. And what God is trying to tell them all along, through his promise to David, through the voice of his prophets, is, hey guys, you're looking for the wrong king. You're not paying attention to the right things. You don't need another earthly king. You need a divine king. You need Jesus. And this language isn't just in the Old Testament. We see king language throughout the Bible. You'll remember, if you were here in the spring of 2019, we went through the book of John for I think 12 or 14 weeks. And one of the themes we see is the people of Israel when they meet Jesus continually clamoring to make him king. He had to disappear from their midst so that they wouldn't start a revolution too early. He had to heal people and say, but don't tell anybody because he didn't want word to get out that the Messiah was here. He didn't want to foment revolution. This is why he did his ministry in the far-flung corners of northern Israel rather than coming down south to the capital of Jerusalem until later in his life because he knew that it would set into motion a series of events that he could not reverse because they were clamoring to make him king. They were clamoring so badly to make him king that at the end of his life when he was on trial with Pilate, the Roman governor, Pilate, he was accused by the people who were trying to kill him of being someone who was leading a revolution, who claimed to be the king of the Jews. And he's trying to overthrow Roman rule. And Pilate, you should care about this deeply. And so Pilate asked him, they say you're a king. Is that what you? And Jesus says, yeah, but not of this. You can have this. This is too small for me. I don't want this kingdom. I have a kingdom, but it's not here. If it were here, my angels would come and defend me, but they're not, because my kingdom is eternal. My kingdom is divine. My kingdom is universal. And with his death, he bought our citizenship into that kingdom. And then, as the narrative of the Bible continues to press forward, and we continue to wait for our king, along with the children of Israel, when is our king going to return and set things right? When is he going to restore things to the way that he intended them to be? And we fast forward to the book of Revelation, where we see more king language. In Revelation chapter 6, we have the cries of the martyrs. It's are the exact cries of the hearts of the saints in 2 Kings 25. And God's chosen people are in the middle of total devastation. Their hearts cry out, God, when will you make this right? How are you letting this happen? Why are you letting King Nebuchadnezzar do this? This is evil, God. This is not your plan. This is not your promise. Why is it going this way? Why are you allowing this devastation? It's the same cry that was in the hearts of the martyrs in Revelation 6. God, how long will you let this happen before you avenge what they've done to us? How long will you watch devastation occur in your creation? It's the same thing. It's the same cry of the hearts of the people who had to witness the terror of slavery, who had to endure the persecution of Nero, or the persecution that continues to happen in closed-off countries to this day. It's the same devastation that cries out to God in our own lives when we have a diagnosis or we have a loss or we exist in the rubble of a relationship. And we say, God, this doesn't feel right. How much longer will you let this happen? We need our king to make it right. And in Revelation 19, we get it. It's the most hopeful chapter in all the Bible when we see the king that we've always wanted, that we've always hoped for, that the nation of Israel longed for without realizing it. I love this passage. I always get emotional when I read this passage. Revelation 19, beginning in verse 11. This is the appearance of Christ as king as we finish the Bible. The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True. and fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty on his robe and on his thigh. His name is written King of Kings and Lord of Lords. That's Jesus. And when he comes to make the wrong things right and the sad things untrue, when he comes to fix the devastation, when he comes to restore his creation and claim his throne, he is no longer coming as the Lamb of God. He is coming as the Lion of Judah. And he's going to answer those cries of our heart. And he's going to respond to the devastation. And he's going to speak right to the hearts of the people in Israel, watching their loved ones be carried away as slaves. As the palace burns and the walls lay in rubble, he is going to speak directly to their hearts as he establishes his divine eternal kingdom. And so what I want us to see as we think about the book of Kings and the lessons that we learn from it is that the entire book is meant to end in devastation and allow that devastation to point God's people for their need for Jesus so that they can see that Jesus is the hope of God's people in the midst of devastation. Kings ends that way on purpose. It's not a mistake by God. It's not like God was watching history and go, well, that didn't work out as expected. I was really hoping one of these kings would be the guy. He knew that it would end bad. He told Samuel when they were clamoring for a king, he says, you give them one, but it's not going to end well. And it didn't. He knew this was going to happen, but he let it happen so that his people would see their need for a divine king, and that devastation would point them to Christ. Jesus was their hope in the midst of devastation. And in the same way, our lesson from Kings is that Jesus is our hope in the midst of our devastation too. When things aren't going right, when we identify with the martyrs crying out to God, how much longer are you going to let this happen? You've made me some promises, God. You've said that everything I pray will be yes in your name. You said that if I ask for things that you will give them to me. You've said in Romans 28 that one day everything's going to work out for the good of those who love you and are called according to your purpose. When's that coming, God? Because this stinks. That frustration and devastation is meant to point you to Christ and remind you that we all collectively are waiting for Revelation 19. We all collectively are waiting for the return of our King who will make the wrong things right and the sad things untrue, who will sit on the throne of David forever, who will restore his creation to exactly what it is meant to restore, who will bring about the reality of Revelation 20 where it says God will be with his people and his people will be with their God and there will be no more weeping and no more crying and no more pain anymore for the former things. All the things that caused devastation, all the things that caused us to cry out with the martyrs, those things have passed away because Jesus has won a victory over them. And for all of eternity, we exist in a perfect kingdom with our perfect king. Kings is designed to help us anticipate that future and cling to that hope. And when we experience devastation in our own life, that is there to point us to our need for Jesus. Sometimes it's a simple devastation of our souls. We come to the end of ourselves, and we realize that our way is not working. We realize that there is something about this life that is making me unhappy. There is something that is missing. There is something that I need. That devastation is designed to point us to our need for Christ. If you're here this morning or you're watching online and you're experiencing that devastation of your soul, you need Jesus. You don't need another earthly king. You don't need another earthly fix. You don't need to read another book or a new regimen of discipline. You need Jesus. The devastation of our relationships points us to our need for Jesus. When people disappoint us, it points us to a person who won't. When we lose someone that we love so much and we cry out and we say, God, this isn't fair. Why'd you take them? It was too early. Our King has died for us and conquered that death to assure us that we will see that person again one day. So we turn our eyes with hope to Revelation 19 when faithful and true comes out of the sky. When Jesus comes as the Lion of Judah to restore his kingdom and restore order to the way that it should be. And the devastation of finances and the devastation of just life events and the devastation of disappointment, big and little. Little disappointments are meant to turn our eyes to Jesus and say, yeah, this place isn't perfect. We need you to come make it perfect, God. We usher in, we pray for your return. Come soon, Lord Jesus. Big devastation, huge things from which we don't know if we will recover are intentionally designed to point our eyes towards Christ and say, yes, Jesus, this stinks. We are waiting for you. We are yearning for you. We are inviting you in. Come soon, Lord Jesus. The devastation in Kings is intentionally left in the Bible and is allowed intentionally to occur so that it will forever point God's people to Jesus in the midst of their devastation. If we remember nothing else from the book of Kings, remember that the whole book is designed to point us there. And remember that if you are experiencing some form of devastation or disappointment or disillusionment in your life, that the point of that, just like the point of it happening in Kings, is that you would point your eyes towards Christ and eagerly anticipate the return of your King, who is going to make all the wrong things right and the sad things untrue. Let's pray. Lord, we love you. We are grateful for you. Jesus, we need you. Come soon to get us. God, you have watched from your throne all kinds of devastation. You have watched all sorts of divisiveness and violence. You have watched evil. And you are as fed up with it as we are. God, now in our time, it's hard to turn on the news or pick up your phone and not see something that disappoints us, something that breaks our heart, something that seems evil. God, you see it too. We need our king. Would you send him soon to rescue us? And God, while we wait, would you set our eyes on him? Would you set our gaze on you? Would you fill us with your spirit and give us the peace of hope? May we be a people who continually turn our eyes towards you. It's in our king's name that we pray. Amen.
Amen. Good morning, Grace. Good morning online. Thank you, Steve. That was wonderful. It's good to see everybody. We've got some new folks venturing in this week, Braving the Elements. My name is Nate, for those of you that I haven't gotten to meet yet or for those watching online. This is the last part in our series called A Time of Kings. And as we think about questions like that, I really believe that there's one loud message that should come from the book of Kings. And I want us to see that this morning. And as I think about Kings, and remember I call it a book because originally it was written as one big long book. So as I think about the book of Kings, I really have realized as we've studied it together that this is a tragic book. This book is really sad. It's really sad because of the hope with which it starts and the devastation with which it ends. If you think back to the very beginning of the book of Kings, if you have a Bible at home, you can flip it there. If you have a Bible with you, you can look at 2 Kings 25. That's where we're going land today, and then we're going to jump to, I think, Samuel, and then Revelation, and John. So, you know, we'll be all over the place this morning. But if you think about the way that Kings begins, it's like the climax of hope. David is the king. You'll remember in the very first week of this series, if you've been watching along or listening along, that David is the king, that the nation of Israel clamored for a king, and Samuel the prophet said, you don't need one, God is your king. And they said, we really want a king. We think that a king is going to bring about all the promises that God made to us, because they are God's chosen people. They live in an awareness of the promises that they have received, that the land of Canaan, that Israel is going to be theirs, that they're going to have a multitude of descendants, and that one of their descendants is going to bless the whole earth. And so they cling to these promises. And they don't see them coming to fruition in the time of judges. It was a dark time in the nation of Israel. And they said, you know what? If we have a king, that person can lead us into prominence and be God's chosen person. And so they elected Saul. He made the most sense. He was head and shoulders above everybody else. He was really good looking. When you looked at him, you thought, that guy should be king. If you need a good picture of who Saul was, he looked a lot like me. But that didn't work out. And David is God's chosen man to be king, and he was a great king. He established Israel into international prominence. He, in him, was this man who walked closely with God, who wrote the Psalms, who led well, who conquered enemies, who won victories, and certainly this king is the king that's going to lead us in the prominence that we have been promised. And David asks the father, can I build your temple? I want to build your home. He goes to God and he says, I want to build your home where your presence can reside with us. Because all the way back in the desert, when Moses was in charge, 450 years prior, God gave him instructions about setting up a tabernacle that could move with them. That's where they put the Ark of the Covenant. That's where they had the Holy of Holies. That's where the presence of God rested among his people. And it was time to build God a permanent home. And David said, let me do this. And God says, I can't let you do that. There's too much blood on your hands, but I'm going to make you a promise. And we're going to look at that promise in a minute. He said, among those promises, your son is going to build my house. And so the book of Kings picks up with the end of the incredible reign of David that has launched Israel into international importance. This high watermark in the kingdom. And then he has assembled all the goods and materials so that as soon as his son Solomon takes over, he can build the temple. And he does. And much of the beginning of Kings is dedicated to the dedication and construction of this temple. And there's a beautiful prayer that Solomon prays for the people then and for you and I. It's really wonderful. You should go read it. It's this high watermark in the history of Israel. It's the culmination of 450 years of hope. And you have to think, man, look at us. These kings are bringing about the desired results. They're pushing us into prominence and they're bringing about the promises of God. This king thing is really working out. Hope is high. Then Solomon's son is terrible. They descend into civil war, and the northern tribes never get a good king. The southern tribe gets some that they get to hope in. And in the northern tribes, when it looks like hope is lost and they have evil kings like Ahab, they're putting their hope in kings, and it's not going to be Ahab. He's not going to bring about the future that God desires for us. But God does bring some strong prophets into the reign of Ahab. He brings Elijah, who wins the victory on Mount Carmel, against the 450 prophets of Baal. And you read that and you go, okay, now, now God's promises are going to come true. Now we're going to have the king that we are waiting for that's going to set everything right. It seems like the tide has turned and the hearts of God's people are going to be turned towards him, but they're not. And then God sends Elisha to secede Elijah, and he does twice the miracles that Elijah does. And it's this glimmer of hope that maybe the hearts of God's people will be turned to him, but they're not. And then God sends sporadically these good kings, Hezekiah, who defeated the armies of Sennacherib through prayer, by taking the threatening letter and laying it down before the Lord in the temple and saying, God, please protect your people. And God does because of Hezekiah's faithfulness. And you think, maybe this is a good king. Now, as you're reading the narrative and you're following along and it's just bad news, bad news, bad news, this is when there's going to be good news. And by the end of his life, he's no good anymore. We wait for some generations and Josiah, this glimmer of hope that we talked about last week, comes along. And he eradicates all of the idols and he turns the hearts of the people towards the Lord. But God says, you know, it's too late. My people are already turned away from me. I'm going to take the kingdom from you in four kings. And sure enough, he does. Jehoahaz and Jehoakim and Jehoachin and then Zedekiah and then it's done. Four generations. And the very end of Kings, this book that began with so much hope, a king is going to come and he's going to set everything right and the world for God's people is going to look exactly as God intended it to look. The book of Kings ends like this in chapter 25. I'm going to read you a summary of what's happening in verse 8. This is pretty much what they're looking at. That's the scene as we finish this hopeful book. We watch king after king come in. Maybe he's the one. Maybe the prophet's the one. Maybe the tide is going to turn. And we're waiting for the hero. We're waiting for the uptick. We're waiting for the climax. There's going to be a resolution to this. And at the end of the story, King Nebuchadnezzar sends in his army. They burn down God's temple, Solomon's temple that he built. They burn it down. They burn down the palace. They burn down the homes of all the prominent people in Jerusalem. And they tear down the walls. It's left in shambles. It is an ash heap of a city, and they take all the richest and wealthiest and most capable with them, only leaving behind the most impoverished and the most destitute. That's the picture of God's chosen people at the end of the book of Kings. It's utter devastation. It's utter and complete devastation. And you're reading this book and you're waiting for someone to come along. You expect to turn the page and then it's like, but then this happened and it's not. It's just somebody else telling the story, telling the same stories in Chronicles. There's no page turn here. You're expecting the hero to come. You're expecting the king to come, the right one to come along and restore everything, and it doesn't happen. As I'm studying in my office this week, I'm going, man, this really stinks that the book of Kings ends this way. Really find another story to just talk about and maybe we'll just let them discover this on their own, their own leisure. But it dawned on me that the devastation in Kings is very purposeful. This is really the point of the book. It's meant to end this way when we place our hope in earthly kings. The devastation is designed to display the reality that an earthly king will never be enough. The devastation in kings is designed to display the reality that an earthly king will never be enough. They kept waiting on an earthly leader. They kept waiting on someone to come and sit on the physical throne and usher them into prominence and make them a great nation, and it just wasn't going to happen, and God was letting them slowly, painfully realize the thing you're hoping in to fix your lives is not the thing that's going to do it. Boy, that's a whole sermon in and of itself, isn't there? How many slow, painful lessons have we learned putting our hope in the wrong thing? But it's meant to show his people an earthly king will never be enough. And if you're paying attention to the Old Testament, if you're paying attention to the things that God is saying to his people, even in the time of kings, when their hope is placed in an earthly king, if you're listening to what he's saying to his people, you will hear that he is telling them you are looking for the wrong kind of king. I referred earlier to 2 Samuel 7. This is where God made David a promise. It's referred to as the Davidic covenant. It's where he doubles down, he triples down, he reminds the people of his promise to them. And he promises that he's going to send a king to sit on David's throne. And these are the words of God. Look at what he says in verse 14. He says, So he's talking about Jesus here. He's going to be a son for me. He is going to pay a penalty for you. And then when he does that, he's going to sit on the throne forever. This is kingdom language. This is king language in the middle of the time of kings that they're not listening to. And then God sends prophet after prophet that we have in the major and the minor prophets in the rest of the Old Testament to tell them of their coming king, of the coming Messiah, most pointedly in the book of Isaiah. When Isaiah tells God's people, Isaiah is a prophet during the reign of Hezekiah, one of the good kings during this time. And he says that God is going to send someone and that by his stripes we will be healed and that he will be Emmanuel, God with us, and that he will be the King of kings and the Lord of lords. What God is trying to communicate to them that they can't seem to capture is that what they really need is a divine king. What they need is Jesus. What they're waiting on is the Messiah. They continue to look to an earthly king to make their problems right, to make things go away, to confirm and restore the promises of God. And what God is trying to tell them all along, through his promise to David, through the voice of his prophets, is, hey guys, you're looking for the wrong king. You're not paying attention to the right things. You don't need another earthly king. You need a divine king. You need Jesus. And this language isn't just in the Old Testament. We see king language throughout the Bible. You'll remember, if you were here in the spring of 2019, we went through the book of John for I think 12 or 14 weeks. And one of the themes we see is the people of Israel when they meet Jesus continually clamoring to make him king. He had to disappear from their midst so that they wouldn't start a revolution too early. He had to heal people and say, but don't tell anybody because he didn't want word to get out that the Messiah was here. He didn't want to foment revolution. This is why he did his ministry in the far-flung corners of northern Israel rather than coming down south to the capital of Jerusalem until later in his life because he knew that it would set into motion a series of events that he could not reverse because they were clamoring to make him king. They were clamoring so badly to make him king that at the end of his life when he was on trial with Pilate, the Roman governor, Pilate, he was accused by the people who were trying to kill him of being someone who was leading a revolution, who claimed to be the king of the Jews. And he's trying to overthrow Roman rule. And Pilate, you should care about this deeply. And so Pilate asked him, they say you're a king. Is that what you? And Jesus says, yeah, but not of this. You can have this. This is too small for me. I don't want this kingdom. I have a kingdom, but it's not here. If it were here, my angels would come and defend me, but they're not, because my kingdom is eternal. My kingdom is divine. My kingdom is universal. And with his death, he bought our citizenship into that kingdom. And then, as the narrative of the Bible continues to press forward, and we continue to wait for our king, along with the children of Israel, when is our king going to return and set things right? When is he going to restore things to the way that he intended them to be? And we fast forward to the book of Revelation, where we see more king language. In Revelation chapter 6, we have the cries of the martyrs. It's are the exact cries of the hearts of the saints in 2 Kings 25. And God's chosen people are in the middle of total devastation. Their hearts cry out, God, when will you make this right? How are you letting this happen? Why are you letting King Nebuchadnezzar do this? This is evil, God. This is not your plan. This is not your promise. Why is it going this way? Why are you allowing this devastation? It's the same cry that was in the hearts of the martyrs in Revelation 6. God, how long will you let this happen before you avenge what they've done to us? How long will you watch devastation occur in your creation? It's the same thing. It's the same cry of the hearts of the people who had to witness the terror of slavery, who had to endure the persecution of Nero, or the persecution that continues to happen in closed-off countries to this day. It's the same devastation that cries out to God in our own lives when we have a diagnosis or we have a loss or we exist in the rubble of a relationship. And we say, God, this doesn't feel right. How much longer will you let this happen? We need our king to make it right. And in Revelation 19, we get it. It's the most hopeful chapter in all the Bible when we see the king that we've always wanted, that we've always hoped for, that the nation of Israel longed for without realizing it. I love this passage. I always get emotional when I read this passage. Revelation 19, beginning in verse 11. This is the appearance of Christ as king as we finish the Bible. The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True. and fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty on his robe and on his thigh. His name is written King of Kings and Lord of Lords. That's Jesus. And when he comes to make the wrong things right and the sad things untrue, when he comes to fix the devastation, when he comes to restore his creation and claim his throne, he is no longer coming as the Lamb of God. He is coming as the Lion of Judah. And he's going to answer those cries of our heart. And he's going to respond to the devastation. And he's going to speak right to the hearts of the people in Israel, watching their loved ones be carried away as slaves. As the palace burns and the walls lay in rubble, he is going to speak directly to their hearts as he establishes his divine eternal kingdom. And so what I want us to see as we think about the book of Kings and the lessons that we learn from it is that the entire book is meant to end in devastation and allow that devastation to point God's people for their need for Jesus so that they can see that Jesus is the hope of God's people in the midst of devastation. Kings ends that way on purpose. It's not a mistake by God. It's not like God was watching history and go, well, that didn't work out as expected. I was really hoping one of these kings would be the guy. He knew that it would end bad. He told Samuel when they were clamoring for a king, he says, you give them one, but it's not going to end well. And it didn't. He knew this was going to happen, but he let it happen so that his people would see their need for a divine king, and that devastation would point them to Christ. Jesus was their hope in the midst of devastation. And in the same way, our lesson from Kings is that Jesus is our hope in the midst of our devastation too. When things aren't going right, when we identify with the martyrs crying out to God, how much longer are you going to let this happen? You've made me some promises, God. You've said that everything I pray will be yes in your name. You said that if I ask for things that you will give them to me. You've said in Romans 28 that one day everything's going to work out for the good of those who love you and are called according to your purpose. When's that coming, God? Because this stinks. That frustration and devastation is meant to point you to Christ and remind you that we all collectively are waiting for Revelation 19. We all collectively are waiting for the return of our King who will make the wrong things right and the sad things untrue, who will sit on the throne of David forever, who will restore his creation to exactly what it is meant to restore, who will bring about the reality of Revelation 20 where it says God will be with his people and his people will be with their God and there will be no more weeping and no more crying and no more pain anymore for the former things. All the things that caused devastation, all the things that caused us to cry out with the martyrs, those things have passed away because Jesus has won a victory over them. And for all of eternity, we exist in a perfect kingdom with our perfect king. Kings is designed to help us anticipate that future and cling to that hope. And when we experience devastation in our own life, that is there to point us to our need for Jesus. Sometimes it's a simple devastation of our souls. We come to the end of ourselves, and we realize that our way is not working. We realize that there is something about this life that is making me unhappy. There is something that is missing. There is something that I need. That devastation is designed to point us to our need for Christ. If you're here this morning or you're watching online and you're experiencing that devastation of your soul, you need Jesus. You don't need another earthly king. You don't need another earthly fix. You don't need to read another book or a new regimen of discipline. You need Jesus. The devastation of our relationships points us to our need for Jesus. When people disappoint us, it points us to a person who won't. When we lose someone that we love so much and we cry out and we say, God, this isn't fair. Why'd you take them? It was too early. Our King has died for us and conquered that death to assure us that we will see that person again one day. So we turn our eyes with hope to Revelation 19 when faithful and true comes out of the sky. When Jesus comes as the Lion of Judah to restore his kingdom and restore order to the way that it should be. And the devastation of finances and the devastation of just life events and the devastation of disappointment, big and little. Little disappointments are meant to turn our eyes to Jesus and say, yeah, this place isn't perfect. We need you to come make it perfect, God. We usher in, we pray for your return. Come soon, Lord Jesus. Big devastation, huge things from which we don't know if we will recover are intentionally designed to point our eyes towards Christ and say, yes, Jesus, this stinks. We are waiting for you. We are yearning for you. We are inviting you in. Come soon, Lord Jesus. The devastation in Kings is intentionally left in the Bible and is allowed intentionally to occur so that it will forever point God's people to Jesus in the midst of their devastation. If we remember nothing else from the book of Kings, remember that the whole book is designed to point us there. And remember that if you are experiencing some form of devastation or disappointment or disillusionment in your life, that the point of that, just like the point of it happening in Kings, is that you would point your eyes towards Christ and eagerly anticipate the return of your King, who is going to make all the wrong things right and the sad things untrue. Let's pray. Lord, we love you. We are grateful for you. Jesus, we need you. Come soon to get us. God, you have watched from your throne all kinds of devastation. You have watched all sorts of divisiveness and violence. You have watched evil. And you are as fed up with it as we are. God, now in our time, it's hard to turn on the news or pick up your phone and not see something that disappoints us, something that breaks our heart, something that seems evil. God, you see it too. We need our king. Would you send him soon to rescue us? And God, while we wait, would you set our eyes on him? Would you set our gaze on you? Would you fill us with your spirit and give us the peace of hope? May we be a people who continually turn our eyes towards you. It's in our king's name that we pray. Amen.
Welcome to Grace. Thank you for being here. My name is Nate. I am one of the pastors here. To the moms, happy Mother's Day. We want to acknowledge you. So to the expectant moms, congratulations and hope. And to the new moms, congratulations and hope. And to the experienced moms, we are grateful to you. And to the young moms, we empathize with you. And to the hopeful moms, we pray for you and with you. And to the grieving moms we empathize with you and to the hopeful moms we pray for you and with you and to the grieving moms we offer you our condolences and our shoulders as well. So to all the moms represented in the room, we love you and we are grateful for you. As we launch into this new series called The Forgotten God, I wanted to start where Jesus starts in John chapter 16. We've been doing a series in John since February all through the spring, and so as we free up from that and launch into a series on the Holy Spirit, I thought it appropriate to go to John. So turn in your Bibles to John chapter 16, okay? And in that, in John chapter 16 and verse 7, we find this, what I think to be, an absurd statement. One of these statements that when you hear it, your first reaction is, that's not true. There's no way that's possibly true. Moms have said one of these things, okay? A lot of moms in the rooms, maybe not modern millennial moms because we have different ways now, but when I was a kid and I got in trouble, I got the belt. Before I got the belt, what did my mom tell me? This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you. I would always think, I'll trade you. If that's your concern, we can swap, like, you don't have to experience that pain. Let me save you from that, right? Like, when you're a kid and you hear that, you don't believe it. Like, that's not true. That's ridiculous. There's no way that's true. But then as you grow older, you realize that really is a true statement. I heard one of these absurd statements this week. I was so grateful that somebody in my small group gave me an example. I have somebody in my small group. I do a younger person's small group, young people, no kids. A guy named Connor. He is one of my current favorite humans. He's one of the most enthusiastic people. He does the announcements for us sometimes. He's going off to Colorado soon to be a medic out there for the summer. So anyways, I can say this, and he can't defend himself for a couple of months. He's at my house, and he and I got to talking about our love for sushi. I like sushi, and he likes sushi. And I'm like, oh, well, you got to tell me, like, what's the place? Like, where's the good place around here? We found one we like. We haven't found one we love. Where's the place around here? And he was like, actually, the best sushi. You want to know where it is? I'm like, yes, please. I want to know where it is. He goes, when I go home to Boone, North Carolina, and I stopped him right there. Get out of here. Don't tell me that the best sushi is in Boone. The sushi hub of the East Coast is in Boone, North Carolina. I'm sure it is, Connor. And he's like, no, no, no. And he keeps telling me how great it is. And I keep telling him how redneck he is, that the best sushi he can find is in Boone, North Carolina. And now listen, I didn't believe him at all. It felt absurd to me. And I don't know what's broken in me that I feel the need to correct him right away. And I can't just accept like, oh, that's good sushi. Like that's my fault. Okay. I'm a gross person for that. But when he said it, I just couldn't accept that that could possibly be true. Right? And maybe it is. Maybe it's delicious sushi. I don't know. But in John chapter 16, Jesus makes a statement that when he says it had to be, to me, patently absurd. We would respond to that like, this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you, or that the best sushi in the eastern coast is found in Boone, North Carolina. Like, that's how we would respond to this, I think. This is what Jesus says. I want us to see it together. And a little bit of context for this verse, what's going on here. John chapters 13 through 17 represent a portion of scripture that's referred to as the farewell discourse. They're at the last supper. They've been doing Jesus and the disciples are eating dinner together. It's the last night they're going to spend together. They've been doing life together for three years. Jesus has been pouring into them, teaching them, showing them how to be disciples and how to do ministry. And he just kind of does this download of important information on them at the end of his life. And in the middle of this, in chapter 16, Jesus is talking to them about the fact that he's going to go away. I'm not going to be here all the time. I'm going to leave you, which is a bummer for the disciples because they're expecting to be with Jesus for the rest of their life. But he's telling them and trying to get them ready for, I'm going to go away, like I'm going to die. I'm not going to always be here. And then this translation, the ESV calls the Holy Spirit the helper, but some translations call him the comforter. So the point of this verse is Jesus is saying, guys, I got to go away, but it's better for you. It's to your advantage that I actually go from you, that you don't have my physical presence with you, because if I don't go, you'll never receive the helper or you'll never receive the comforter, is what he's telling you. And this is how Jesus chooses to introduce the Holy Spirit to the disciples and really to us. And we're calling this series, as Jesus refers to him here as the helper, and we begin to talk about the Holy Spirit, we're calling this series The Forgotten God, because in a lot of ways, that's really what the Holy Spirit is. If you're a Christian, if you would call God your Father and Jesus your Savior, then you believe in a triune God, a God that is three parts, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. They are all God. They are all part of God. I don't know how to explain the Trinity to you. I went to undergrad for theology. I got a master's degree in theology. I've been in ministry for 10 years. I've read books on it. And all I can say is, I don't know how to explain the Trinity to you. But I know that it exists. I know that it's a thing. I know the Bible talks about it and that all three parts are equal, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And we in our churches, large swaths of the church, kind of forget about the Holy Spirit. We talk a lot about God the Father. We pray to Him. We worship Him. We sing songs to Him. We talk a lot about God the Son. We preach about Him. We spend 12 weeks going through the stories about Him. But the Spirit, sometimes we sing to the Spirit. Sometimes we refer to the Spirit maybe without knowing it. The video that we watched before I came up here talking about your presence is welcome here, that's represented by the Spirit. Maybe we don't know that. But very often, particularly in conservative church circles, we forget about the Holy Spirit. Now, I have theories on this. I think that we're afraid of what we don't understand. And if we don't understand something, that we tend to just avoid it. We can kind of understand the idea of a son. We can kind of understand the idea of a father. And so those parts of God, we can kind of grasp a little bit, and we see them a little bit more in Scripture than we see the Spirit. But the Spirit is unknown. The Bible describes it as the wind. You don't know when it's going to come or go. We're told that the Spirit is in us, that you are the temple. As a believer, you are the temple of the Holy Spirit, that you actually have God in you, which is a really difficult thing to understand or to grasp. You're told that the Holy Spirit empowers you in ways that we're going to explore in this series. And it's, if we're honest, confusing and sometimes intimidating. And I think because of that, it makes us uncomfortable and we tend to avoid the things that we don't understand that make us uncomfortable. And so sometimes we forget the Spirit. But Jesus introduces the Spirit by making what I think is kind of an absurd statement on its face. And so what I want to do today is ask about this statement, how can Jesus' claim be true? How can Jesus' claim be true? How can that possibly be true, that it's actually better for the disciples and better for us to not have the physical presence of Jesus with us, but instead have the Holy Spirit or the helper or the comforter? How can that possibly be true? As we answer that, we're going to draw two conclusions today that each launch their own question. If that's true, then what about this? And if that's true, then what about this? And then those two answers should spark in us a natural question. And those three questions are going to make up the rest of the series. So I'll tell you, at the beginning, you're not going to walk home with the big to-do list today or with the thing that's really going to change your thinking. The take-home from today is to continue to attend and learn about the rest of the roles of the Spirit. Today is a setup for the series as we learn about the Holy Spirit. Now here's why I think that this is an absurd statement on its face. I would have expected Peter. Peter was the one, he was the ready, fire, aim guy. He was the one that spoke before he thought. He just said whatever he felt. That was Peter. I would have expected Peter when Jesus said, it is actually better for you that I go. I would have expected him to interrupt Jesus like I interrupted Connor about the boon sushi, right? Come on, that can't possibly be true. That can't be right. Because think about this. The more I thought about this, the more I felt it was, it had to be difficult for the disciples to accept what Jesus is saying. If you're a believer, if you call Jesus your Savior, how much different would your life be if Jesus were physically present next to you all day, every day, like he was for the disciples? They woke up next to that dude in the same room as that dude, at least in the same house. They spent every day with him. He would go off and pray for a little while, but he would always come back and find him. His physical presence, he was ever present. He was there all the time. If you're a Christian, how much different would your life be if Jesus were right there next to you all the time? Think about that. Can you imagine yourself in a situation where maybe you didn't know what to say? You're talking to your kid, and they ask you a really hard question. You're like, gosh, I don't know. You're in a Bible study and somebody asks a question. You're with a friend. You're just getting a beer or a coffee and they ask a question that's really difficult to answer. What do I do about my marriage? I feel broken down about this and you don't know the right thing to say. What do we do about our child and you don't know the right thing to say? What if Jesus were right there next to you and you could look at him and be like, oh Jesus, what do you think? What should I say? What if you could do that? What if when you're reading the Bible, if you've ever tried to read the Bible, it can be difficult to understand sometimes. And for a lot of us, that's why we don't read it more is because we read it and we're like, gosh, I kind of understand nine words in this book. And then we just kind of put it down and we move on to the next thing. We don't really get what it's talking about. What if when we read the Bible, we could be like, Jesus, I do not understand this part. Can you come here for a second and show me this? That'd be amazing. There's this scene in Luke. Luke's the only one that records it. When Jesus comes back from the dead, he's resurrected, there's these two guys walking on a road to a town called Emmaus, and Jesus appears to them. And they don't know who he is. He's just a dude walking next to them. And it says that Jesus began to explain to them all of the scriptures, which to them was the Old Testament, and how it related to him. Listen, that's the greatest Bible study of all time. If you said, Nate, you can go to any moment in history, it's not hyperbole to say, I very well may go to that moment and be like, can I just walk with Jesus to a mass? I would love to hear him explain how the Old Testament points to him. I would love to just listen to Jesus as he taught about the Bible. Can you imagine? And what if he was right there next to you? Anytime you read it, you'd be like, hey, I don't understand this part. Can you help? What if when you were looking for a church, he could come to church with you? And halfway through the sermon, you could be like, you like this guy? Yeah, me neither. We'll keep looking. But what if he could just tell you? What if he could tell you like, no, he's no good, but man, they need you. Like, stick around. Wouldn't it be great to know for sure? What if he didn't know what to do or a decision to make? Do I take the promotion? Do I take the job? Or do I turn it down? Do I look for a new job? Do I go back to work? What if you could just look at Jesus and be like, what do I do? How about this? You think you'd sin less? Like maybe by a small amount? Are you kidding me? Of course. You'd start to cut somebody off in traffic and Jesus would be in the passenger seat and you'd kind of look at him and be like, you're right. Not that big of a deal, I guess. You created all of this. I guess it's okay. Imagine how much kinder, more gracious you would be. Maybe not you, but me. It would change things. If you're here this morning and you're not a believer, you came to church for mom. Thank you. I'll try to go fast. But just imagine if there is. If there is a God and he was personified in Jesus and he created the universe and he were right next to you, how much that would change things for you. What if you were hurting, and life was really hard, and you could just turn and lean into him, and just say, Jesus, this one's tough. Can you just be with me for a second? And he offers perfect peace. That's what the disciples had. You understand? That's what they had every day. And then Jesus says, you know what? It's better for you that you don't have that anymore. So the only possible thing we can ask is, how in the world is that true? It's what we wrote down on our paper. How can that claim be true? How is that possible? And so what we're going to do today is try to offer the best answer we can to that question and then understand that that's going to spark more questions that we're going to spend the rest of the series answering. To answer that question of how can it possibly be true that Jesus, that it's better for Jesus to go when we receive the Spirit and we no longer have the physical presence of Jesus in our lives, what I want to do, and you didn't see this one coming, is turn to 2 Kings 2 in the Old Testament. So if you have a Bible, you can turn there and make sure that I'm not making this story up. But it's about two guys who I think are the two most underrated people in all the Bible. Elijah and Elisha. They're amazing. Now, some Christians don't know that those are two different people. I've actually talked to people about that. I don't want to belittle you for that. I just think it's funny because we get it confused sometimes. And very few people know which one came first and which one did what. So I'm going to help you out here. This is just an aside. I thought about having Steve make a slide for this, but I thought it's probably a misuse of my authority in the church to text him on a Friday to do work on his off day for a joke slide. So I just didn't do it. All right. But I wanted to do the alphabet and then show you where they landed in the alphabet. Elijah has a J in it, which comes before an S. Elisha. All right. So that's how we remember it. Elijah comes before Elisha because J comes before S. And now listen, offer me grace. I've rehearsed my sermons before I do them, and you guys think I'm doing them off the cuff. I'm not. I've practiced this. And then every time I do it, I get them confused as I'm telling the story. So just give me grace and don't make fun of me, okay? You get up here and you do it, all right? It's hard. But we have Elisha and Elijah, and they are two of the most underrated people in the Bible. I think because they don't have a book named after them or something, but they're remarkable. Their faith is amazing. Elijah was this incredible man of God. Do you know that one time somebody died? A widow's son dies, and Elijah knew the widow. And somebody comes to him and tells him, hey, so-and-so's son has died. Do you know what Elijah's response was? God, why didn't you tell me? How come I'm finding out like this? Can you imagine being that close to God, where he's your personal Twitter feed, where something happens out in the world and you find out about it in some other way and you're like, God, what's the deal, man? How come you didn't tell me? That's how close he was to God. He was in a showdown with 450 prophets of Baal. And in this passage where he brings fire down from heaven from God to light up a soaking wet stack of wood in front of all of these prophets, we have the most sarcastic passage in Scripture, which makes me feel great. That it's there and it's okay. He is being a jerk to these prophets of Baal. And I'm like, get him, buddy. He raises a child from the dead. He's fed by ravens and by angels. He warns the evil king of Israel, if you don't get right, I'm going to bring a drought. And the king didn't get right, so he prayed. And there was a drought for three years. And then when the drought was lifted, he won a foot race against a chariot across the country to go tell somebody about it, carried by the Holy Spirit. Elijah was amazing. And he had this disciple, a guy that was following him named Elisha. And Elisha had spent a good portion of Elijah's ministry with him, watching him. And Elijah had the respect of all of Israel and all the other prophets and all the other religious people in the country. And Elisha was his heir apparent. He was the one being trained to take over the ministry of Elijah when he moved on, very much like the disciples were being trained by Jesus to take over his ministry once he moved on. And it got to the end of Elijah's life. And they actually knew that this was the day that he was going to die. I don't know how they knew that, but they did. And so they go to a town, they walk to a town together. And when they get there, the prophets in that town come up to Elisha and they say, hey, you know your master is going to die today. And he says, yeah, I don't want to talk about it. And they kind of interact there and they go to another place. And it's the same interaction. And then they end up on the banks of the Jordan River. And there's 50 prophets there. And they come to Elisha and they say, hey, you know your master is going to die today. And he says, I know, I don't want to talk about it. So they go to the Jordan River. They're trying to get alone so that they can talk. They walk over the Jordan River. Listen to this. This is ridiculous. There's a river in the way. They want to be over there. So what's Elijah do? He takes off his cloak, he rolls it up, and he hits the water, and then the waters part, and they walk across. I don't know of any other miracle of convenience in the Bible but this one, where he's like, God, these are new sandals. I don't want to get them wet. Thanks. And then they walk across the river. They get to the other side, and it says that they're walking and talking together. And Elijah says, before I go, is there anything else I can do for you? Is there anything you want? Is there anything you need? And Elisha says, I want a double portion of the Spirit that is on you. See, Elisha recognized that Elijah had performed all these miracles and did all these great things, but they were not by his own power. They were by the power of the Spirit of God resting on him. They were by the Holy Spirit. And this is the same way, incidentally, that Jesus performed his miracles and lived his life. Everything that he did, the casting out demons, raising Lazarus from the dead, healing the sick, feeding the poor, everything that he did was through the power of the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that the disciples were going to be given access to, the same one that we are told we have. It was through the power of the Spirit. And Elisha recognized this power. So when Elijah said, what is it that you want? He said, give me a double portion of the Spirit that's on you. I want to be able to continue to do the ministry that you do. And Elijah's response is, you've asked for a very difficult thing. He says, I'll tell you what, soon I'm going to go up to heaven. And if you see me while I do it, then you'll receive a double portion of my spirit. So they continue to walk and talk. And in this amazing scene, a fiery chariot comes down from heaven, being pulled by fiery horses, and separates Elijah and Elisha. And catches Elijah and sweeps him up in a whirlwind, it says, up to heaven. You understand that Elijah wasn't made to experience death? It's just him and Enoch, one of the guys in the Bible who have never experienced death, those two. He was so righteous, loved God so much, so close to him, God didn't want him to have to experience it. So he sends a fiery chariot down to grab him and take him back up to heaven in a whirlwind. And as he's going back up to heaven, his cloak falls off of him and wafts back down to the ground where it lands on Elisha. And it was a symbolic transfer of the spirit that was on Elijah to the spirit of Elisha to empower him to continue the ministry of Elijah. And I've always loved that story. I've always thought it was amazing. I love the Old Testament. I love the stories and the narratives in the Old Testament. But it wasn't until I was going through the book of John in the fall, getting ready for the series in the spring, where I read this in chapter 16 and I went, oh my goodness. That story in 2 Kings chapter 2 is not there just for what happens in 2 Kings 2. You understand? It's a picture of Jesus transferring his spirit to the disciples. Elijah goes up to heaven still alive. Jesus ascends up to heaven still alive. A portion of his spirit descends onto Elisha so he can continue the ministry that Elijah has prepared him for. And this is what happens to the disciples. After Jesus dies and is resurrected in the beginning of Acts, we see Jesus go up into heaven and he tells them to wait on the gift of the spirit, the same gift that Elisha waited for. It transfers onto them in the form of flaming tongues. They receive the Spirit and they go out and they do ministry. That's the gift of the Spirit. And so one of the reasons that it's better for Jesus to go is because the Holy Spirit continues Jesus' ministry through us. You see? That's what he's doing with the disciples. That's what he was doing with us. The Holy Spirit continues Jesus' ministry through us. And that's the gifts of the Spirit. We're going to talk about those next week, what those are and why we have them. But this is what he was doing for the disciples. He had trained them for three years to prepare them to lead the church that he was going to leave behind, to lead the kingdom that he was going to establish here on earth. And they needed to be empowered. They needed to know what to say when they didn't know what to say. They needed to be able to cast out demons and perform miracles. They needed to be able to lead in ways that they were incapable of leading. They needed wisdom that they did not have. They needed to understand scriptures in ways that they did not understand it. So Jesus leaves behind the Spirit, just as Elijah did for Elisha, so that the disciples could continue the ministry of Jesus. And 2,000 years later, you sit here in a church. And at Grace, if you're a member here, we don't call you a member. We call you a partner. And we call you a partner because we believe that the church is an active organization whose job it is to advance forward the kingdom of God. And we're not looking for members to be a part of the club here. We're looking for partners to help us advance it. We believe that there's a job to be done and that God has assigned a portion of that job to Grace Raleigh, and we want to be faithful to the job that he's asked us to do. Furthermore, if you're a believer, if you're a Christian, the only reason that God doesn't nab you right up to heaven as soon as you accept him and deliver you into eternal bliss is so that you can stay here and build his kingdom and bring as many people possible with you on your way to heaven. The same reason he left the disciples behind, because we have work to do. So he leaves us his spirit to dwell in us, to continue his work through us. You see? And the Bible says that you have it. Ephesians tells us that if you're a believer, that you have received the spirit as a down payment or a guarantee on your salvation. Romans 8 tells us that the Spirit secures your salvation. He sanctifies you in the process of salvation, and he delivers you into that salvation in eternity. He's active in your life. So the first reason that it's better for Jesus to go is because when he does, we receive the Spirit that empowers us to continue the ministry that he's left behind for us. But that's not the only reason. It's not just outwardly focused. The other reason that it's better to have the Spirit is because the Holy Spirit continues Jesus' ministry to us. It doesn't just continue Jesus' ministry through us, it continues Jesus' ministry to us. This is the roles of the Spirit. And here's the amazing thing that I realized. As I was thinking through all the advantages of having Jesus physically present in our life, being able to ask Him any of those questions, can you explain the Bible to me? Can you comfort me? Can you help me understand this? Can you show me what to say? What I realized is Scripture pointedly describes the Holy Spirit in those ways. You know what one of the roles of the Holy Spirit is that we're going to talk about more? He's the illuminator. We can't understand the Bible without him active in our lives. We cannot. He explains this to us. We say it would be great to be able to turn to Jesus and go, what does this mean? We can. We said it would be great. He's called the comforter. We said it would be great to be able to turn to Jesus when we hurt and say, Jesus, I hurt. We can. He's the spirit. His name is paraclete, which means to come alongside, to walk through life with you, to help you, to advocate for you. Wouldn't it be great if we had somebody who could interpret our prayers for us and say what we really mean to God? We do, it's the Spirit. Wouldn't it be great if we had somebody who will show us what to say when we don't know what to say? We do, it's the Spirit. All the reasons that it would be great to have Jesus physically present in our life are true of the Spirit. We said if Jesus were with us, wouldn't we sin less? The Spirit is with us all the time, and one of his roles is to convict us when we've wandered outside of God's will. All the reasons that we would prefer to have the presence of Jesus in our life are fulfilled in the Spirit. So it's better that Jesus gives us the Spirit because now we don't have to go to a physical presence of Jesus because if he's next to you down the street, then he's not next to me. And I gotta either go to you or get him to come to me. But the Holy Spirit's with us all the time. And he continues Jesus' ministry through us by empowering us and he continues Jesus' ministry to us by fulfilling the roles of Jesus in our life personally. And all of this, so we're going to talk about that in the third week, the roles of the Spirit. The last week, we're going to tackle this question that if you're thinking with me, you should be asking, how do I synthesize what I've learned about the Spirit with what I've experienced of the Spirit? How do I synthesize what I've learned about the Spirit with what I've experienced of the Spirit? I'm told that God is with me. I'm told that God is in me. I'm told that God can help me speak in tongues when I need to do that. I'm told that He can do the miraculous, that he empowers me for his ministry. I'm told that I can turn to him and ask him to understand scripture at any time. I'm told that he comforts me. I'm told that he guides me. I'm told that he's right there and that he empowers me. I'm actually told that when he's in my life, the chains of sin are broken. I'm set free and I can live a new life without sin. That's what the Bible teaches. But I think one of the reasons that the Spirit to us sometimes is the forgotten God is because our experience with the Spirit doesn't always line up with what we've learned about the Spirit. And so how do we synthesize these things? And can I tell you something? You want to know why that one's last? Because I don't know yet. I don't know what I'm going to tell you. If you've been a believer for a long time and you have ideas, send them to me. Truly, this is going to be a group effort. But I felt like it was dishonest and disingenuine to do a series without analyzing that question that's been in my life for so long too. So I'll warn you in advance, the answer won't be complete, but it'll be the best that we can do. And it's a question that we have to answer as we talk about the Holy Spirit. So that's the series. How can it possibly be true that it's better for us that we don't have the physical presence of Jesus? Well, because he's with us all the time everywhere now through the Spirit. He empowers us to continue his ministry through us, and he continues Jesus's ministry to us. And then that begs the question, then how come what I know about the Spirit doesn't always sync up with what I've experienced of the Spirit? So for the next three weeks, we're going to tackle those three issues and hopefully leave here knowing a little bit more about the Spirit, acknowledging Him a little bit more, inviting Him and His presence and His influence into our life and seeing that played out a little bit more. So I'm going to pray for you through this series that you will see the Spirit living and active and influencing in your life in ways that you never have before simply because you're paying attention to Him and you're praying along with me that you would see His influence. I'm going to pray, but before I do, I want to remind you at the information table we, we have books called The Forgotten God, written by a guy named Francis Chan, all about the Holy Spirit. I found that book to be incredibly helpful, more helpful than anything I'm going to say to you for the next three weeks. So if you really want to dive into this, you can read that book. They're $10. There's a jar there in front of it. You can put the money in there if you want to steal a book from the church to go ahead. That's your deal. I don't really care. But they're $10 if you want, but take a book and read it while we're going through the series. All right, I'm going to pray, and then we're going to continue in our service. Father, we love you. Your spirit is welcome in our lives. We're sorry that we don't always understand it. We're sorry that we don't always welcome the spirit. We're sorry that we don't always understand the spirit. God, I'm sorry that I don't always seek to engage the spirit. I pray that as we move through this series together that we would be less intimidated and more in awe and wonder. God, may no part of you be forgotten by us. May we feel the influence of you and see the guiding of you through your spirit in our day-to-day lives even this week. In our parenting, in our work, in our hearts, in our conversations, in our going in and coming out. May we see the influence of the Spirit as you guide us in those things, Lord. It's in your Son's name that we ask these things. Amen.
Welcome to Grace. Thank you for being here. My name is Nate. I am one of the pastors here. To the moms, happy Mother's Day. We want to acknowledge you. So to the expectant moms, congratulations and hope. And to the new moms, congratulations and hope. And to the experienced moms, we are grateful to you. And to the young moms, we empathize with you. And to the hopeful moms, we pray for you and with you. And to the grieving moms we empathize with you and to the hopeful moms we pray for you and with you and to the grieving moms we offer you our condolences and our shoulders as well. So to all the moms represented in the room, we love you and we are grateful for you. As we launch into this new series called The Forgotten God, I wanted to start where Jesus starts in John chapter 16. We've been doing a series in John since February all through the spring, and so as we free up from that and launch into a series on the Holy Spirit, I thought it appropriate to go to John. So turn in your Bibles to John chapter 16, okay? And in that, in John chapter 16 and verse 7, we find this, what I think to be, an absurd statement. One of these statements that when you hear it, your first reaction is, that's not true. There's no way that's possibly true. Moms have said one of these things, okay? A lot of moms in the rooms, maybe not modern millennial moms because we have different ways now, but when I was a kid and I got in trouble, I got the belt. Before I got the belt, what did my mom tell me? This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you. I would always think, I'll trade you. If that's your concern, we can swap, like, you don't have to experience that pain. Let me save you from that, right? Like, when you're a kid and you hear that, you don't believe it. Like, that's not true. That's ridiculous. There's no way that's true. But then as you grow older, you realize that really is a true statement. I heard one of these absurd statements this week. I was so grateful that somebody in my small group gave me an example. I have somebody in my small group. I do a younger person's small group, young people, no kids. A guy named Connor. He is one of my current favorite humans. He's one of the most enthusiastic people. He does the announcements for us sometimes. He's going off to Colorado soon to be a medic out there for the summer. So anyways, I can say this, and he can't defend himself for a couple of months. He's at my house, and he and I got to talking about our love for sushi. I like sushi, and he likes sushi. And I'm like, oh, well, you got to tell me, like, what's the place? Like, where's the good place around here? We found one we like. We haven't found one we love. Where's the place around here? And he was like, actually, the best sushi. You want to know where it is? I'm like, yes, please. I want to know where it is. He goes, when I go home to Boone, North Carolina, and I stopped him right there. Get out of here. Don't tell me that the best sushi is in Boone. The sushi hub of the East Coast is in Boone, North Carolina. I'm sure it is, Connor. And he's like, no, no, no. And he keeps telling me how great it is. And I keep telling him how redneck he is, that the best sushi he can find is in Boone, North Carolina. And now listen, I didn't believe him at all. It felt absurd to me. And I don't know what's broken in me that I feel the need to correct him right away. And I can't just accept like, oh, that's good sushi. Like that's my fault. Okay. I'm a gross person for that. But when he said it, I just couldn't accept that that could possibly be true. Right? And maybe it is. Maybe it's delicious sushi. I don't know. But in John chapter 16, Jesus makes a statement that when he says it had to be, to me, patently absurd. We would respond to that like, this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you, or that the best sushi in the eastern coast is found in Boone, North Carolina. Like, that's how we would respond to this, I think. This is what Jesus says. I want us to see it together. And a little bit of context for this verse, what's going on here. John chapters 13 through 17 represent a portion of scripture that's referred to as the farewell discourse. They're at the last supper. They've been doing Jesus and the disciples are eating dinner together. It's the last night they're going to spend together. They've been doing life together for three years. Jesus has been pouring into them, teaching them, showing them how to be disciples and how to do ministry. And he just kind of does this download of important information on them at the end of his life. And in the middle of this, in chapter 16, Jesus is talking to them about the fact that he's going to go away. I'm not going to be here all the time. I'm going to leave you, which is a bummer for the disciples because they're expecting to be with Jesus for the rest of their life. But he's telling them and trying to get them ready for, I'm going to go away, like I'm going to die. I'm not going to always be here. And then this translation, the ESV calls the Holy Spirit the helper, but some translations call him the comforter. So the point of this verse is Jesus is saying, guys, I got to go away, but it's better for you. It's to your advantage that I actually go from you, that you don't have my physical presence with you, because if I don't go, you'll never receive the helper or you'll never receive the comforter, is what he's telling you. And this is how Jesus chooses to introduce the Holy Spirit to the disciples and really to us. And we're calling this series, as Jesus refers to him here as the helper, and we begin to talk about the Holy Spirit, we're calling this series The Forgotten God, because in a lot of ways, that's really what the Holy Spirit is. If you're a Christian, if you would call God your Father and Jesus your Savior, then you believe in a triune God, a God that is three parts, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. They are all God. They are all part of God. I don't know how to explain the Trinity to you. I went to undergrad for theology. I got a master's degree in theology. I've been in ministry for 10 years. I've read books on it. And all I can say is, I don't know how to explain the Trinity to you. But I know that it exists. I know that it's a thing. I know the Bible talks about it and that all three parts are equal, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And we in our churches, large swaths of the church, kind of forget about the Holy Spirit. We talk a lot about God the Father. We pray to Him. We worship Him. We sing songs to Him. We talk a lot about God the Son. We preach about Him. We spend 12 weeks going through the stories about Him. But the Spirit, sometimes we sing to the Spirit. Sometimes we refer to the Spirit maybe without knowing it. The video that we watched before I came up here talking about your presence is welcome here, that's represented by the Spirit. Maybe we don't know that. But very often, particularly in conservative church circles, we forget about the Holy Spirit. Now, I have theories on this. I think that we're afraid of what we don't understand. And if we don't understand something, that we tend to just avoid it. We can kind of understand the idea of a son. We can kind of understand the idea of a father. And so those parts of God, we can kind of grasp a little bit, and we see them a little bit more in Scripture than we see the Spirit. But the Spirit is unknown. The Bible describes it as the wind. You don't know when it's going to come or go. We're told that the Spirit is in us, that you are the temple. As a believer, you are the temple of the Holy Spirit, that you actually have God in you, which is a really difficult thing to understand or to grasp. You're told that the Holy Spirit empowers you in ways that we're going to explore in this series. And it's, if we're honest, confusing and sometimes intimidating. And I think because of that, it makes us uncomfortable and we tend to avoid the things that we don't understand that make us uncomfortable. And so sometimes we forget the Spirit. But Jesus introduces the Spirit by making what I think is kind of an absurd statement on its face. And so what I want to do today is ask about this statement, how can Jesus' claim be true? How can Jesus' claim be true? How can that possibly be true, that it's actually better for the disciples and better for us to not have the physical presence of Jesus with us, but instead have the Holy Spirit or the helper or the comforter? How can that possibly be true? As we answer that, we're going to draw two conclusions today that each launch their own question. If that's true, then what about this? And if that's true, then what about this? And then those two answers should spark in us a natural question. And those three questions are going to make up the rest of the series. So I'll tell you, at the beginning, you're not going to walk home with the big to-do list today or with the thing that's really going to change your thinking. The take-home from today is to continue to attend and learn about the rest of the roles of the Spirit. Today is a setup for the series as we learn about the Holy Spirit. Now here's why I think that this is an absurd statement on its face. I would have expected Peter. Peter was the one, he was the ready, fire, aim guy. He was the one that spoke before he thought. He just said whatever he felt. That was Peter. I would have expected Peter when Jesus said, it is actually better for you that I go. I would have expected him to interrupt Jesus like I interrupted Connor about the boon sushi, right? Come on, that can't possibly be true. That can't be right. Because think about this. The more I thought about this, the more I felt it was, it had to be difficult for the disciples to accept what Jesus is saying. If you're a believer, if you call Jesus your Savior, how much different would your life be if Jesus were physically present next to you all day, every day, like he was for the disciples? They woke up next to that dude in the same room as that dude, at least in the same house. They spent every day with him. He would go off and pray for a little while, but he would always come back and find him. His physical presence, he was ever present. He was there all the time. If you're a Christian, how much different would your life be if Jesus were right there next to you all the time? Think about that. Can you imagine yourself in a situation where maybe you didn't know what to say? You're talking to your kid, and they ask you a really hard question. You're like, gosh, I don't know. You're in a Bible study and somebody asks a question. You're with a friend. You're just getting a beer or a coffee and they ask a question that's really difficult to answer. What do I do about my marriage? I feel broken down about this and you don't know the right thing to say. What do we do about our child and you don't know the right thing to say? What if Jesus were right there next to you and you could look at him and be like, oh Jesus, what do you think? What should I say? What if you could do that? What if when you're reading the Bible, if you've ever tried to read the Bible, it can be difficult to understand sometimes. And for a lot of us, that's why we don't read it more is because we read it and we're like, gosh, I kind of understand nine words in this book. And then we just kind of put it down and we move on to the next thing. We don't really get what it's talking about. What if when we read the Bible, we could be like, Jesus, I do not understand this part. Can you come here for a second and show me this? That'd be amazing. There's this scene in Luke. Luke's the only one that records it. When Jesus comes back from the dead, he's resurrected, there's these two guys walking on a road to a town called Emmaus, and Jesus appears to them. And they don't know who he is. He's just a dude walking next to them. And it says that Jesus began to explain to them all of the scriptures, which to them was the Old Testament, and how it related to him. Listen, that's the greatest Bible study of all time. If you said, Nate, you can go to any moment in history, it's not hyperbole to say, I very well may go to that moment and be like, can I just walk with Jesus to a mass? I would love to hear him explain how the Old Testament points to him. I would love to just listen to Jesus as he taught about the Bible. Can you imagine? And what if he was right there next to you? Anytime you read it, you'd be like, hey, I don't understand this part. Can you help? What if when you were looking for a church, he could come to church with you? And halfway through the sermon, you could be like, you like this guy? Yeah, me neither. We'll keep looking. But what if he could just tell you? What if he could tell you like, no, he's no good, but man, they need you. Like, stick around. Wouldn't it be great to know for sure? What if he didn't know what to do or a decision to make? Do I take the promotion? Do I take the job? Or do I turn it down? Do I look for a new job? Do I go back to work? What if you could just look at Jesus and be like, what do I do? How about this? You think you'd sin less? Like maybe by a small amount? Are you kidding me? Of course. You'd start to cut somebody off in traffic and Jesus would be in the passenger seat and you'd kind of look at him and be like, you're right. Not that big of a deal, I guess. You created all of this. I guess it's okay. Imagine how much kinder, more gracious you would be. Maybe not you, but me. It would change things. If you're here this morning and you're not a believer, you came to church for mom. Thank you. I'll try to go fast. But just imagine if there is. If there is a God and he was personified in Jesus and he created the universe and he were right next to you, how much that would change things for you. What if you were hurting, and life was really hard, and you could just turn and lean into him, and just say, Jesus, this one's tough. Can you just be with me for a second? And he offers perfect peace. That's what the disciples had. You understand? That's what they had every day. And then Jesus says, you know what? It's better for you that you don't have that anymore. So the only possible thing we can ask is, how in the world is that true? It's what we wrote down on our paper. How can that claim be true? How is that possible? And so what we're going to do today is try to offer the best answer we can to that question and then understand that that's going to spark more questions that we're going to spend the rest of the series answering. To answer that question of how can it possibly be true that Jesus, that it's better for Jesus to go when we receive the Spirit and we no longer have the physical presence of Jesus in our lives, what I want to do, and you didn't see this one coming, is turn to 2 Kings 2 in the Old Testament. So if you have a Bible, you can turn there and make sure that I'm not making this story up. But it's about two guys who I think are the two most underrated people in all the Bible. Elijah and Elisha. They're amazing. Now, some Christians don't know that those are two different people. I've actually talked to people about that. I don't want to belittle you for that. I just think it's funny because we get it confused sometimes. And very few people know which one came first and which one did what. So I'm going to help you out here. This is just an aside. I thought about having Steve make a slide for this, but I thought it's probably a misuse of my authority in the church to text him on a Friday to do work on his off day for a joke slide. So I just didn't do it. All right. But I wanted to do the alphabet and then show you where they landed in the alphabet. Elijah has a J in it, which comes before an S. Elisha. All right. So that's how we remember it. Elijah comes before Elisha because J comes before S. And now listen, offer me grace. I've rehearsed my sermons before I do them, and you guys think I'm doing them off the cuff. I'm not. I've practiced this. And then every time I do it, I get them confused as I'm telling the story. So just give me grace and don't make fun of me, okay? You get up here and you do it, all right? It's hard. But we have Elisha and Elijah, and they are two of the most underrated people in the Bible. I think because they don't have a book named after them or something, but they're remarkable. Their faith is amazing. Elijah was this incredible man of God. Do you know that one time somebody died? A widow's son dies, and Elijah knew the widow. And somebody comes to him and tells him, hey, so-and-so's son has died. Do you know what Elijah's response was? God, why didn't you tell me? How come I'm finding out like this? Can you imagine being that close to God, where he's your personal Twitter feed, where something happens out in the world and you find out about it in some other way and you're like, God, what's the deal, man? How come you didn't tell me? That's how close he was to God. He was in a showdown with 450 prophets of Baal. And in this passage where he brings fire down from heaven from God to light up a soaking wet stack of wood in front of all of these prophets, we have the most sarcastic passage in Scripture, which makes me feel great. That it's there and it's okay. He is being a jerk to these prophets of Baal. And I'm like, get him, buddy. He raises a child from the dead. He's fed by ravens and by angels. He warns the evil king of Israel, if you don't get right, I'm going to bring a drought. And the king didn't get right, so he prayed. And there was a drought for three years. And then when the drought was lifted, he won a foot race against a chariot across the country to go tell somebody about it, carried by the Holy Spirit. Elijah was amazing. And he had this disciple, a guy that was following him named Elisha. And Elisha had spent a good portion of Elijah's ministry with him, watching him. And Elijah had the respect of all of Israel and all the other prophets and all the other religious people in the country. And Elisha was his heir apparent. He was the one being trained to take over the ministry of Elijah when he moved on, very much like the disciples were being trained by Jesus to take over his ministry once he moved on. And it got to the end of Elijah's life. And they actually knew that this was the day that he was going to die. I don't know how they knew that, but they did. And so they go to a town, they walk to a town together. And when they get there, the prophets in that town come up to Elisha and they say, hey, you know your master is going to die today. And he says, yeah, I don't want to talk about it. And they kind of interact there and they go to another place. And it's the same interaction. And then they end up on the banks of the Jordan River. And there's 50 prophets there. And they come to Elisha and they say, hey, you know your master is going to die today. And he says, I know, I don't want to talk about it. So they go to the Jordan River. They're trying to get alone so that they can talk. They walk over the Jordan River. Listen to this. This is ridiculous. There's a river in the way. They want to be over there. So what's Elijah do? He takes off his cloak, he rolls it up, and he hits the water, and then the waters part, and they walk across. I don't know of any other miracle of convenience in the Bible but this one, where he's like, God, these are new sandals. I don't want to get them wet. Thanks. And then they walk across the river. They get to the other side, and it says that they're walking and talking together. And Elijah says, before I go, is there anything else I can do for you? Is there anything you want? Is there anything you need? And Elisha says, I want a double portion of the Spirit that is on you. See, Elisha recognized that Elijah had performed all these miracles and did all these great things, but they were not by his own power. They were by the power of the Spirit of God resting on him. They were by the Holy Spirit. And this is the same way, incidentally, that Jesus performed his miracles and lived his life. Everything that he did, the casting out demons, raising Lazarus from the dead, healing the sick, feeding the poor, everything that he did was through the power of the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that the disciples were going to be given access to, the same one that we are told we have. It was through the power of the Spirit. And Elisha recognized this power. So when Elijah said, what is it that you want? He said, give me a double portion of the Spirit that's on you. I want to be able to continue to do the ministry that you do. And Elijah's response is, you've asked for a very difficult thing. He says, I'll tell you what, soon I'm going to go up to heaven. And if you see me while I do it, then you'll receive a double portion of my spirit. So they continue to walk and talk. And in this amazing scene, a fiery chariot comes down from heaven, being pulled by fiery horses, and separates Elijah and Elisha. And catches Elijah and sweeps him up in a whirlwind, it says, up to heaven. You understand that Elijah wasn't made to experience death? It's just him and Enoch, one of the guys in the Bible who have never experienced death, those two. He was so righteous, loved God so much, so close to him, God didn't want him to have to experience it. So he sends a fiery chariot down to grab him and take him back up to heaven in a whirlwind. And as he's going back up to heaven, his cloak falls off of him and wafts back down to the ground where it lands on Elisha. And it was a symbolic transfer of the spirit that was on Elijah to the spirit of Elisha to empower him to continue the ministry of Elijah. And I've always loved that story. I've always thought it was amazing. I love the Old Testament. I love the stories and the narratives in the Old Testament. But it wasn't until I was going through the book of John in the fall, getting ready for the series in the spring, where I read this in chapter 16 and I went, oh my goodness. That story in 2 Kings chapter 2 is not there just for what happens in 2 Kings 2. You understand? It's a picture of Jesus transferring his spirit to the disciples. Elijah goes up to heaven still alive. Jesus ascends up to heaven still alive. A portion of his spirit descends onto Elisha so he can continue the ministry that Elijah has prepared him for. And this is what happens to the disciples. After Jesus dies and is resurrected in the beginning of Acts, we see Jesus go up into heaven and he tells them to wait on the gift of the spirit, the same gift that Elisha waited for. It transfers onto them in the form of flaming tongues. They receive the Spirit and they go out and they do ministry. That's the gift of the Spirit. And so one of the reasons that it's better for Jesus to go is because the Holy Spirit continues Jesus' ministry through us. You see? That's what he's doing with the disciples. That's what he was doing with us. The Holy Spirit continues Jesus' ministry through us. And that's the gifts of the Spirit. We're going to talk about those next week, what those are and why we have them. But this is what he was doing for the disciples. He had trained them for three years to prepare them to lead the church that he was going to leave behind, to lead the kingdom that he was going to establish here on earth. And they needed to be empowered. They needed to know what to say when they didn't know what to say. They needed to be able to cast out demons and perform miracles. They needed to be able to lead in ways that they were incapable of leading. They needed wisdom that they did not have. They needed to understand scriptures in ways that they did not understand it. So Jesus leaves behind the Spirit, just as Elijah did for Elisha, so that the disciples could continue the ministry of Jesus. And 2,000 years later, you sit here in a church. And at Grace, if you're a member here, we don't call you a member. We call you a partner. And we call you a partner because we believe that the church is an active organization whose job it is to advance forward the kingdom of God. And we're not looking for members to be a part of the club here. We're looking for partners to help us advance it. We believe that there's a job to be done and that God has assigned a portion of that job to Grace Raleigh, and we want to be faithful to the job that he's asked us to do. Furthermore, if you're a believer, if you're a Christian, the only reason that God doesn't nab you right up to heaven as soon as you accept him and deliver you into eternal bliss is so that you can stay here and build his kingdom and bring as many people possible with you on your way to heaven. The same reason he left the disciples behind, because we have work to do. So he leaves us his spirit to dwell in us, to continue his work through us. You see? And the Bible says that you have it. Ephesians tells us that if you're a believer, that you have received the spirit as a down payment or a guarantee on your salvation. Romans 8 tells us that the Spirit secures your salvation. He sanctifies you in the process of salvation, and he delivers you into that salvation in eternity. He's active in your life. So the first reason that it's better for Jesus to go is because when he does, we receive the Spirit that empowers us to continue the ministry that he's left behind for us. But that's not the only reason. It's not just outwardly focused. The other reason that it's better to have the Spirit is because the Holy Spirit continues Jesus' ministry to us. It doesn't just continue Jesus' ministry through us, it continues Jesus' ministry to us. This is the roles of the Spirit. And here's the amazing thing that I realized. As I was thinking through all the advantages of having Jesus physically present in our life, being able to ask Him any of those questions, can you explain the Bible to me? Can you comfort me? Can you help me understand this? Can you show me what to say? What I realized is Scripture pointedly describes the Holy Spirit in those ways. You know what one of the roles of the Holy Spirit is that we're going to talk about more? He's the illuminator. We can't understand the Bible without him active in our lives. We cannot. He explains this to us. We say it would be great to be able to turn to Jesus and go, what does this mean? We can. We said it would be great. He's called the comforter. We said it would be great to be able to turn to Jesus when we hurt and say, Jesus, I hurt. We can. He's the spirit. His name is paraclete, which means to come alongside, to walk through life with you, to help you, to advocate for you. Wouldn't it be great if we had somebody who could interpret our prayers for us and say what we really mean to God? We do, it's the Spirit. Wouldn't it be great if we had somebody who will show us what to say when we don't know what to say? We do, it's the Spirit. All the reasons that it would be great to have Jesus physically present in our life are true of the Spirit. We said if Jesus were with us, wouldn't we sin less? The Spirit is with us all the time, and one of his roles is to convict us when we've wandered outside of God's will. All the reasons that we would prefer to have the presence of Jesus in our life are fulfilled in the Spirit. So it's better that Jesus gives us the Spirit because now we don't have to go to a physical presence of Jesus because if he's next to you down the street, then he's not next to me. And I gotta either go to you or get him to come to me. But the Holy Spirit's with us all the time. And he continues Jesus' ministry through us by empowering us and he continues Jesus' ministry to us by fulfilling the roles of Jesus in our life personally. And all of this, so we're going to talk about that in the third week, the roles of the Spirit. The last week, we're going to tackle this question that if you're thinking with me, you should be asking, how do I synthesize what I've learned about the Spirit with what I've experienced of the Spirit? How do I synthesize what I've learned about the Spirit with what I've experienced of the Spirit? I'm told that God is with me. I'm told that God is in me. I'm told that God can help me speak in tongues when I need to do that. I'm told that He can do the miraculous, that he empowers me for his ministry. I'm told that I can turn to him and ask him to understand scripture at any time. I'm told that he comforts me. I'm told that he guides me. I'm told that he's right there and that he empowers me. I'm actually told that when he's in my life, the chains of sin are broken. I'm set free and I can live a new life without sin. That's what the Bible teaches. But I think one of the reasons that the Spirit to us sometimes is the forgotten God is because our experience with the Spirit doesn't always line up with what we've learned about the Spirit. And so how do we synthesize these things? And can I tell you something? You want to know why that one's last? Because I don't know yet. I don't know what I'm going to tell you. If you've been a believer for a long time and you have ideas, send them to me. Truly, this is going to be a group effort. But I felt like it was dishonest and disingenuine to do a series without analyzing that question that's been in my life for so long too. So I'll warn you in advance, the answer won't be complete, but it'll be the best that we can do. And it's a question that we have to answer as we talk about the Holy Spirit. So that's the series. How can it possibly be true that it's better for us that we don't have the physical presence of Jesus? Well, because he's with us all the time everywhere now through the Spirit. He empowers us to continue his ministry through us, and he continues Jesus's ministry to us. And then that begs the question, then how come what I know about the Spirit doesn't always sync up with what I've experienced of the Spirit? So for the next three weeks, we're going to tackle those three issues and hopefully leave here knowing a little bit more about the Spirit, acknowledging Him a little bit more, inviting Him and His presence and His influence into our life and seeing that played out a little bit more. So I'm going to pray for you through this series that you will see the Spirit living and active and influencing in your life in ways that you never have before simply because you're paying attention to Him and you're praying along with me that you would see His influence. I'm going to pray, but before I do, I want to remind you at the information table we, we have books called The Forgotten God, written by a guy named Francis Chan, all about the Holy Spirit. I found that book to be incredibly helpful, more helpful than anything I'm going to say to you for the next three weeks. So if you really want to dive into this, you can read that book. They're $10. There's a jar there in front of it. You can put the money in there if you want to steal a book from the church to go ahead. That's your deal. I don't really care. But they're $10 if you want, but take a book and read it while we're going through the series. All right, I'm going to pray, and then we're going to continue in our service. Father, we love you. Your spirit is welcome in our lives. We're sorry that we don't always understand it. We're sorry that we don't always welcome the spirit. We're sorry that we don't always understand the spirit. God, I'm sorry that I don't always seek to engage the spirit. I pray that as we move through this series together that we would be less intimidated and more in awe and wonder. God, may no part of you be forgotten by us. May we feel the influence of you and see the guiding of you through your spirit in our day-to-day lives even this week. In our parenting, in our work, in our hearts, in our conversations, in our going in and coming out. May we see the influence of the Spirit as you guide us in those things, Lord. It's in your Son's name that we ask these things. Amen.
Welcome to Grace. Thank you for being here. My name is Nate. I am one of the pastors here. To the moms, happy Mother's Day. We want to acknowledge you. So to the expectant moms, congratulations and hope. And to the new moms, congratulations and hope. And to the experienced moms, we are grateful to you. And to the young moms, we empathize with you. And to the hopeful moms, we pray for you and with you. And to the grieving moms we empathize with you and to the hopeful moms we pray for you and with you and to the grieving moms we offer you our condolences and our shoulders as well. So to all the moms represented in the room, we love you and we are grateful for you. As we launch into this new series called The Forgotten God, I wanted to start where Jesus starts in John chapter 16. We've been doing a series in John since February all through the spring, and so as we free up from that and launch into a series on the Holy Spirit, I thought it appropriate to go to John. So turn in your Bibles to John chapter 16, okay? And in that, in John chapter 16 and verse 7, we find this, what I think to be, an absurd statement. One of these statements that when you hear it, your first reaction is, that's not true. There's no way that's possibly true. Moms have said one of these things, okay? A lot of moms in the rooms, maybe not modern millennial moms because we have different ways now, but when I was a kid and I got in trouble, I got the belt. Before I got the belt, what did my mom tell me? This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you. I would always think, I'll trade you. If that's your concern, we can swap, like, you don't have to experience that pain. Let me save you from that, right? Like, when you're a kid and you hear that, you don't believe it. Like, that's not true. That's ridiculous. There's no way that's true. But then as you grow older, you realize that really is a true statement. I heard one of these absurd statements this week. I was so grateful that somebody in my small group gave me an example. I have somebody in my small group. I do a younger person's small group, young people, no kids. A guy named Connor. He is one of my current favorite humans. He's one of the most enthusiastic people. He does the announcements for us sometimes. He's going off to Colorado soon to be a medic out there for the summer. So anyways, I can say this, and he can't defend himself for a couple of months. He's at my house, and he and I got to talking about our love for sushi. I like sushi, and he likes sushi. And I'm like, oh, well, you got to tell me, like, what's the place? Like, where's the good place around here? We found one we like. We haven't found one we love. Where's the place around here? And he was like, actually, the best sushi. You want to know where it is? I'm like, yes, please. I want to know where it is. He goes, when I go home to Boone, North Carolina, and I stopped him right there. Get out of here. Don't tell me that the best sushi is in Boone. The sushi hub of the East Coast is in Boone, North Carolina. I'm sure it is, Connor. And he's like, no, no, no. And he keeps telling me how great it is. And I keep telling him how redneck he is, that the best sushi he can find is in Boone, North Carolina. And now listen, I didn't believe him at all. It felt absurd to me. And I don't know what's broken in me that I feel the need to correct him right away. And I can't just accept like, oh, that's good sushi. Like that's my fault. Okay. I'm a gross person for that. But when he said it, I just couldn't accept that that could possibly be true. Right? And maybe it is. Maybe it's delicious sushi. I don't know. But in John chapter 16, Jesus makes a statement that when he says it had to be, to me, patently absurd. We would respond to that like, this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you, or that the best sushi in the eastern coast is found in Boone, North Carolina. Like, that's how we would respond to this, I think. This is what Jesus says. I want us to see it together. And a little bit of context for this verse, what's going on here. John chapters 13 through 17 represent a portion of scripture that's referred to as the farewell discourse. They're at the last supper. They've been doing Jesus and the disciples are eating dinner together. It's the last night they're going to spend together. They've been doing life together for three years. Jesus has been pouring into them, teaching them, showing them how to be disciples and how to do ministry. And he just kind of does this download of important information on them at the end of his life. And in the middle of this, in chapter 16, Jesus is talking to them about the fact that he's going to go away. I'm not going to be here all the time. I'm going to leave you, which is a bummer for the disciples because they're expecting to be with Jesus for the rest of their life. But he's telling them and trying to get them ready for, I'm going to go away, like I'm going to die. I'm not going to always be here. And then this translation, the ESV calls the Holy Spirit the helper, but some translations call him the comforter. So the point of this verse is Jesus is saying, guys, I got to go away, but it's better for you. It's to your advantage that I actually go from you, that you don't have my physical presence with you, because if I don't go, you'll never receive the helper or you'll never receive the comforter, is what he's telling you. And this is how Jesus chooses to introduce the Holy Spirit to the disciples and really to us. And we're calling this series, as Jesus refers to him here as the helper, and we begin to talk about the Holy Spirit, we're calling this series The Forgotten God, because in a lot of ways, that's really what the Holy Spirit is. If you're a Christian, if you would call God your Father and Jesus your Savior, then you believe in a triune God, a God that is three parts, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. They are all God. They are all part of God. I don't know how to explain the Trinity to you. I went to undergrad for theology. I got a master's degree in theology. I've been in ministry for 10 years. I've read books on it. And all I can say is, I don't know how to explain the Trinity to you. But I know that it exists. I know that it's a thing. I know the Bible talks about it and that all three parts are equal, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And we in our churches, large swaths of the church, kind of forget about the Holy Spirit. We talk a lot about God the Father. We pray to Him. We worship Him. We sing songs to Him. We talk a lot about God the Son. We preach about Him. We spend 12 weeks going through the stories about Him. But the Spirit, sometimes we sing to the Spirit. Sometimes we refer to the Spirit maybe without knowing it. The video that we watched before I came up here talking about your presence is welcome here, that's represented by the Spirit. Maybe we don't know that. But very often, particularly in conservative church circles, we forget about the Holy Spirit. Now, I have theories on this. I think that we're afraid of what we don't understand. And if we don't understand something, that we tend to just avoid it. We can kind of understand the idea of a son. We can kind of understand the idea of a father. And so those parts of God, we can kind of grasp a little bit, and we see them a little bit more in Scripture than we see the Spirit. But the Spirit is unknown. The Bible describes it as the wind. You don't know when it's going to come or go. We're told that the Spirit is in us, that you are the temple. As a believer, you are the temple of the Holy Spirit, that you actually have God in you, which is a really difficult thing to understand or to grasp. You're told that the Holy Spirit empowers you in ways that we're going to explore in this series. And it's, if we're honest, confusing and sometimes intimidating. And I think because of that, it makes us uncomfortable and we tend to avoid the things that we don't understand that make us uncomfortable. And so sometimes we forget the Spirit. But Jesus introduces the Spirit by making what I think is kind of an absurd statement on its face. And so what I want to do today is ask about this statement, how can Jesus' claim be true? How can Jesus' claim be true? How can that possibly be true, that it's actually better for the disciples and better for us to not have the physical presence of Jesus with us, but instead have the Holy Spirit or the helper or the comforter? How can that possibly be true? As we answer that, we're going to draw two conclusions today that each launch their own question. If that's true, then what about this? And if that's true, then what about this? And then those two answers should spark in us a natural question. And those three questions are going to make up the rest of the series. So I'll tell you, at the beginning, you're not going to walk home with the big to-do list today or with the thing that's really going to change your thinking. The take-home from today is to continue to attend and learn about the rest of the roles of the Spirit. Today is a setup for the series as we learn about the Holy Spirit. Now here's why I think that this is an absurd statement on its face. I would have expected Peter. Peter was the one, he was the ready, fire, aim guy. He was the one that spoke before he thought. He just said whatever he felt. That was Peter. I would have expected Peter when Jesus said, it is actually better for you that I go. I would have expected him to interrupt Jesus like I interrupted Connor about the boon sushi, right? Come on, that can't possibly be true. That can't be right. Because think about this. The more I thought about this, the more I felt it was, it had to be difficult for the disciples to accept what Jesus is saying. If you're a believer, if you call Jesus your Savior, how much different would your life be if Jesus were physically present next to you all day, every day, like he was for the disciples? They woke up next to that dude in the same room as that dude, at least in the same house. They spent every day with him. He would go off and pray for a little while, but he would always come back and find him. His physical presence, he was ever present. He was there all the time. If you're a Christian, how much different would your life be if Jesus were right there next to you all the time? Think about that. Can you imagine yourself in a situation where maybe you didn't know what to say? You're talking to your kid, and they ask you a really hard question. You're like, gosh, I don't know. You're in a Bible study and somebody asks a question. You're with a friend. You're just getting a beer or a coffee and they ask a question that's really difficult to answer. What do I do about my marriage? I feel broken down about this and you don't know the right thing to say. What do we do about our child and you don't know the right thing to say? What if Jesus were right there next to you and you could look at him and be like, oh Jesus, what do you think? What should I say? What if you could do that? What if when you're reading the Bible, if you've ever tried to read the Bible, it can be difficult to understand sometimes. And for a lot of us, that's why we don't read it more is because we read it and we're like, gosh, I kind of understand nine words in this book. And then we just kind of put it down and we move on to the next thing. We don't really get what it's talking about. What if when we read the Bible, we could be like, Jesus, I do not understand this part. Can you come here for a second and show me this? That'd be amazing. There's this scene in Luke. Luke's the only one that records it. When Jesus comes back from the dead, he's resurrected, there's these two guys walking on a road to a town called Emmaus, and Jesus appears to them. And they don't know who he is. He's just a dude walking next to them. And it says that Jesus began to explain to them all of the scriptures, which to them was the Old Testament, and how it related to him. Listen, that's the greatest Bible study of all time. If you said, Nate, you can go to any moment in history, it's not hyperbole to say, I very well may go to that moment and be like, can I just walk with Jesus to a mass? I would love to hear him explain how the Old Testament points to him. I would love to just listen to Jesus as he taught about the Bible. Can you imagine? And what if he was right there next to you? Anytime you read it, you'd be like, hey, I don't understand this part. Can you help? What if when you were looking for a church, he could come to church with you? And halfway through the sermon, you could be like, you like this guy? Yeah, me neither. We'll keep looking. But what if he could just tell you? What if he could tell you like, no, he's no good, but man, they need you. Like, stick around. Wouldn't it be great to know for sure? What if he didn't know what to do or a decision to make? Do I take the promotion? Do I take the job? Or do I turn it down? Do I look for a new job? Do I go back to work? What if you could just look at Jesus and be like, what do I do? How about this? You think you'd sin less? Like maybe by a small amount? Are you kidding me? Of course. You'd start to cut somebody off in traffic and Jesus would be in the passenger seat and you'd kind of look at him and be like, you're right. Not that big of a deal, I guess. You created all of this. I guess it's okay. Imagine how much kinder, more gracious you would be. Maybe not you, but me. It would change things. If you're here this morning and you're not a believer, you came to church for mom. Thank you. I'll try to go fast. But just imagine if there is. If there is a God and he was personified in Jesus and he created the universe and he were right next to you, how much that would change things for you. What if you were hurting, and life was really hard, and you could just turn and lean into him, and just say, Jesus, this one's tough. Can you just be with me for a second? And he offers perfect peace. That's what the disciples had. You understand? That's what they had every day. And then Jesus says, you know what? It's better for you that you don't have that anymore. So the only possible thing we can ask is, how in the world is that true? It's what we wrote down on our paper. How can that claim be true? How is that possible? And so what we're going to do today is try to offer the best answer we can to that question and then understand that that's going to spark more questions that we're going to spend the rest of the series answering. To answer that question of how can it possibly be true that Jesus, that it's better for Jesus to go when we receive the Spirit and we no longer have the physical presence of Jesus in our lives, what I want to do, and you didn't see this one coming, is turn to 2 Kings 2 in the Old Testament. So if you have a Bible, you can turn there and make sure that I'm not making this story up. But it's about two guys who I think are the two most underrated people in all the Bible. Elijah and Elisha. They're amazing. Now, some Christians don't know that those are two different people. I've actually talked to people about that. I don't want to belittle you for that. I just think it's funny because we get it confused sometimes. And very few people know which one came first and which one did what. So I'm going to help you out here. This is just an aside. I thought about having Steve make a slide for this, but I thought it's probably a misuse of my authority in the church to text him on a Friday to do work on his off day for a joke slide. So I just didn't do it. All right. But I wanted to do the alphabet and then show you where they landed in the alphabet. Elijah has a J in it, which comes before an S. Elisha. All right. So that's how we remember it. Elijah comes before Elisha because J comes before S. And now listen, offer me grace. I've rehearsed my sermons before I do them, and you guys think I'm doing them off the cuff. I'm not. I've practiced this. And then every time I do it, I get them confused as I'm telling the story. So just give me grace and don't make fun of me, okay? You get up here and you do it, all right? It's hard. But we have Elisha and Elijah, and they are two of the most underrated people in the Bible. I think because they don't have a book named after them or something, but they're remarkable. Their faith is amazing. Elijah was this incredible man of God. Do you know that one time somebody died? A widow's son dies, and Elijah knew the widow. And somebody comes to him and tells him, hey, so-and-so's son has died. Do you know what Elijah's response was? God, why didn't you tell me? How come I'm finding out like this? Can you imagine being that close to God, where he's your personal Twitter feed, where something happens out in the world and you find out about it in some other way and you're like, God, what's the deal, man? How come you didn't tell me? That's how close he was to God. He was in a showdown with 450 prophets of Baal. And in this passage where he brings fire down from heaven from God to light up a soaking wet stack of wood in front of all of these prophets, we have the most sarcastic passage in Scripture, which makes me feel great. That it's there and it's okay. He is being a jerk to these prophets of Baal. And I'm like, get him, buddy. He raises a child from the dead. He's fed by ravens and by angels. He warns the evil king of Israel, if you don't get right, I'm going to bring a drought. And the king didn't get right, so he prayed. And there was a drought for three years. And then when the drought was lifted, he won a foot race against a chariot across the country to go tell somebody about it, carried by the Holy Spirit. Elijah was amazing. And he had this disciple, a guy that was following him named Elisha. And Elisha had spent a good portion of Elijah's ministry with him, watching him. And Elijah had the respect of all of Israel and all the other prophets and all the other religious people in the country. And Elisha was his heir apparent. He was the one being trained to take over the ministry of Elijah when he moved on, very much like the disciples were being trained by Jesus to take over his ministry once he moved on. And it got to the end of Elijah's life. And they actually knew that this was the day that he was going to die. I don't know how they knew that, but they did. And so they go to a town, they walk to a town together. And when they get there, the prophets in that town come up to Elisha and they say, hey, you know your master is going to die today. And he says, yeah, I don't want to talk about it. And they kind of interact there and they go to another place. And it's the same interaction. And then they end up on the banks of the Jordan River. And there's 50 prophets there. And they come to Elisha and they say, hey, you know your master is going to die today. And he says, I know, I don't want to talk about it. So they go to the Jordan River. They're trying to get alone so that they can talk. They walk over the Jordan River. Listen to this. This is ridiculous. There's a river in the way. They want to be over there. So what's Elijah do? He takes off his cloak, he rolls it up, and he hits the water, and then the waters part, and they walk across. I don't know of any other miracle of convenience in the Bible but this one, where he's like, God, these are new sandals. I don't want to get them wet. Thanks. And then they walk across the river. They get to the other side, and it says that they're walking and talking together. And Elijah says, before I go, is there anything else I can do for you? Is there anything you want? Is there anything you need? And Elisha says, I want a double portion of the Spirit that is on you. See, Elisha recognized that Elijah had performed all these miracles and did all these great things, but they were not by his own power. They were by the power of the Spirit of God resting on him. They were by the Holy Spirit. And this is the same way, incidentally, that Jesus performed his miracles and lived his life. Everything that he did, the casting out demons, raising Lazarus from the dead, healing the sick, feeding the poor, everything that he did was through the power of the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that the disciples were going to be given access to, the same one that we are told we have. It was through the power of the Spirit. And Elisha recognized this power. So when Elijah said, what is it that you want? He said, give me a double portion of the Spirit that's on you. I want to be able to continue to do the ministry that you do. And Elijah's response is, you've asked for a very difficult thing. He says, I'll tell you what, soon I'm going to go up to heaven. And if you see me while I do it, then you'll receive a double portion of my spirit. So they continue to walk and talk. And in this amazing scene, a fiery chariot comes down from heaven, being pulled by fiery horses, and separates Elijah and Elisha. And catches Elijah and sweeps him up in a whirlwind, it says, up to heaven. You understand that Elijah wasn't made to experience death? It's just him and Enoch, one of the guys in the Bible who have never experienced death, those two. He was so righteous, loved God so much, so close to him, God didn't want him to have to experience it. So he sends a fiery chariot down to grab him and take him back up to heaven in a whirlwind. And as he's going back up to heaven, his cloak falls off of him and wafts back down to the ground where it lands on Elisha. And it was a symbolic transfer of the spirit that was on Elijah to the spirit of Elisha to empower him to continue the ministry of Elijah. And I've always loved that story. I've always thought it was amazing. I love the Old Testament. I love the stories and the narratives in the Old Testament. But it wasn't until I was going through the book of John in the fall, getting ready for the series in the spring, where I read this in chapter 16 and I went, oh my goodness. That story in 2 Kings chapter 2 is not there just for what happens in 2 Kings 2. You understand? It's a picture of Jesus transferring his spirit to the disciples. Elijah goes up to heaven still alive. Jesus ascends up to heaven still alive. A portion of his spirit descends onto Elisha so he can continue the ministry that Elijah has prepared him for. And this is what happens to the disciples. After Jesus dies and is resurrected in the beginning of Acts, we see Jesus go up into heaven and he tells them to wait on the gift of the spirit, the same gift that Elisha waited for. It transfers onto them in the form of flaming tongues. They receive the Spirit and they go out and they do ministry. That's the gift of the Spirit. And so one of the reasons that it's better for Jesus to go is because the Holy Spirit continues Jesus' ministry through us. You see? That's what he's doing with the disciples. That's what he was doing with us. The Holy Spirit continues Jesus' ministry through us. And that's the gifts of the Spirit. We're going to talk about those next week, what those are and why we have them. But this is what he was doing for the disciples. He had trained them for three years to prepare them to lead the church that he was going to leave behind, to lead the kingdom that he was going to establish here on earth. And they needed to be empowered. They needed to know what to say when they didn't know what to say. They needed to be able to cast out demons and perform miracles. They needed to be able to lead in ways that they were incapable of leading. They needed wisdom that they did not have. They needed to understand scriptures in ways that they did not understand it. So Jesus leaves behind the Spirit, just as Elijah did for Elisha, so that the disciples could continue the ministry of Jesus. And 2,000 years later, you sit here in a church. And at Grace, if you're a member here, we don't call you a member. We call you a partner. And we call you a partner because we believe that the church is an active organization whose job it is to advance forward the kingdom of God. And we're not looking for members to be a part of the club here. We're looking for partners to help us advance it. We believe that there's a job to be done and that God has assigned a portion of that job to Grace Raleigh, and we want to be faithful to the job that he's asked us to do. Furthermore, if you're a believer, if you're a Christian, the only reason that God doesn't nab you right up to heaven as soon as you accept him and deliver you into eternal bliss is so that you can stay here and build his kingdom and bring as many people possible with you on your way to heaven. The same reason he left the disciples behind, because we have work to do. So he leaves us his spirit to dwell in us, to continue his work through us. You see? And the Bible says that you have it. Ephesians tells us that if you're a believer, that you have received the spirit as a down payment or a guarantee on your salvation. Romans 8 tells us that the Spirit secures your salvation. He sanctifies you in the process of salvation, and he delivers you into that salvation in eternity. He's active in your life. So the first reason that it's better for Jesus to go is because when he does, we receive the Spirit that empowers us to continue the ministry that he's left behind for us. But that's not the only reason. It's not just outwardly focused. The other reason that it's better to have the Spirit is because the Holy Spirit continues Jesus' ministry to us. It doesn't just continue Jesus' ministry through us, it continues Jesus' ministry to us. This is the roles of the Spirit. And here's the amazing thing that I realized. As I was thinking through all the advantages of having Jesus physically present in our life, being able to ask Him any of those questions, can you explain the Bible to me? Can you comfort me? Can you help me understand this? Can you show me what to say? What I realized is Scripture pointedly describes the Holy Spirit in those ways. You know what one of the roles of the Holy Spirit is that we're going to talk about more? He's the illuminator. We can't understand the Bible without him active in our lives. We cannot. He explains this to us. We say it would be great to be able to turn to Jesus and go, what does this mean? We can. We said it would be great. He's called the comforter. We said it would be great to be able to turn to Jesus when we hurt and say, Jesus, I hurt. We can. He's the spirit. His name is paraclete, which means to come alongside, to walk through life with you, to help you, to advocate for you. Wouldn't it be great if we had somebody who could interpret our prayers for us and say what we really mean to God? We do, it's the Spirit. Wouldn't it be great if we had somebody who will show us what to say when we don't know what to say? We do, it's the Spirit. All the reasons that it would be great to have Jesus physically present in our life are true of the Spirit. We said if Jesus were with us, wouldn't we sin less? The Spirit is with us all the time, and one of his roles is to convict us when we've wandered outside of God's will. All the reasons that we would prefer to have the presence of Jesus in our life are fulfilled in the Spirit. So it's better that Jesus gives us the Spirit because now we don't have to go to a physical presence of Jesus because if he's next to you down the street, then he's not next to me. And I gotta either go to you or get him to come to me. But the Holy Spirit's with us all the time. And he continues Jesus' ministry through us by empowering us and he continues Jesus' ministry to us by fulfilling the roles of Jesus in our life personally. And all of this, so we're going to talk about that in the third week, the roles of the Spirit. The last week, we're going to tackle this question that if you're thinking with me, you should be asking, how do I synthesize what I've learned about the Spirit with what I've experienced of the Spirit? How do I synthesize what I've learned about the Spirit with what I've experienced of the Spirit? I'm told that God is with me. I'm told that God is in me. I'm told that God can help me speak in tongues when I need to do that. I'm told that He can do the miraculous, that he empowers me for his ministry. I'm told that I can turn to him and ask him to understand scripture at any time. I'm told that he comforts me. I'm told that he guides me. I'm told that he's right there and that he empowers me. I'm actually told that when he's in my life, the chains of sin are broken. I'm set free and I can live a new life without sin. That's what the Bible teaches. But I think one of the reasons that the Spirit to us sometimes is the forgotten God is because our experience with the Spirit doesn't always line up with what we've learned about the Spirit. And so how do we synthesize these things? And can I tell you something? You want to know why that one's last? Because I don't know yet. I don't know what I'm going to tell you. If you've been a believer for a long time and you have ideas, send them to me. Truly, this is going to be a group effort. But I felt like it was dishonest and disingenuine to do a series without analyzing that question that's been in my life for so long too. So I'll warn you in advance, the answer won't be complete, but it'll be the best that we can do. And it's a question that we have to answer as we talk about the Holy Spirit. So that's the series. How can it possibly be true that it's better for us that we don't have the physical presence of Jesus? Well, because he's with us all the time everywhere now through the Spirit. He empowers us to continue his ministry through us, and he continues Jesus's ministry to us. And then that begs the question, then how come what I know about the Spirit doesn't always sync up with what I've experienced of the Spirit? So for the next three weeks, we're going to tackle those three issues and hopefully leave here knowing a little bit more about the Spirit, acknowledging Him a little bit more, inviting Him and His presence and His influence into our life and seeing that played out a little bit more. So I'm going to pray for you through this series that you will see the Spirit living and active and influencing in your life in ways that you never have before simply because you're paying attention to Him and you're praying along with me that you would see His influence. I'm going to pray, but before I do, I want to remind you at the information table we, we have books called The Forgotten God, written by a guy named Francis Chan, all about the Holy Spirit. I found that book to be incredibly helpful, more helpful than anything I'm going to say to you for the next three weeks. So if you really want to dive into this, you can read that book. They're $10. There's a jar there in front of it. You can put the money in there if you want to steal a book from the church to go ahead. That's your deal. I don't really care. But they're $10 if you want, but take a book and read it while we're going through the series. All right, I'm going to pray, and then we're going to continue in our service. Father, we love you. Your spirit is welcome in our lives. We're sorry that we don't always understand it. We're sorry that we don't always welcome the spirit. We're sorry that we don't always understand the spirit. God, I'm sorry that I don't always seek to engage the spirit. I pray that as we move through this series together that we would be less intimidated and more in awe and wonder. God, may no part of you be forgotten by us. May we feel the influence of you and see the guiding of you through your spirit in our day-to-day lives even this week. In our parenting, in our work, in our hearts, in our conversations, in our going in and coming out. May we see the influence of the Spirit as you guide us in those things, Lord. It's in your Son's name that we ask these things. Amen.
Welcome to Grace. Thank you for being here. My name is Nate. I am one of the pastors here. To the moms, happy Mother's Day. We want to acknowledge you. So to the expectant moms, congratulations and hope. And to the new moms, congratulations and hope. And to the experienced moms, we are grateful to you. And to the young moms, we empathize with you. And to the hopeful moms, we pray for you and with you. And to the grieving moms we empathize with you and to the hopeful moms we pray for you and with you and to the grieving moms we offer you our condolences and our shoulders as well. So to all the moms represented in the room, we love you and we are grateful for you. As we launch into this new series called The Forgotten God, I wanted to start where Jesus starts in John chapter 16. We've been doing a series in John since February all through the spring, and so as we free up from that and launch into a series on the Holy Spirit, I thought it appropriate to go to John. So turn in your Bibles to John chapter 16, okay? And in that, in John chapter 16 and verse 7, we find this, what I think to be, an absurd statement. One of these statements that when you hear it, your first reaction is, that's not true. There's no way that's possibly true. Moms have said one of these things, okay? A lot of moms in the rooms, maybe not modern millennial moms because we have different ways now, but when I was a kid and I got in trouble, I got the belt. Before I got the belt, what did my mom tell me? This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you. I would always think, I'll trade you. If that's your concern, we can swap, like, you don't have to experience that pain. Let me save you from that, right? Like, when you're a kid and you hear that, you don't believe it. Like, that's not true. That's ridiculous. There's no way that's true. But then as you grow older, you realize that really is a true statement. I heard one of these absurd statements this week. I was so grateful that somebody in my small group gave me an example. I have somebody in my small group. I do a younger person's small group, young people, no kids. A guy named Connor. He is one of my current favorite humans. He's one of the most enthusiastic people. He does the announcements for us sometimes. He's going off to Colorado soon to be a medic out there for the summer. So anyways, I can say this, and he can't defend himself for a couple of months. He's at my house, and he and I got to talking about our love for sushi. I like sushi, and he likes sushi. And I'm like, oh, well, you got to tell me, like, what's the place? Like, where's the good place around here? We found one we like. We haven't found one we love. Where's the place around here? And he was like, actually, the best sushi. You want to know where it is? I'm like, yes, please. I want to know where it is. He goes, when I go home to Boone, North Carolina, and I stopped him right there. Get out of here. Don't tell me that the best sushi is in Boone. The sushi hub of the East Coast is in Boone, North Carolina. I'm sure it is, Connor. And he's like, no, no, no. And he keeps telling me how great it is. And I keep telling him how redneck he is, that the best sushi he can find is in Boone, North Carolina. And now listen, I didn't believe him at all. It felt absurd to me. And I don't know what's broken in me that I feel the need to correct him right away. And I can't just accept like, oh, that's good sushi. Like that's my fault. Okay. I'm a gross person for that. But when he said it, I just couldn't accept that that could possibly be true. Right? And maybe it is. Maybe it's delicious sushi. I don't know. But in John chapter 16, Jesus makes a statement that when he says it had to be, to me, patently absurd. We would respond to that like, this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you, or that the best sushi in the eastern coast is found in Boone, North Carolina. Like, that's how we would respond to this, I think. This is what Jesus says. I want us to see it together. And a little bit of context for this verse, what's going on here. John chapters 13 through 17 represent a portion of scripture that's referred to as the farewell discourse. They're at the last supper. They've been doing Jesus and the disciples are eating dinner together. It's the last night they're going to spend together. They've been doing life together for three years. Jesus has been pouring into them, teaching them, showing them how to be disciples and how to do ministry. And he just kind of does this download of important information on them at the end of his life. And in the middle of this, in chapter 16, Jesus is talking to them about the fact that he's going to go away. I'm not going to be here all the time. I'm going to leave you, which is a bummer for the disciples because they're expecting to be with Jesus for the rest of their life. But he's telling them and trying to get them ready for, I'm going to go away, like I'm going to die. I'm not going to always be here. And then this translation, the ESV calls the Holy Spirit the helper, but some translations call him the comforter. So the point of this verse is Jesus is saying, guys, I got to go away, but it's better for you. It's to your advantage that I actually go from you, that you don't have my physical presence with you, because if I don't go, you'll never receive the helper or you'll never receive the comforter, is what he's telling you. And this is how Jesus chooses to introduce the Holy Spirit to the disciples and really to us. And we're calling this series, as Jesus refers to him here as the helper, and we begin to talk about the Holy Spirit, we're calling this series The Forgotten God, because in a lot of ways, that's really what the Holy Spirit is. If you're a Christian, if you would call God your Father and Jesus your Savior, then you believe in a triune God, a God that is three parts, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. They are all God. They are all part of God. I don't know how to explain the Trinity to you. I went to undergrad for theology. I got a master's degree in theology. I've been in ministry for 10 years. I've read books on it. And all I can say is, I don't know how to explain the Trinity to you. But I know that it exists. I know that it's a thing. I know the Bible talks about it and that all three parts are equal, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And we in our churches, large swaths of the church, kind of forget about the Holy Spirit. We talk a lot about God the Father. We pray to Him. We worship Him. We sing songs to Him. We talk a lot about God the Son. We preach about Him. We spend 12 weeks going through the stories about Him. But the Spirit, sometimes we sing to the Spirit. Sometimes we refer to the Spirit maybe without knowing it. The video that we watched before I came up here talking about your presence is welcome here, that's represented by the Spirit. Maybe we don't know that. But very often, particularly in conservative church circles, we forget about the Holy Spirit. Now, I have theories on this. I think that we're afraid of what we don't understand. And if we don't understand something, that we tend to just avoid it. We can kind of understand the idea of a son. We can kind of understand the idea of a father. And so those parts of God, we can kind of grasp a little bit, and we see them a little bit more in Scripture than we see the Spirit. But the Spirit is unknown. The Bible describes it as the wind. You don't know when it's going to come or go. We're told that the Spirit is in us, that you are the temple. As a believer, you are the temple of the Holy Spirit, that you actually have God in you, which is a really difficult thing to understand or to grasp. You're told that the Holy Spirit empowers you in ways that we're going to explore in this series. And it's, if we're honest, confusing and sometimes intimidating. And I think because of that, it makes us uncomfortable and we tend to avoid the things that we don't understand that make us uncomfortable. And so sometimes we forget the Spirit. But Jesus introduces the Spirit by making what I think is kind of an absurd statement on its face. And so what I want to do today is ask about this statement, how can Jesus' claim be true? How can Jesus' claim be true? How can that possibly be true, that it's actually better for the disciples and better for us to not have the physical presence of Jesus with us, but instead have the Holy Spirit or the helper or the comforter? How can that possibly be true? As we answer that, we're going to draw two conclusions today that each launch their own question. If that's true, then what about this? And if that's true, then what about this? And then those two answers should spark in us a natural question. And those three questions are going to make up the rest of the series. So I'll tell you, at the beginning, you're not going to walk home with the big to-do list today or with the thing that's really going to change your thinking. The take-home from today is to continue to attend and learn about the rest of the roles of the Spirit. Today is a setup for the series as we learn about the Holy Spirit. Now here's why I think that this is an absurd statement on its face. I would have expected Peter. Peter was the one, he was the ready, fire, aim guy. He was the one that spoke before he thought. He just said whatever he felt. That was Peter. I would have expected Peter when Jesus said, it is actually better for you that I go. I would have expected him to interrupt Jesus like I interrupted Connor about the boon sushi, right? Come on, that can't possibly be true. That can't be right. Because think about this. The more I thought about this, the more I felt it was, it had to be difficult for the disciples to accept what Jesus is saying. If you're a believer, if you call Jesus your Savior, how much different would your life be if Jesus were physically present next to you all day, every day, like he was for the disciples? They woke up next to that dude in the same room as that dude, at least in the same house. They spent every day with him. He would go off and pray for a little while, but he would always come back and find him. His physical presence, he was ever present. He was there all the time. If you're a Christian, how much different would your life be if Jesus were right there next to you all the time? Think about that. Can you imagine yourself in a situation where maybe you didn't know what to say? You're talking to your kid, and they ask you a really hard question. You're like, gosh, I don't know. You're in a Bible study and somebody asks a question. You're with a friend. You're just getting a beer or a coffee and they ask a question that's really difficult to answer. What do I do about my marriage? I feel broken down about this and you don't know the right thing to say. What do we do about our child and you don't know the right thing to say? What if Jesus were right there next to you and you could look at him and be like, oh Jesus, what do you think? What should I say? What if you could do that? What if when you're reading the Bible, if you've ever tried to read the Bible, it can be difficult to understand sometimes. And for a lot of us, that's why we don't read it more is because we read it and we're like, gosh, I kind of understand nine words in this book. And then we just kind of put it down and we move on to the next thing. We don't really get what it's talking about. What if when we read the Bible, we could be like, Jesus, I do not understand this part. Can you come here for a second and show me this? That'd be amazing. There's this scene in Luke. Luke's the only one that records it. When Jesus comes back from the dead, he's resurrected, there's these two guys walking on a road to a town called Emmaus, and Jesus appears to them. And they don't know who he is. He's just a dude walking next to them. And it says that Jesus began to explain to them all of the scriptures, which to them was the Old Testament, and how it related to him. Listen, that's the greatest Bible study of all time. If you said, Nate, you can go to any moment in history, it's not hyperbole to say, I very well may go to that moment and be like, can I just walk with Jesus to a mass? I would love to hear him explain how the Old Testament points to him. I would love to just listen to Jesus as he taught about the Bible. Can you imagine? And what if he was right there next to you? Anytime you read it, you'd be like, hey, I don't understand this part. Can you help? What if when you were looking for a church, he could come to church with you? And halfway through the sermon, you could be like, you like this guy? Yeah, me neither. We'll keep looking. But what if he could just tell you? What if he could tell you like, no, he's no good, but man, they need you. Like, stick around. Wouldn't it be great to know for sure? What if he didn't know what to do or a decision to make? Do I take the promotion? Do I take the job? Or do I turn it down? Do I look for a new job? Do I go back to work? What if you could just look at Jesus and be like, what do I do? How about this? You think you'd sin less? Like maybe by a small amount? Are you kidding me? Of course. You'd start to cut somebody off in traffic and Jesus would be in the passenger seat and you'd kind of look at him and be like, you're right. Not that big of a deal, I guess. You created all of this. I guess it's okay. Imagine how much kinder, more gracious you would be. Maybe not you, but me. It would change things. If you're here this morning and you're not a believer, you came to church for mom. Thank you. I'll try to go fast. But just imagine if there is. If there is a God and he was personified in Jesus and he created the universe and he were right next to you, how much that would change things for you. What if you were hurting, and life was really hard, and you could just turn and lean into him, and just say, Jesus, this one's tough. Can you just be with me for a second? And he offers perfect peace. That's what the disciples had. You understand? That's what they had every day. And then Jesus says, you know what? It's better for you that you don't have that anymore. So the only possible thing we can ask is, how in the world is that true? It's what we wrote down on our paper. How can that claim be true? How is that possible? And so what we're going to do today is try to offer the best answer we can to that question and then understand that that's going to spark more questions that we're going to spend the rest of the series answering. To answer that question of how can it possibly be true that Jesus, that it's better for Jesus to go when we receive the Spirit and we no longer have the physical presence of Jesus in our lives, what I want to do, and you didn't see this one coming, is turn to 2 Kings 2 in the Old Testament. So if you have a Bible, you can turn there and make sure that I'm not making this story up. But it's about two guys who I think are the two most underrated people in all the Bible. Elijah and Elisha. They're amazing. Now, some Christians don't know that those are two different people. I've actually talked to people about that. I don't want to belittle you for that. I just think it's funny because we get it confused sometimes. And very few people know which one came first and which one did what. So I'm going to help you out here. This is just an aside. I thought about having Steve make a slide for this, but I thought it's probably a misuse of my authority in the church to text him on a Friday to do work on his off day for a joke slide. So I just didn't do it. All right. But I wanted to do the alphabet and then show you where they landed in the alphabet. Elijah has a J in it, which comes before an S. Elisha. All right. So that's how we remember it. Elijah comes before Elisha because J comes before S. And now listen, offer me grace. I've rehearsed my sermons before I do them, and you guys think I'm doing them off the cuff. I'm not. I've practiced this. And then every time I do it, I get them confused as I'm telling the story. So just give me grace and don't make fun of me, okay? You get up here and you do it, all right? It's hard. But we have Elisha and Elijah, and they are two of the most underrated people in the Bible. I think because they don't have a book named after them or something, but they're remarkable. Their faith is amazing. Elijah was this incredible man of God. Do you know that one time somebody died? A widow's son dies, and Elijah knew the widow. And somebody comes to him and tells him, hey, so-and-so's son has died. Do you know what Elijah's response was? God, why didn't you tell me? How come I'm finding out like this? Can you imagine being that close to God, where he's your personal Twitter feed, where something happens out in the world and you find out about it in some other way and you're like, God, what's the deal, man? How come you didn't tell me? That's how close he was to God. He was in a showdown with 450 prophets of Baal. And in this passage where he brings fire down from heaven from God to light up a soaking wet stack of wood in front of all of these prophets, we have the most sarcastic passage in Scripture, which makes me feel great. That it's there and it's okay. He is being a jerk to these prophets of Baal. And I'm like, get him, buddy. He raises a child from the dead. He's fed by ravens and by angels. He warns the evil king of Israel, if you don't get right, I'm going to bring a drought. And the king didn't get right, so he prayed. And there was a drought for three years. And then when the drought was lifted, he won a foot race against a chariot across the country to go tell somebody about it, carried by the Holy Spirit. Elijah was amazing. And he had this disciple, a guy that was following him named Elisha. And Elisha had spent a good portion of Elijah's ministry with him, watching him. And Elijah had the respect of all of Israel and all the other prophets and all the other religious people in the country. And Elisha was his heir apparent. He was the one being trained to take over the ministry of Elijah when he moved on, very much like the disciples were being trained by Jesus to take over his ministry once he moved on. And it got to the end of Elijah's life. And they actually knew that this was the day that he was going to die. I don't know how they knew that, but they did. And so they go to a town, they walk to a town together. And when they get there, the prophets in that town come up to Elisha and they say, hey, you know your master is going to die today. And he says, yeah, I don't want to talk about it. And they kind of interact there and they go to another place. And it's the same interaction. And then they end up on the banks of the Jordan River. And there's 50 prophets there. And they come to Elisha and they say, hey, you know your master is going to die today. And he says, I know, I don't want to talk about it. So they go to the Jordan River. They're trying to get alone so that they can talk. They walk over the Jordan River. Listen to this. This is ridiculous. There's a river in the way. They want to be over there. So what's Elijah do? He takes off his cloak, he rolls it up, and he hits the water, and then the waters part, and they walk across. I don't know of any other miracle of convenience in the Bible but this one, where he's like, God, these are new sandals. I don't want to get them wet. Thanks. And then they walk across the river. They get to the other side, and it says that they're walking and talking together. And Elijah says, before I go, is there anything else I can do for you? Is there anything you want? Is there anything you need? And Elisha says, I want a double portion of the Spirit that is on you. See, Elisha recognized that Elijah had performed all these miracles and did all these great things, but they were not by his own power. They were by the power of the Spirit of God resting on him. They were by the Holy Spirit. And this is the same way, incidentally, that Jesus performed his miracles and lived his life. Everything that he did, the casting out demons, raising Lazarus from the dead, healing the sick, feeding the poor, everything that he did was through the power of the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that the disciples were going to be given access to, the same one that we are told we have. It was through the power of the Spirit. And Elisha recognized this power. So when Elijah said, what is it that you want? He said, give me a double portion of the Spirit that's on you. I want to be able to continue to do the ministry that you do. And Elijah's response is, you've asked for a very difficult thing. He says, I'll tell you what, soon I'm going to go up to heaven. And if you see me while I do it, then you'll receive a double portion of my spirit. So they continue to walk and talk. And in this amazing scene, a fiery chariot comes down from heaven, being pulled by fiery horses, and separates Elijah and Elisha. And catches Elijah and sweeps him up in a whirlwind, it says, up to heaven. You understand that Elijah wasn't made to experience death? It's just him and Enoch, one of the guys in the Bible who have never experienced death, those two. He was so righteous, loved God so much, so close to him, God didn't want him to have to experience it. So he sends a fiery chariot down to grab him and take him back up to heaven in a whirlwind. And as he's going back up to heaven, his cloak falls off of him and wafts back down to the ground where it lands on Elisha. And it was a symbolic transfer of the spirit that was on Elijah to the spirit of Elisha to empower him to continue the ministry of Elijah. And I've always loved that story. I've always thought it was amazing. I love the Old Testament. I love the stories and the narratives in the Old Testament. But it wasn't until I was going through the book of John in the fall, getting ready for the series in the spring, where I read this in chapter 16 and I went, oh my goodness. That story in 2 Kings chapter 2 is not there just for what happens in 2 Kings 2. You understand? It's a picture of Jesus transferring his spirit to the disciples. Elijah goes up to heaven still alive. Jesus ascends up to heaven still alive. A portion of his spirit descends onto Elisha so he can continue the ministry that Elijah has prepared him for. And this is what happens to the disciples. After Jesus dies and is resurrected in the beginning of Acts, we see Jesus go up into heaven and he tells them to wait on the gift of the spirit, the same gift that Elisha waited for. It transfers onto them in the form of flaming tongues. They receive the Spirit and they go out and they do ministry. That's the gift of the Spirit. And so one of the reasons that it's better for Jesus to go is because the Holy Spirit continues Jesus' ministry through us. You see? That's what he's doing with the disciples. That's what he was doing with us. The Holy Spirit continues Jesus' ministry through us. And that's the gifts of the Spirit. We're going to talk about those next week, what those are and why we have them. But this is what he was doing for the disciples. He had trained them for three years to prepare them to lead the church that he was going to leave behind, to lead the kingdom that he was going to establish here on earth. And they needed to be empowered. They needed to know what to say when they didn't know what to say. They needed to be able to cast out demons and perform miracles. They needed to be able to lead in ways that they were incapable of leading. They needed wisdom that they did not have. They needed to understand scriptures in ways that they did not understand it. So Jesus leaves behind the Spirit, just as Elijah did for Elisha, so that the disciples could continue the ministry of Jesus. And 2,000 years later, you sit here in a church. And at Grace, if you're a member here, we don't call you a member. We call you a partner. And we call you a partner because we believe that the church is an active organization whose job it is to advance forward the kingdom of God. And we're not looking for members to be a part of the club here. We're looking for partners to help us advance it. We believe that there's a job to be done and that God has assigned a portion of that job to Grace Raleigh, and we want to be faithful to the job that he's asked us to do. Furthermore, if you're a believer, if you're a Christian, the only reason that God doesn't nab you right up to heaven as soon as you accept him and deliver you into eternal bliss is so that you can stay here and build his kingdom and bring as many people possible with you on your way to heaven. The same reason he left the disciples behind, because we have work to do. So he leaves us his spirit to dwell in us, to continue his work through us. You see? And the Bible says that you have it. Ephesians tells us that if you're a believer, that you have received the spirit as a down payment or a guarantee on your salvation. Romans 8 tells us that the Spirit secures your salvation. He sanctifies you in the process of salvation, and he delivers you into that salvation in eternity. He's active in your life. So the first reason that it's better for Jesus to go is because when he does, we receive the Spirit that empowers us to continue the ministry that he's left behind for us. But that's not the only reason. It's not just outwardly focused. The other reason that it's better to have the Spirit is because the Holy Spirit continues Jesus' ministry to us. It doesn't just continue Jesus' ministry through us, it continues Jesus' ministry to us. This is the roles of the Spirit. And here's the amazing thing that I realized. As I was thinking through all the advantages of having Jesus physically present in our life, being able to ask Him any of those questions, can you explain the Bible to me? Can you comfort me? Can you help me understand this? Can you show me what to say? What I realized is Scripture pointedly describes the Holy Spirit in those ways. You know what one of the roles of the Holy Spirit is that we're going to talk about more? He's the illuminator. We can't understand the Bible without him active in our lives. We cannot. He explains this to us. We say it would be great to be able to turn to Jesus and go, what does this mean? We can. We said it would be great. He's called the comforter. We said it would be great to be able to turn to Jesus when we hurt and say, Jesus, I hurt. We can. He's the spirit. His name is paraclete, which means to come alongside, to walk through life with you, to help you, to advocate for you. Wouldn't it be great if we had somebody who could interpret our prayers for us and say what we really mean to God? We do, it's the Spirit. Wouldn't it be great if we had somebody who will show us what to say when we don't know what to say? We do, it's the Spirit. All the reasons that it would be great to have Jesus physically present in our life are true of the Spirit. We said if Jesus were with us, wouldn't we sin less? The Spirit is with us all the time, and one of his roles is to convict us when we've wandered outside of God's will. All the reasons that we would prefer to have the presence of Jesus in our life are fulfilled in the Spirit. So it's better that Jesus gives us the Spirit because now we don't have to go to a physical presence of Jesus because if he's next to you down the street, then he's not next to me. And I gotta either go to you or get him to come to me. But the Holy Spirit's with us all the time. And he continues Jesus' ministry through us by empowering us and he continues Jesus' ministry to us by fulfilling the roles of Jesus in our life personally. And all of this, so we're going to talk about that in the third week, the roles of the Spirit. The last week, we're going to tackle this question that if you're thinking with me, you should be asking, how do I synthesize what I've learned about the Spirit with what I've experienced of the Spirit? How do I synthesize what I've learned about the Spirit with what I've experienced of the Spirit? I'm told that God is with me. I'm told that God is in me. I'm told that God can help me speak in tongues when I need to do that. I'm told that He can do the miraculous, that he empowers me for his ministry. I'm told that I can turn to him and ask him to understand scripture at any time. I'm told that he comforts me. I'm told that he guides me. I'm told that he's right there and that he empowers me. I'm actually told that when he's in my life, the chains of sin are broken. I'm set free and I can live a new life without sin. That's what the Bible teaches. But I think one of the reasons that the Spirit to us sometimes is the forgotten God is because our experience with the Spirit doesn't always line up with what we've learned about the Spirit. And so how do we synthesize these things? And can I tell you something? You want to know why that one's last? Because I don't know yet. I don't know what I'm going to tell you. If you've been a believer for a long time and you have ideas, send them to me. Truly, this is going to be a group effort. But I felt like it was dishonest and disingenuine to do a series without analyzing that question that's been in my life for so long too. So I'll warn you in advance, the answer won't be complete, but it'll be the best that we can do. And it's a question that we have to answer as we talk about the Holy Spirit. So that's the series. How can it possibly be true that it's better for us that we don't have the physical presence of Jesus? Well, because he's with us all the time everywhere now through the Spirit. He empowers us to continue his ministry through us, and he continues Jesus's ministry to us. And then that begs the question, then how come what I know about the Spirit doesn't always sync up with what I've experienced of the Spirit? So for the next three weeks, we're going to tackle those three issues and hopefully leave here knowing a little bit more about the Spirit, acknowledging Him a little bit more, inviting Him and His presence and His influence into our life and seeing that played out a little bit more. So I'm going to pray for you through this series that you will see the Spirit living and active and influencing in your life in ways that you never have before simply because you're paying attention to Him and you're praying along with me that you would see His influence. I'm going to pray, but before I do, I want to remind you at the information table we, we have books called The Forgotten God, written by a guy named Francis Chan, all about the Holy Spirit. I found that book to be incredibly helpful, more helpful than anything I'm going to say to you for the next three weeks. So if you really want to dive into this, you can read that book. They're $10. There's a jar there in front of it. You can put the money in there if you want to steal a book from the church to go ahead. That's your deal. I don't really care. But they're $10 if you want, but take a book and read it while we're going through the series. All right, I'm going to pray, and then we're going to continue in our service. Father, we love you. Your spirit is welcome in our lives. We're sorry that we don't always understand it. We're sorry that we don't always welcome the spirit. We're sorry that we don't always understand the spirit. God, I'm sorry that I don't always seek to engage the spirit. I pray that as we move through this series together that we would be less intimidated and more in awe and wonder. God, may no part of you be forgotten by us. May we feel the influence of you and see the guiding of you through your spirit in our day-to-day lives even this week. In our parenting, in our work, in our hearts, in our conversations, in our going in and coming out. May we see the influence of the Spirit as you guide us in those things, Lord. It's in your Son's name that we ask these things. Amen.
Welcome to Grace. Thank you for being here. My name is Nate. I am one of the pastors here. To the moms, happy Mother's Day. We want to acknowledge you. So to the expectant moms, congratulations and hope. And to the new moms, congratulations and hope. And to the experienced moms, we are grateful to you. And to the young moms, we empathize with you. And to the hopeful moms, we pray for you and with you. And to the grieving moms we empathize with you and to the hopeful moms we pray for you and with you and to the grieving moms we offer you our condolences and our shoulders as well. So to all the moms represented in the room, we love you and we are grateful for you. As we launch into this new series called The Forgotten God, I wanted to start where Jesus starts in John chapter 16. We've been doing a series in John since February all through the spring, and so as we free up from that and launch into a series on the Holy Spirit, I thought it appropriate to go to John. So turn in your Bibles to John chapter 16, okay? And in that, in John chapter 16 and verse 7, we find this, what I think to be, an absurd statement. One of these statements that when you hear it, your first reaction is, that's not true. There's no way that's possibly true. Moms have said one of these things, okay? A lot of moms in the rooms, maybe not modern millennial moms because we have different ways now, but when I was a kid and I got in trouble, I got the belt. Before I got the belt, what did my mom tell me? This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you. I would always think, I'll trade you. If that's your concern, we can swap, like, you don't have to experience that pain. Let me save you from that, right? Like, when you're a kid and you hear that, you don't believe it. Like, that's not true. That's ridiculous. There's no way that's true. But then as you grow older, you realize that really is a true statement. I heard one of these absurd statements this week. I was so grateful that somebody in my small group gave me an example. I have somebody in my small group. I do a younger person's small group, young people, no kids. A guy named Connor. He is one of my current favorite humans. He's one of the most enthusiastic people. He does the announcements for us sometimes. He's going off to Colorado soon to be a medic out there for the summer. So anyways, I can say this, and he can't defend himself for a couple of months. He's at my house, and he and I got to talking about our love for sushi. I like sushi, and he likes sushi. And I'm like, oh, well, you got to tell me, like, what's the place? Like, where's the good place around here? We found one we like. We haven't found one we love. Where's the place around here? And he was like, actually, the best sushi. You want to know where it is? I'm like, yes, please. I want to know where it is. He goes, when I go home to Boone, North Carolina, and I stopped him right there. Get out of here. Don't tell me that the best sushi is in Boone. The sushi hub of the East Coast is in Boone, North Carolina. I'm sure it is, Connor. And he's like, no, no, no. And he keeps telling me how great it is. And I keep telling him how redneck he is, that the best sushi he can find is in Boone, North Carolina. And now listen, I didn't believe him at all. It felt absurd to me. And I don't know what's broken in me that I feel the need to correct him right away. And I can't just accept like, oh, that's good sushi. Like that's my fault. Okay. I'm a gross person for that. But when he said it, I just couldn't accept that that could possibly be true. Right? And maybe it is. Maybe it's delicious sushi. I don't know. But in John chapter 16, Jesus makes a statement that when he says it had to be, to me, patently absurd. We would respond to that like, this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you, or that the best sushi in the eastern coast is found in Boone, North Carolina. Like, that's how we would respond to this, I think. This is what Jesus says. I want us to see it together. And a little bit of context for this verse, what's going on here. John chapters 13 through 17 represent a portion of scripture that's referred to as the farewell discourse. They're at the last supper. They've been doing Jesus and the disciples are eating dinner together. It's the last night they're going to spend together. They've been doing life together for three years. Jesus has been pouring into them, teaching them, showing them how to be disciples and how to do ministry. And he just kind of does this download of important information on them at the end of his life. And in the middle of this, in chapter 16, Jesus is talking to them about the fact that he's going to go away. I'm not going to be here all the time. I'm going to leave you, which is a bummer for the disciples because they're expecting to be with Jesus for the rest of their life. But he's telling them and trying to get them ready for, I'm going to go away, like I'm going to die. I'm not going to always be here. And then this translation, the ESV calls the Holy Spirit the helper, but some translations call him the comforter. So the point of this verse is Jesus is saying, guys, I got to go away, but it's better for you. It's to your advantage that I actually go from you, that you don't have my physical presence with you, because if I don't go, you'll never receive the helper or you'll never receive the comforter, is what he's telling you. And this is how Jesus chooses to introduce the Holy Spirit to the disciples and really to us. And we're calling this series, as Jesus refers to him here as the helper, and we begin to talk about the Holy Spirit, we're calling this series The Forgotten God, because in a lot of ways, that's really what the Holy Spirit is. If you're a Christian, if you would call God your Father and Jesus your Savior, then you believe in a triune God, a God that is three parts, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. They are all God. They are all part of God. I don't know how to explain the Trinity to you. I went to undergrad for theology. I got a master's degree in theology. I've been in ministry for 10 years. I've read books on it. And all I can say is, I don't know how to explain the Trinity to you. But I know that it exists. I know that it's a thing. I know the Bible talks about it and that all three parts are equal, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And we in our churches, large swaths of the church, kind of forget about the Holy Spirit. We talk a lot about God the Father. We pray to Him. We worship Him. We sing songs to Him. We talk a lot about God the Son. We preach about Him. We spend 12 weeks going through the stories about Him. But the Spirit, sometimes we sing to the Spirit. Sometimes we refer to the Spirit maybe without knowing it. The video that we watched before I came up here talking about your presence is welcome here, that's represented by the Spirit. Maybe we don't know that. But very often, particularly in conservative church circles, we forget about the Holy Spirit. Now, I have theories on this. I think that we're afraid of what we don't understand. And if we don't understand something, that we tend to just avoid it. We can kind of understand the idea of a son. We can kind of understand the idea of a father. And so those parts of God, we can kind of grasp a little bit, and we see them a little bit more in Scripture than we see the Spirit. But the Spirit is unknown. The Bible describes it as the wind. You don't know when it's going to come or go. We're told that the Spirit is in us, that you are the temple. As a believer, you are the temple of the Holy Spirit, that you actually have God in you, which is a really difficult thing to understand or to grasp. You're told that the Holy Spirit empowers you in ways that we're going to explore in this series. And it's, if we're honest, confusing and sometimes intimidating. And I think because of that, it makes us uncomfortable and we tend to avoid the things that we don't understand that make us uncomfortable. And so sometimes we forget the Spirit. But Jesus introduces the Spirit by making what I think is kind of an absurd statement on its face. And so what I want to do today is ask about this statement, how can Jesus' claim be true? How can Jesus' claim be true? How can that possibly be true, that it's actually better for the disciples and better for us to not have the physical presence of Jesus with us, but instead have the Holy Spirit or the helper or the comforter? How can that possibly be true? As we answer that, we're going to draw two conclusions today that each launch their own question. If that's true, then what about this? And if that's true, then what about this? And then those two answers should spark in us a natural question. And those three questions are going to make up the rest of the series. So I'll tell you, at the beginning, you're not going to walk home with the big to-do list today or with the thing that's really going to change your thinking. The take-home from today is to continue to attend and learn about the rest of the roles of the Spirit. Today is a setup for the series as we learn about the Holy Spirit. Now here's why I think that this is an absurd statement on its face. I would have expected Peter. Peter was the one, he was the ready, fire, aim guy. He was the one that spoke before he thought. He just said whatever he felt. That was Peter. I would have expected Peter when Jesus said, it is actually better for you that I go. I would have expected him to interrupt Jesus like I interrupted Connor about the boon sushi, right? Come on, that can't possibly be true. That can't be right. Because think about this. The more I thought about this, the more I felt it was, it had to be difficult for the disciples to accept what Jesus is saying. If you're a believer, if you call Jesus your Savior, how much different would your life be if Jesus were physically present next to you all day, every day, like he was for the disciples? They woke up next to that dude in the same room as that dude, at least in the same house. They spent every day with him. He would go off and pray for a little while, but he would always come back and find him. His physical presence, he was ever present. He was there all the time. If you're a Christian, how much different would your life be if Jesus were right there next to you all the time? Think about that. Can you imagine yourself in a situation where maybe you didn't know what to say? You're talking to your kid, and they ask you a really hard question. You're like, gosh, I don't know. You're in a Bible study and somebody asks a question. You're with a friend. You're just getting a beer or a coffee and they ask a question that's really difficult to answer. What do I do about my marriage? I feel broken down about this and you don't know the right thing to say. What do we do about our child and you don't know the right thing to say? What if Jesus were right there next to you and you could look at him and be like, oh Jesus, what do you think? What should I say? What if you could do that? What if when you're reading the Bible, if you've ever tried to read the Bible, it can be difficult to understand sometimes. And for a lot of us, that's why we don't read it more is because we read it and we're like, gosh, I kind of understand nine words in this book. And then we just kind of put it down and we move on to the next thing. We don't really get what it's talking about. What if when we read the Bible, we could be like, Jesus, I do not understand this part. Can you come here for a second and show me this? That'd be amazing. There's this scene in Luke. Luke's the only one that records it. When Jesus comes back from the dead, he's resurrected, there's these two guys walking on a road to a town called Emmaus, and Jesus appears to them. And they don't know who he is. He's just a dude walking next to them. And it says that Jesus began to explain to them all of the scriptures, which to them was the Old Testament, and how it related to him. Listen, that's the greatest Bible study of all time. If you said, Nate, you can go to any moment in history, it's not hyperbole to say, I very well may go to that moment and be like, can I just walk with Jesus to a mass? I would love to hear him explain how the Old Testament points to him. I would love to just listen to Jesus as he taught about the Bible. Can you imagine? And what if he was right there next to you? Anytime you read it, you'd be like, hey, I don't understand this part. Can you help? What if when you were looking for a church, he could come to church with you? And halfway through the sermon, you could be like, you like this guy? Yeah, me neither. We'll keep looking. But what if he could just tell you? What if he could tell you like, no, he's no good, but man, they need you. Like, stick around. Wouldn't it be great to know for sure? What if he didn't know what to do or a decision to make? Do I take the promotion? Do I take the job? Or do I turn it down? Do I look for a new job? Do I go back to work? What if you could just look at Jesus and be like, what do I do? How about this? You think you'd sin less? Like maybe by a small amount? Are you kidding me? Of course. You'd start to cut somebody off in traffic and Jesus would be in the passenger seat and you'd kind of look at him and be like, you're right. Not that big of a deal, I guess. You created all of this. I guess it's okay. Imagine how much kinder, more gracious you would be. Maybe not you, but me. It would change things. If you're here this morning and you're not a believer, you came to church for mom. Thank you. I'll try to go fast. But just imagine if there is. If there is a God and he was personified in Jesus and he created the universe and he were right next to you, how much that would change things for you. What if you were hurting, and life was really hard, and you could just turn and lean into him, and just say, Jesus, this one's tough. Can you just be with me for a second? And he offers perfect peace. That's what the disciples had. You understand? That's what they had every day. And then Jesus says, you know what? It's better for you that you don't have that anymore. So the only possible thing we can ask is, how in the world is that true? It's what we wrote down on our paper. How can that claim be true? How is that possible? And so what we're going to do today is try to offer the best answer we can to that question and then understand that that's going to spark more questions that we're going to spend the rest of the series answering. To answer that question of how can it possibly be true that Jesus, that it's better for Jesus to go when we receive the Spirit and we no longer have the physical presence of Jesus in our lives, what I want to do, and you didn't see this one coming, is turn to 2 Kings 2 in the Old Testament. So if you have a Bible, you can turn there and make sure that I'm not making this story up. But it's about two guys who I think are the two most underrated people in all the Bible. Elijah and Elisha. They're amazing. Now, some Christians don't know that those are two different people. I've actually talked to people about that. I don't want to belittle you for that. I just think it's funny because we get it confused sometimes. And very few people know which one came first and which one did what. So I'm going to help you out here. This is just an aside. I thought about having Steve make a slide for this, but I thought it's probably a misuse of my authority in the church to text him on a Friday to do work on his off day for a joke slide. So I just didn't do it. All right. But I wanted to do the alphabet and then show you where they landed in the alphabet. Elijah has a J in it, which comes before an S. Elisha. All right. So that's how we remember it. Elijah comes before Elisha because J comes before S. And now listen, offer me grace. I've rehearsed my sermons before I do them, and you guys think I'm doing them off the cuff. I'm not. I've practiced this. And then every time I do it, I get them confused as I'm telling the story. So just give me grace and don't make fun of me, okay? You get up here and you do it, all right? It's hard. But we have Elisha and Elijah, and they are two of the most underrated people in the Bible. I think because they don't have a book named after them or something, but they're remarkable. Their faith is amazing. Elijah was this incredible man of God. Do you know that one time somebody died? A widow's son dies, and Elijah knew the widow. And somebody comes to him and tells him, hey, so-and-so's son has died. Do you know what Elijah's response was? God, why didn't you tell me? How come I'm finding out like this? Can you imagine being that close to God, where he's your personal Twitter feed, where something happens out in the world and you find out about it in some other way and you're like, God, what's the deal, man? How come you didn't tell me? That's how close he was to God. He was in a showdown with 450 prophets of Baal. And in this passage where he brings fire down from heaven from God to light up a soaking wet stack of wood in front of all of these prophets, we have the most sarcastic passage in Scripture, which makes me feel great. That it's there and it's okay. He is being a jerk to these prophets of Baal. And I'm like, get him, buddy. He raises a child from the dead. He's fed by ravens and by angels. He warns the evil king of Israel, if you don't get right, I'm going to bring a drought. And the king didn't get right, so he prayed. And there was a drought for three years. And then when the drought was lifted, he won a foot race against a chariot across the country to go tell somebody about it, carried by the Holy Spirit. Elijah was amazing. And he had this disciple, a guy that was following him named Elisha. And Elisha had spent a good portion of Elijah's ministry with him, watching him. And Elijah had the respect of all of Israel and all the other prophets and all the other religious people in the country. And Elisha was his heir apparent. He was the one being trained to take over the ministry of Elijah when he moved on, very much like the disciples were being trained by Jesus to take over his ministry once he moved on. And it got to the end of Elijah's life. And they actually knew that this was the day that he was going to die. I don't know how they knew that, but they did. And so they go to a town, they walk to a town together. And when they get there, the prophets in that town come up to Elisha and they say, hey, you know your master is going to die today. And he says, yeah, I don't want to talk about it. And they kind of interact there and they go to another place. And it's the same interaction. And then they end up on the banks of the Jordan River. And there's 50 prophets there. And they come to Elisha and they say, hey, you know your master is going to die today. And he says, I know, I don't want to talk about it. So they go to the Jordan River. They're trying to get alone so that they can talk. They walk over the Jordan River. Listen to this. This is ridiculous. There's a river in the way. They want to be over there. So what's Elijah do? He takes off his cloak, he rolls it up, and he hits the water, and then the waters part, and they walk across. I don't know of any other miracle of convenience in the Bible but this one, where he's like, God, these are new sandals. I don't want to get them wet. Thanks. And then they walk across the river. They get to the other side, and it says that they're walking and talking together. And Elijah says, before I go, is there anything else I can do for you? Is there anything you want? Is there anything you need? And Elisha says, I want a double portion of the Spirit that is on you. See, Elisha recognized that Elijah had performed all these miracles and did all these great things, but they were not by his own power. They were by the power of the Spirit of God resting on him. They were by the Holy Spirit. And this is the same way, incidentally, that Jesus performed his miracles and lived his life. Everything that he did, the casting out demons, raising Lazarus from the dead, healing the sick, feeding the poor, everything that he did was through the power of the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that the disciples were going to be given access to, the same one that we are told we have. It was through the power of the Spirit. And Elisha recognized this power. So when Elijah said, what is it that you want? He said, give me a double portion of the Spirit that's on you. I want to be able to continue to do the ministry that you do. And Elijah's response is, you've asked for a very difficult thing. He says, I'll tell you what, soon I'm going to go up to heaven. And if you see me while I do it, then you'll receive a double portion of my spirit. So they continue to walk and talk. And in this amazing scene, a fiery chariot comes down from heaven, being pulled by fiery horses, and separates Elijah and Elisha. And catches Elijah and sweeps him up in a whirlwind, it says, up to heaven. You understand that Elijah wasn't made to experience death? It's just him and Enoch, one of the guys in the Bible who have never experienced death, those two. He was so righteous, loved God so much, so close to him, God didn't want him to have to experience it. So he sends a fiery chariot down to grab him and take him back up to heaven in a whirlwind. And as he's going back up to heaven, his cloak falls off of him and wafts back down to the ground where it lands on Elisha. And it was a symbolic transfer of the spirit that was on Elijah to the spirit of Elisha to empower him to continue the ministry of Elijah. And I've always loved that story. I've always thought it was amazing. I love the Old Testament. I love the stories and the narratives in the Old Testament. But it wasn't until I was going through the book of John in the fall, getting ready for the series in the spring, where I read this in chapter 16 and I went, oh my goodness. That story in 2 Kings chapter 2 is not there just for what happens in 2 Kings 2. You understand? It's a picture of Jesus transferring his spirit to the disciples. Elijah goes up to heaven still alive. Jesus ascends up to heaven still alive. A portion of his spirit descends onto Elisha so he can continue the ministry that Elijah has prepared him for. And this is what happens to the disciples. After Jesus dies and is resurrected in the beginning of Acts, we see Jesus go up into heaven and he tells them to wait on the gift of the spirit, the same gift that Elisha waited for. It transfers onto them in the form of flaming tongues. They receive the Spirit and they go out and they do ministry. That's the gift of the Spirit. And so one of the reasons that it's better for Jesus to go is because the Holy Spirit continues Jesus' ministry through us. You see? That's what he's doing with the disciples. That's what he was doing with us. The Holy Spirit continues Jesus' ministry through us. And that's the gifts of the Spirit. We're going to talk about those next week, what those are and why we have them. But this is what he was doing for the disciples. He had trained them for three years to prepare them to lead the church that he was going to leave behind, to lead the kingdom that he was going to establish here on earth. And they needed to be empowered. They needed to know what to say when they didn't know what to say. They needed to be able to cast out demons and perform miracles. They needed to be able to lead in ways that they were incapable of leading. They needed wisdom that they did not have. They needed to understand scriptures in ways that they did not understand it. So Jesus leaves behind the Spirit, just as Elijah did for Elisha, so that the disciples could continue the ministry of Jesus. And 2,000 years later, you sit here in a church. And at Grace, if you're a member here, we don't call you a member. We call you a partner. And we call you a partner because we believe that the church is an active organization whose job it is to advance forward the kingdom of God. And we're not looking for members to be a part of the club here. We're looking for partners to help us advance it. We believe that there's a job to be done and that God has assigned a portion of that job to Grace Raleigh, and we want to be faithful to the job that he's asked us to do. Furthermore, if you're a believer, if you're a Christian, the only reason that God doesn't nab you right up to heaven as soon as you accept him and deliver you into eternal bliss is so that you can stay here and build his kingdom and bring as many people possible with you on your way to heaven. The same reason he left the disciples behind, because we have work to do. So he leaves us his spirit to dwell in us, to continue his work through us. You see? And the Bible says that you have it. Ephesians tells us that if you're a believer, that you have received the spirit as a down payment or a guarantee on your salvation. Romans 8 tells us that the Spirit secures your salvation. He sanctifies you in the process of salvation, and he delivers you into that salvation in eternity. He's active in your life. So the first reason that it's better for Jesus to go is because when he does, we receive the Spirit that empowers us to continue the ministry that he's left behind for us. But that's not the only reason. It's not just outwardly focused. The other reason that it's better to have the Spirit is because the Holy Spirit continues Jesus' ministry to us. It doesn't just continue Jesus' ministry through us, it continues Jesus' ministry to us. This is the roles of the Spirit. And here's the amazing thing that I realized. As I was thinking through all the advantages of having Jesus physically present in our life, being able to ask Him any of those questions, can you explain the Bible to me? Can you comfort me? Can you help me understand this? Can you show me what to say? What I realized is Scripture pointedly describes the Holy Spirit in those ways. You know what one of the roles of the Holy Spirit is that we're going to talk about more? He's the illuminator. We can't understand the Bible without him active in our lives. We cannot. He explains this to us. We say it would be great to be able to turn to Jesus and go, what does this mean? We can. We said it would be great. He's called the comforter. We said it would be great to be able to turn to Jesus when we hurt and say, Jesus, I hurt. We can. He's the spirit. His name is paraclete, which means to come alongside, to walk through life with you, to help you, to advocate for you. Wouldn't it be great if we had somebody who could interpret our prayers for us and say what we really mean to God? We do, it's the Spirit. Wouldn't it be great if we had somebody who will show us what to say when we don't know what to say? We do, it's the Spirit. All the reasons that it would be great to have Jesus physically present in our life are true of the Spirit. We said if Jesus were with us, wouldn't we sin less? The Spirit is with us all the time, and one of his roles is to convict us when we've wandered outside of God's will. All the reasons that we would prefer to have the presence of Jesus in our life are fulfilled in the Spirit. So it's better that Jesus gives us the Spirit because now we don't have to go to a physical presence of Jesus because if he's next to you down the street, then he's not next to me. And I gotta either go to you or get him to come to me. But the Holy Spirit's with us all the time. And he continues Jesus' ministry through us by empowering us and he continues Jesus' ministry to us by fulfilling the roles of Jesus in our life personally. And all of this, so we're going to talk about that in the third week, the roles of the Spirit. The last week, we're going to tackle this question that if you're thinking with me, you should be asking, how do I synthesize what I've learned about the Spirit with what I've experienced of the Spirit? How do I synthesize what I've learned about the Spirit with what I've experienced of the Spirit? I'm told that God is with me. I'm told that God is in me. I'm told that God can help me speak in tongues when I need to do that. I'm told that He can do the miraculous, that he empowers me for his ministry. I'm told that I can turn to him and ask him to understand scripture at any time. I'm told that he comforts me. I'm told that he guides me. I'm told that he's right there and that he empowers me. I'm actually told that when he's in my life, the chains of sin are broken. I'm set free and I can live a new life without sin. That's what the Bible teaches. But I think one of the reasons that the Spirit to us sometimes is the forgotten God is because our experience with the Spirit doesn't always line up with what we've learned about the Spirit. And so how do we synthesize these things? And can I tell you something? You want to know why that one's last? Because I don't know yet. I don't know what I'm going to tell you. If you've been a believer for a long time and you have ideas, send them to me. Truly, this is going to be a group effort. But I felt like it was dishonest and disingenuine to do a series without analyzing that question that's been in my life for so long too. So I'll warn you in advance, the answer won't be complete, but it'll be the best that we can do. And it's a question that we have to answer as we talk about the Holy Spirit. So that's the series. How can it possibly be true that it's better for us that we don't have the physical presence of Jesus? Well, because he's with us all the time everywhere now through the Spirit. He empowers us to continue his ministry through us, and he continues Jesus's ministry to us. And then that begs the question, then how come what I know about the Spirit doesn't always sync up with what I've experienced of the Spirit? So for the next three weeks, we're going to tackle those three issues and hopefully leave here knowing a little bit more about the Spirit, acknowledging Him a little bit more, inviting Him and His presence and His influence into our life and seeing that played out a little bit more. So I'm going to pray for you through this series that you will see the Spirit living and active and influencing in your life in ways that you never have before simply because you're paying attention to Him and you're praying along with me that you would see His influence. I'm going to pray, but before I do, I want to remind you at the information table we, we have books called The Forgotten God, written by a guy named Francis Chan, all about the Holy Spirit. I found that book to be incredibly helpful, more helpful than anything I'm going to say to you for the next three weeks. So if you really want to dive into this, you can read that book. They're $10. There's a jar there in front of it. You can put the money in there if you want to steal a book from the church to go ahead. That's your deal. I don't really care. But they're $10 if you want, but take a book and read it while we're going through the series. All right, I'm going to pray, and then we're going to continue in our service. Father, we love you. Your spirit is welcome in our lives. We're sorry that we don't always understand it. We're sorry that we don't always welcome the spirit. We're sorry that we don't always understand the spirit. God, I'm sorry that I don't always seek to engage the spirit. I pray that as we move through this series together that we would be less intimidated and more in awe and wonder. God, may no part of you be forgotten by us. May we feel the influence of you and see the guiding of you through your spirit in our day-to-day lives even this week. In our parenting, in our work, in our hearts, in our conversations, in our going in and coming out. May we see the influence of the Spirit as you guide us in those things, Lord. It's in your Son's name that we ask these things. Amen.
My name is Nate. I am one of the pastors here. Thanks for being here on this very hot July Sunday. Hopefully it'll cool down and we can get back outside soon. This is the second part of our series called Obscure Heroes. To know the Bible, to be around church culture at all, is to know some of the main characters of the Bible, some of the people that are a little bit more prominent in the Bible. Even if you've not spent any time in church at all, we've heard of David and of Moses and of Paul, but there are some other people in the Bible that give us great examples of behavior or character that we should emulate that are worth exploring. And so we're investing our summer series in looking at some of these heroes that are a little bit lesser known in the Bible. Now, full disclosure, when I told Jen, my wife, what I was going to be preaching about this week and who I was going to be preaching about, a guy named Naaman in 2 Kings 5. So if you have a Bible, you can turn there. If you don't, there's one in front of you. But we're going to be in 2 Kings 5 today looking at the story of Naaman. And so she pointed out, and I should tell you, that he is not really a hero. Okay? Like he's not, what he does isn't really great. So I told her what I was going to be preaching about and she goes, well, he's not really like that heroic. And I said, well, nobody cares. It's just like, it's just obscure heroes, but this is an obscure story. What's it matter? She was like, it matters. So if it matters to you, I apologize. I beg your forgiveness. All right. But I'm just not going to, I'm not going to check that box today. So this is more like an obscure story. Nonetheless, I think we can learn a lot from the example of Naaman. So if you look in second Kings chapter five, there is a general by the name of Naaman. He's the head general in the Syrian army, which was a really powerful army at this point in history. They're far more powerful than Israel. Israel is like a third world country at this point in history. They're really not impactful on the geopolitical scale. The Syrian army is, and Naaman is the general of this army. And so you have to figure, if you just think about in the ancient world ways to get famous, that pretty much the king in general is it. They didn't have Instagram. They didn't have any influencers back then. So like Naaman, that was all you got. So he had risen to prominence. He was at least regionally famous. If not, at the time, world famous. He was a heavy hitter. He was an important dude. And Naaman comes down with leprosy. We see leprosy through the Bible. It's in the Old Testament and it's in the New Testament. Leprosy was a disease that you got in your skin. I think you can still get it now. It's just we've fixed it. But you can still get it in your skin, and it begins to eat away at your skin, slowly but surely, killing you from the outside in. And to get leprosy was to receive a death sentence. If you contracted leprosy, somehow it was eventually going to eat away at you enough that it was going to kill you. Leprosy was certain death. And it didn't happen a lot in the upper echelons of the socioeconomic scale, but somehow or another, Naaman, maybe from his time spent out on the battlefield in foreign countries and things like that, Naaman contracted leprosy. And of course he feels like he's going to die. But on their last conquest through Israel, they brought back a little Jewish girl to serve Naaman's wife. And she hears that Naaman has leprosy, and she says in 2 Kings 5, she says, Oh, that my Lord would go, my Lord Naaman would go to Israel. There's a prophet there who can heal him. Now, she's talking about a man named Elisha. In the books of 1 and 2 Kings, there's two incredible prophets. I've said there's some of the most underrated figures in the Bible, Elijah and Elisha. One day I want to do a series through their lives, maybe next summer. It's just phenomenal stories. They were tremendous men of faith that God entrusted with tremendous power for the miracles that they would do. And apparently he had cured people before, even of leprosy. And so this little girl that they took back from Israel says, oh, that my Lord would go back to Israel and find Elisha, he could heal her. He could heal him. And so Naaman's wife goes to Naaman and says, hey, there's a prophet back in Israel that can heal you. Like, you should go back there. And so he decides to go. And I wonder, and I try to do this as I read stories in the Bible, and I would encourage you guys to do it too. Sometimes if we read stories in the Bible, if you were to open up your Bible and read 1 and 2 Kings, the stories move so fast. The narrative moves so quickly. There's so little nuance. It's just this happened, this happened, this happened, and then this is the end of the story. So I like to try to slow down and read the humanity into things and figure out what would I be thinking, what would I be feeling if I were in that situation. And I think that when we do this, when you'll read it on your own and you'll put your humanity into what's happening there, I think what you'll get is that the story starts to come alive for you a little bit. And so Naaman hears the testimony of this Hebrew girl and decides that he's going to travel hundreds of miles away to a third world country that's going to take him several weeks to do to go see a faith healer in the backwoods of Israel. Now what would it take for you to do that? If you got a diagnosis that nobody wants, it was a death sentence, you're definitely going to pass away. This is going to claim your life. But if you travel to the Dominican, to the back of a mountain there, there's a faith healer and he's going to make you feel better. How desperate would you have to be to go? Naaman went. He's not a believer. He doesn't believe in the Hebrew God. It's just a weird faith healer in the backwoods of a third world country, and he goes. And before he goes, what does he do? Naaman is so very American. He packs up all of his stuff, and he puts together a small fortune, some changes of clothes, which apparently are a big deal. Like if you wanted to be wealthy, have two jackets. So he puts together some change of clothes to offer to the person that's going to heal him and to the people around that person. He gathers together some livestock and some gold, and he takes a small fortune with him. Because when you get sick, what do we do? If you're diagnosed with something tough, what do you do? You marshal all your resources, you pull everything together, and you go to the best place that's going to treat you, and then you compensate them for their treatment. That's what Naaman's going to do. So he loads everything up, heads to Israel. He gets to Israel, and he tells his king he's going to go. He asks permission from the king of Syria, hey, there's a prophet in Israel, can I go see him? King of Syria says, yeah, sure, go ahead. Gives gives him a letter to carry with him to present. So he goes to Israel. He goes and he sees the king. And listen, what kind of a dude do you have to be to get the audience of a king when you just wander into a country? You have to be a big deal. So the king hears Naaman's here. Oh no, what does the general of the Syrian army want? And Naaman presents him with a letter. And the letter's from the king of Syria, and it says, be pleased to heal my servant Naaman of leprosy. And the Bible says that the king went and tore his clothes, because at this time in history, that's how you express anguish and sadness and despair and anxiety. And I've always wondered if these people had like spare, like tearing clothes that they got from Walmart. Like when I got sad, I would be like, time out. And then I would put on those things and probably pre-snip them and then tear them and then put on my nice kingly garb and be like, okay, that's terrible for those clothes. I don't know what he did. Maybe he just, he could tear outfits all he wanted. But he goes and he tears his clothes and he expresses this great sadness. Why has the king of Syria put this on me that he expects me to provoke him for war? Because it's an impossible task. I can't heal somebody from leprosy, much less the general of the most powerful army in the region right now. There's nothing I can do about this. This is a death sentence for him too. It's an excuse when Naaman goes there and he eventually dies because the king doesn't cure him. Then the Syrians can get ticked off at Israel and go sweeping through there again. And so the king, he's anxious. He is worried. He is in anguish. And word gets to Elisha, the chief prophet, that the king has gotten this letter. So he sends word to the king and he says, I've heard that you've torn your clothes. I hope it was the cheap ones that you got from Walmart. If you would just send Naaman to me, I'll take care of it. Send Naaman to me, I'll heal him. So the king says, okay, here's Naaman's address. You go and, or here's Elisha's address. You go and you see him. And I love how Naaman arrives. He goes to Elisha's house and it says, he arrived on his horses and chariots. So he brings his whole entourage with him. He arrives on his chariots. Nobody in Israel can afford a chariot. Israel has zero chariots. And so this is a huge deal. This is like when they line the streets for some political figure and on the line of Tahos come through and you're like, I don't know where, but somewhere in there, there's somebody that's important. So Naaman creates his own processional and arrives at the gate of Elisha's house, almost with this sense of, I'm here, congratulations. And he tells them, I'm here. And what does Elisha do? I love what Elisha does. What would you do? What would you do if one of the most famous people in the country showed up at your house, showed up at your office, and whoever works the front desk came to you, and they're like, excuse me, Nate, Peyton Manning's here to see you. What would you do? I don't know. I thought all week about who do I say that everybody recognizes as famous? I don't know what to say. Michael Jordan, Peyton Manning, whoever you want, Justin Timberlake, take your pick. Somebody shows up, they're super famous and they want to talk to you. What would you do? I would be like, Aaron, Steve, Kyle, which is, that's the staff here. Sorry, I'm out. I got to go talk to them. Like, I got to, I got to go see them. I would, hello, I'm the senior pastor. It's good to meet you. I'm glad that you're here to see me. Right? Of course, we would soak that up, wouldn't we? What's Elisha do? He grabs an intern. Hey, name is at the gate. Would you go tell him that if he'll dip in the Jordan River seven times that he'll be healed and he'll be good to go? Like, what's Elisha working on? Like a proposal? Like, I'm busy. But he just says, hey, go tell Naaman if he'll dip in the river seven times he'll be healed. And so the intern goes down and tells this to Naaman. And this is how Naaman receives it. If you have a Bible, you can look in 2 Kings 5. I love what he does. Verse 10 says, and Elisha sent a messenger to him saying, go and wash in the Jordan seven times and your flesh will be restored and you shall be clean. He doesn't even let him in. He's like, there's no reason for you to come in here and all that stuff. Just go to the Jordan River. You'll turned and went away in a rage. Naaman's ticked. He's ticked. I remember when I first got out of college, or when I was finishing up college, I sold cars. People don't know this about me, but I sold cars for like six months. And I was on the phone with a guy one day. He was a good old southern boy. And we were kind of going back and forth on the price of a truck. You know, he's got to ask for a price, and I've got to hang on. Let me go check with my manager, and I come back with the price. And it's a whole deal. It's real silly. And so we're going back and forth. And finally he goes, listen, son, am I talking to the man or am I talking to the boy? Because I need to be talking to the man. And I had to admit, I was not the man at Hayes Chrysler. Sir, you are talking to the boy. It was a very low moment in my life. If you know me well, you know that I need more of those and you do not feel sorry for me. And I had to admit, I'm not the decision maker here. That's what Naaman thought. Am I talking to the man or am I talking to the boy? He wanted to talk to the man. He wanted to be made over. He wanted to be fussed over. He wanted Elisha to come out and, oh, it's so great to have you. I'm honored to heal you. And then he wanted the chance after the healing to be able to offer his small fortune, right? He wanted to be able to offer a one-for-one exchange. None of us likes to get help without being able to reciprocate that help, without being able to feel like we in some way earned this or deserve this. He wanted to be able to compensate Elisha, and now he's robbed of that chance. He's not treated like he expects to be treated. Elisha is supposed to make this big scene and wave his hand over him, and I call on the name of the Lord and yada, yada. And he's like, no, just, you're good. Just see the water over there? Just go get in it. And he's going, I traveled hundreds of miles and brought all this stuff for this? You kidding me? I have rivers back home, and they're better than this backwoods river. And so he storms off. He takes his ball and goes home, and he sulks like a little kid. And a little while later, his servants go to him, and it's a loose paraphrase, but essentially they say, Naaman, what do you have to lose, man? You're out here. Just go do it. Just go do what he says. And I can imagine them saying, like, what's the worst that can happen? You get some Jordan River on you. You go home and you rinse off in the Farper. It'll be all right. Just do it. And so he goes after he's calmed down. He dips in the Jordan River, and he's healed of his leprosy. When he sees that he's healed of his leprosy, he's overjoyed. He rushes back to Elisha, and he tries to give him all the stuff. He tries to compensate him. Thank you. Here's this fortune that I brought. And Elisha's like, I don't need it. I didn't do that for your stuff, man. I just did that for you. God told me to heal you. I healed you. I don't need it. And he keeps trying to give it away to whoever will take it. And then a guy named Gehazi, one of Elisha's servants comes to him and he's like, actually, you know, on second thought, Elisha really does need the stuff. And Naaman gives him the stuff. And then Gehazi gets in trouble for taking the stuff. And that's a whole separate story if you keep reading on. But Naaman responds to this healing with a joyful and generous love. Here, here, take all my stuff. This was given to me. I want to be able to give this to you. And he leaves that space professing that there is one true God, and it is the God of Israel. We get a convert out of this interaction. Now, this is a good story, and it's a good one to unpack in the Old Testament. But how does it apply to us? I think we can begin to understand how it applies to us when we realize that leprosy in the Bible is always a picture of sin. We see leprosy in the Old Testament and the New Testament. When we see it in the New Testament, generally Jesus is interacting with them. If you contracted leprosy, you were sent to a colony. You were quarantined. You were no longer allowed to interact with general society. You were unclean. You were sent to a colony, and you were sent there to die. Can you imagine how depressing leper colonies would be? And Jesus walked into these places and he touched and he touched and he touched and he healed and he healed and he healed in the same way that Jesus walks through a sinful world and he heals and he heals and he restores. The picture of leprosy in the Bible is always a picture of sin. Leprosy was a disease that once you got it, it may have started small. In the story of Naaman, it says that he expected Elisha to come out and wave his hand over the place. So maybe leprosy was just starting to appear. Maybe it was on his arm and he could wrap it up. Maybe it was on his ribs and he could cover it up. Maybe it was in a place where if you looked at him, you didn't know that he had it, but he knew that he had it. And isn't that how sin works? When we have things in our lives that don't need to be there, sometimes we can cover it up. We can wrap it up. We can keep it from other people. And sin, just so we're clear, sometimes that word is misunderstood and it's used to make people feel guilty. But really, sin is anything that happens when we elevate our judgment in our life to equivocate God's judgment in our life. And when we say, no, God, I don't think that I want to do the thing that you want me to do. I'm going to do the thing that makes the most sense to me. That's sin. Whatever that is, whatever that looks like, whatever form that takes on. And when we get that, when we sin, just like leprosy, it is a disease that eats away at us and leads to certain death. Isn't this what Jesus, isn't this what God said in Genesis? He told Adam and Eve that if you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that you will surely die. And they ate of it and they didn't drop dead. So either God's a liar or he's not talking about physical death. He's talking about a spiritual death. And what he's saying is, if you elevate your judgment to mine and you throw off my lordship in your life and you become your own little God, then you have eternally separated yourself from me. That's a spiritual death. So sin, just like leprosy, leads to a certain death. Leprosy leads to a physical death. Sin leads to a spiritual death. But there's a parallel there. And in this story, Naaman is healed, but we should think about it as salvation. Naaman seeks salvation. And to be healed for his salvation, he had to accept the word of God and be obedient and humble himself and go dip in a river that didn't make any sense. For us to receive salvation, spiritual healing from God, we place our faith in what Jesus did on the cross for us. And in some ways, sometimes it doesn't make much sense. But we accept that free gift from Jesus. As we move through the Christian life and we understand salvation is, yes, an event when we place our faith in Christ, but it's also this ongoing process that the Bible calls sanctification, which just means becoming more like God in character. And that to be sanctified, to become more like God in character, it's every day this decision to trust on God rather than ourselves. It's every day to trust in God's way rather than our way. It's every day to trust in his lordship rather than our lordship. It's the same decision that Naaman had to make every day as we seek this salvation, as we fight off sin. And so what we see in the story of Naaman and what makes it relevant to us is that the physical healing of leprosy is a picture of our spiritual healing from sin. The physical healing of leprosy is a picture of our spiritual healing from sin. It works the same way. Naaman needed salvation for a disease that would lead to certain death. We need salvation from a disease that will lead to certain spiritual death or eternal separation from God. And what's interesting to me about this and where the rubber really meets the road in this story is, if I were to take you back to Damascus, back to Syria, when Naaman contracted leprosy, and he were to ask you, I need to be healed, what do you think my biggest obstacles are between health and unhealth? What do you think are the biggest things I need to overcome to be healed and to live? We would probably look at external factors, wouldn't we? We would look at the distance between he and Elisha. We would look at the cost. We would look at the probability of it actually working. We would look at all these other external factors. But what we see when we look at the story of Naaman is that Naaman's biggest obstacles for healing were his ego and his expectations. They were internal factors. His biggest obstacles to being healed, to salvation, were his ego and his expectations. He wanted to compensate. He wanted it to be a one-for-one exchange. He wanted to be able to look at Elisha and say, you are going to give me this, and I'm going to give you this. I earned this. I deserve this. It makes sense for you to heal me. We're going to both benefit from this exchange. His ego said that he needed to be able to contribute to it. And isn't that how we work too? I've been in church long enough to hear a line several times talking to people who are considering coming to faith. And they'll say something like, I do think that I want to become a Christian. I do think I want to get back into the church thing, but I just got some stuff I need to clean up first. Or I'll talk to somebody who wants to be baptized. We're going to do a baptism service in September, by the way, so start thinking about whether or not you might want to be a part of that. I've talked with so many people who are thinking about being baptized, but they'll say, yeah, I want to do that, but I've got some things that I need to get in order before I do that. When we say that, what are we doing? Our egos are saying, yeah, I'm going to take that step, but when I do, I'm going to deserve it. When I come to Jesus, it's going to be on my terms. When I come to Jesus, it's going to be because I'm worthy of it. It's going to be because I've gotten through white-knuckle discipline myself in line enough that I feel like I can approach him with a pure heart. When I get baptized, I'm going to earn the right to be baptized. I'm going to bring something to that exchange. It's going to feel like I deserve this gift from God of salvation. When we know that we bring nothing to that exchange. We don't pay God for it. We don't compensate him for his son. We just get our ego out of the way and we accept it. See, to get healed of leprosy, you have to first admit that you have it and that you desperately need to be healed. To get rid of the sin that's in our life, to be aligned with our Creator, to experience salvation, we have to first come to a place where we admit, I'm broken and I need healing. And that's a really hard thing for some of us. We have to come to a place where we admit, my lordship in my life is not working. I need your lordship. It's a hard place for some of us to get to. And what we see from the story of Naaman as we think about it in ourselves is that humility is a prerequisite for salvation. I would be willing to bet, and I don't know everybody enough to say this to you, and I'm sorry if this is too far, but I would be willing to bet that there are those of us who have kept kind of Christianity at arm's length for a while. We've considered it, it's there, and maybe we even think one day I will. Or maybe we think, I know that I should take it more seriously, but one day I will. I wonder if that obstacle between you and just a full bore faith is an ego. Is an, I want to do this on my terms. I'm not ready to accept that lordship all the way. I still think that I'm a pretty good authority in my life. And as long as that exists, as long as we think our rivers back home are good enough, we can't take the steps that God wants us to take. Humility, coming to him humbly, is a prerequisite for salvation. The other thing that got in Naaman's way were his expectations. He said, you're not going to come out and talk to me? You want me to go dip in the river? That's it? You're not going to wave your hand? There's not going to be this big thing and this huge ceremony. I expect that I'd at least get a good prayer out of this. None of that's going to happen. And so often we bring our own expectations to God, and then when he doesn't meet the expectations that we've created in our own heads, we push him off because he's not the God who he said he is, when he never said he would do any of that stuff. Naaman wasn't given those expectations by other prophets who said, listen, when you get to Israel, this is how healings work. That's just what he conjured up. And so when it didn't go according to his plan that he created in his own head, he rejected the plan that God presented him with because it didn't meet his expectations. But if you examine them, he had no right to those expectations. And so often I think we push God away because he doesn't meet the expectations that we created. And here's how this works. We have a tendency, if you think about it, and you think about who God is, we have a tendency to remake God in our own image. For most of us, God is simply the best possible version of us. I think about the things that I value in me, and we assume that God must be those things. And we never do it intentionally. No one would admit to this. No one would be like, oh yeah, totally, I do that. But if you think about who you think God is and how you think he should respond to different situations, what you picture God as is the best possible version of you. It's this version of you that you'll probably never attain, but God is probably that. So then when stuff happens in our life, we think, how would the best possible version of me respond to this? Well, it would respond this way, and that's not how God is responding, so he's not fair. When the God in heaven said, hey, I never gave you those expectations. I never promised you that. When we enter into a season of pain and suffering, when something happens in our life that we feel like isn't fair. And we say a loving God would never let this happen. He let it happen to person after person after person in the Bible. He let it happen to his own son. He let David's infant son die. We can go through story after story after story in the Bible where people who loved God and served him well had to deal with incredible pain. So where are we getting the expectation that when I go to God, everything is going to be good? We made that up. When I go to God, everything is going to go well for me. I'm going to close the sale. I'm going to do the business. My kids are going to finally behave because I'm raising them according to the right standards. Who gave you that expectation? Where are we getting that? Now, the expectation that God gives us is that all things work out in eternity. And that one day when we meet him, everything will make sense. I am confident there are things that are happening even now that I do not understand and I can't pretend to explain. But here's what I trust. One day I'll get to look God in the eye and if I even still care about all the stuff that happened here, if I were to ask him, God, why'd you let this stuff happen? If he would explain it to me in my heavenly form, I would go, okay, that makes sense. Can I get back to worshiping you now? I think so often our expectations that we generate, that God never signed up for, keep us from going to him and knowing him fully. Even expectations on the other end of the pendulum. Sometimes our expectations are, I've done so little. I've known better and not responded to it properly for so long that there's no way that God could accept me. And we let those expectations of God's response keep us away from him when that's not at all what he says. It says in Luke 15 that he's the father that runs to us and waits for us to come back to him. So in the story of Naaman, we see a person like us who was in need of salvation. We see a person like us and like me who very often keeps his ego and his expectations as an obstacle between him and the God that he desperately needs. And my prayer for you, even this morning, even as I was kneeling and praying before I would come preach, is that God would give you the courage and the honesty to see where your ego and your expectations in your life, and in my life, this is a me too thing, are keeping us from knowing God the way he wants to be known. Help us to identify those. Give us the courage to move past those. And if we do that, what will be the result? Look at what Naaman did. I believe. I'm in. Take all my stuff. I don't need it anyways. Naaman's response after humility and receiving the salvation was a joyful and generous love. The result of humble acceptance is a joyful and generous love. It's a love so big and so generous that I have grace for you as I watch you struggle through life. I have grace for you as I see clearly that your ego is keeping you from knowing everything about God that you could know. You have grace for me as you see my wrong expectations keeping me from knowing God well because you know that you've been met there with grace too. We have this contagious joy when we accept love in that way. Scripture tells us, Jesus tells us in Matthew that we are to honor God, that we are to love people in such a way that others will see our good works and so glorify our Father who is in heaven. That without us ever telling them about our faith, they will see our faith lived out and go, there's something different about them and I want it. Paul says in 2 Corinthians that we are led in a procession by Christ and that through us, one of my favorite phrases in the Bible, spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of God. This thing that just wafts into the lives of others passively as we move through their life and they look at us and they see something that's different. You know what's supposed to be different? A joyful and generous love. You know how we come by that love? By humbling ourselves before God and freely receiving his salvation and his love and his affirmation every day. And then we move through life like Naaman did after he got healed. So my prayer for you is that if there are places in your life where either your ego or your expectations are keeping you from knowing God, from submitting to him, that you would have the courage to see those things. And then ultimately, my prayer for us is that we would move through life like Naaman did at the end of this story with a joyful and generous love of God and love for others. Let's pray. Father, we love you. We are so grateful for you. We thank you for your word, for the Bible, for how rich it is, for everything that we can learn from it and see in it. God, I pray that you would help us to go and to read it on our own and to see the pages come to life and to, God, really study and invest in it. God, speak to us through your word even this week as we read it in the quiet of our own houses and offices. Father, I just pray that you would give us the courage, the clarity, the conviction to see where our ego, our expectations may be keeping us from you. If we see those, God, give us further courage to get them out of the way. And finally, Lord, let us love people with a generosity and a joy that can come only from you. It's in your son's name we ask these things. Amen.
