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.