The Holy Spirit: Introduction (Acts 13) | 1/11/2026

All right, yes, you can applaud her thing.

All right, if you're watching online this morning, we're

thrilled that you were here with us.

If you're joining us, right, right.

Live right now at 11 O 9 or later today or in some weeks to

come. We're glad that you found us and

we want to invite you to come and worship with us at North

Life Church at 115 E Main St. Our services are at 9:00 and

10:30 and would love to see you sometime soon.

All right, I have a like a little bonus to my message this

morning. I'll call it that.

It's a bonus. I knew of what is happening this

Friday and I wanted to tell you about it.

And I don't have my flyer, but that's OK.

You can grab one on your way out.

And we were going to make sure Missy was going to make sure

that we didn't run out. So Laurel, maybe if you make

sure the Flyers are in the back about the Freedom of religion

day. Now, you probably don't know

this, but if you do, great. But if you don't, I want to tell

you about it starting in like 1992 there then George W Bush or

no George Bush, the original 1 was president and he declared

that this Friday, this particular week, this Friday

every year would be declared Freedom of Religion Day.

Now you know that we as Americans, we celebrate free in

our in our, in our, our constant.

It's not our Constitution, but the First Amendment gives us

many freedoms, but it gives us the freedom of religion.

OK, now it's the freedom of religion and not the freedom

from religion. And some people have gotten this

backwards. They think, wow, we're free from

like having any religion or any faith in our schools or in our

public places, etcetera. So some try to interpret it that

way, but it's not, it's not freedom from religion, it's

freedom of religion. It's freedom for us to express

our faith. And this is true of our faith as

Christians and uniquely about our country is that if you're

not a Christian, you still have freedom to express your

religion. OK.

This is a foundation of the United States.

And wrongly, some people think that all, you know, there's

supposed to be separation of church and state.

Maybe you've heard that separation church is not

supposed to be in anything that is government or state.

That's a fallacy. It's bull.

It's not true. Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter.

It wasn't in the Constitution or in any of the amendments.

He wrote a letter where he suggested the idea of of

separation of church and state. But it wasn't to protect the

state. It was to protect the church

because they're coming from Great Britain where the Church

of England controlled everything.

So they say, OK, separation of church is saying freedom of

religion. That's, that means that we can

practice our religion. We have that freedom we have, we

have this freedom of religion, right?

And it's been fought and sometimes it's attacked.

But thankfully our, our founding fathers had wisdom in the way

they set up, I believe inspired by God.

So we have freedom of religion and that means that our kids can

express their faith in school and at our workplace and in

other places. We don't have to hide our faith.

And I will tell you that that should be celebrated.

So every president since Bush, this means Clinton and Bush 2,

Bush W, if you will, George W and then Obama and then Trump

and Biden. Every year you could see it.

I have it printed on the back table.

You could take it home with you. Every year a president makes a

declaration. So they declare this Friday,

Freedom of Religion Day, every president.

OK, so the president of this is that, hey, on Friday, just take

a minute and say God, thank you, thank you for our freedoms and

be mindful of it. Now I knew I was going to

encourage you to just be grateful and I have this handout

that gives some history of freedom of religion and some of

the quotes from presidents. But then this came up the sun

this week. I ran into this yesterday of all

things. And so I thought I want to share

this with you. So this is the Glen Arbor Sun.

This is a newspaper locally. OK, so this article caught my

attention for other reasons too, but it says, watch this.

This is a really great headline, right?

And the Glen Arbor Sun, it says allegations of youth grooming.

Now, when you hear allegations of youth grooming, what do you

think? Somebody sexually grooming a

child to abuse them, right? A predator.

All these are predators in Glen Arbor.

Oh my gosh, man, I want to know about this.

And so watch this. It's the Leland Planning

Commission heard nearly three hours of impassioned public

comment on Wednesday, January 7th at their monthly meeting,

which had been moved to the Northport Public School

auditorium to accommodate a crowd that numbered in the

hundreds, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

You can go read the article. Let me tell you what happened,

OK? There's an organization in the

Leland School, and it's called Youth for Christ.

It's an internationally recognized, solid, wonderful

ministry. And they meet in the Leland High

School and some people got up arms about it and they're like,

they're in that school and they're proselytizing and

they're grooming, and I can't believe they're doing this.

It's like they have the freedom to do this.

Our students have the freedom to express their faith and have

Bible studies and everything in their school.

And So what happened is some people got up at arms about

they're like, these people are grooming in the schools.

We got to put a stop to this. And, and not that I have an

opinion. Thank you.

I don't want you to think I have an opinion about this, but of

course I have an opinion about this.

So what happened is the youth for Christ in Leland grew so big

that they've decided they wanted to meet outside of the school

because so many kids are coming. Isn't that exciting?

So, so many kids are excited. So someone in the community

wanted to violence. They wanted to donate space and

watch this. This is very important to us as

a church. This this person wanted to

donate space and like an industrial park for the youth

for Christ group to meet and people met at the town meeting

to fight it because I said, well, that's zoning.

It fights, you know that it's not zoned religious or religious

place. It's a it's a industrial, it's

an industrial space. So we can't allow these kids to

meet there. So what happened is Youth for

Christ sent their attorneys in. Why?

Because we have freedom of religion, right?

And So what happened is the newspapers can have their

headings where they're like, yeah, grooming in the high

schools. And you're like, we've got to

fight that. No, it's youth for Christ.

And why is this important to us as a church?

Because do you know that the city of Gaylord graciously

allowed our building that is in a commercial zone to be rezoned

nonprofit freedom of religion, right?

So that means that our city graciously doesn't get taxes

from our, from our zoning, right?

And the Gaylord Art Council next door, they're also a nonprofit.

They're in a commercial place. And so this is important because

you need to be aware that every so often our freedom of religion

gets attacked. It's happening right now in

Leland, not far from here. Youth for Christ is a valid,

reputable, honorable Christian organization.

And for them to rise up and say they don't want them in their

high school. Sorry.

We have freedom of religion and every president declares it to

remind us of it. And it happens this Friday.

Is it OK that I've shared this? Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait,

wait, wait, wait. Hold on a second.

Let me ask you that one more time because you missed a really

big opportunity. Is it OK that I shared this?

Do you like that I share this? Yes, thank you.

So on Friday, don't forget to celebrate and just say, hey,

God, I want to be mindful of my freedom of religion.

I don't take it for granted. You can pick up a sheet in the

back that has some information about and can we pray for the

Youth for Christ group in in Leland?

Would you like to do that with me?

All right, let's take a minute. God, thank you for Youth for

Christ. What a legendary, enormously

great organization that has LED thousands and hundreds of

thousands to you. And while this organization is

being misrepresented and attacked in Leland, we pray for

favor for them, wisdom. And we pray that God in humility

stand for righteousness. And that God, we pray that our

freedoms of religion, that our forefathers, we believe inspired

by you, we pray that you would protect their freedoms in our

backyard not far from here. We lift them up to you in Jesus

name. And everyone loudly said, Amen.

All right, if you have your Bibles, please take them and

turn to the book of Acts. And we're going to be in Acts

Acts 13 · chapter mention

chapter 13. And we were in Acts chapter 13

Acts 13 · chapter mention

last week. And purposefully even weeks and

weeks and weeks ago, I knew that I was going to connect what we

did last week to what we're doing this week.

OK, So let me set it up for you. This is Acts chapter 13.

Acts 13 · chapter mention

This is the early church. Jesus has ascended to heaven.

It's been crucified, buried, resurrected.

He was with his disciples for 40 days and then he now is ascended

to heaven. And now the church has exploded

at the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit comes to be in and

with them. And this is a church called

Antioch. It's an Antioch, and Paul and

Barnabas are part of the church. And we saw this last week.

I'm going to show it to you this week and we're going to look at

it from a different angle. Chapter 13, verse 2, it says

while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, this past week

we have been fasting and this morning that we're worshiping

the Lord and fasting. The Holy Spirit said, set apart

for me, Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called

them. Then after fasting and praying,

they laid their hands on them and they sent them off.

We are fasting and praying and worshipping, and this morning we

got to pray for Mariah and send her off.

We're trying to be a New Testament church in the context

of these disciplines, sending out missionaries, praying,

fasting, worshipping, all of that.

This morning I want to talk to you about the Holy Spirit.

Quite simply, I'm going to talk to you about the Holy Spirit.

Let me pray for us, God, thank you for your presence.

Holy Spirit, You are here with us and we've worshipped you in

song and in giving and just being together.

And now we we open our hearts and our minds.

We're attentive to your word and we pray God that you would speak

to us greatly. We're eager and we're ready.

And Jesus name and everyone loudly said Amen to remind you

we do have teaching. The notes are available on the

back table. If you want to grab those, you

can grab those during the teaching or on your way out.

I encourage you to make use of those this morning.

Now last week I talked to you about fasting and faith.

Not just fasting, like to lose weight or fasting as a way of

kind of a restart for the year. But last week we looked at

length about what it means to fast, deny yourself of something

for the purpose of giving more attention to prayer and to our

relationship with God. And we see that the New

Testament church was doing this in Acts and throughout

Scripture. And so we wanted to take time

this week and and to pray and fast.

And this morning what I want to do is I want to show you that of

course in the story we talked last week, praying and fasting

is a part of the early church. But now I want to show you even

more hopefully profound, is that the Holy Spirit is part of the

early church. It's God as the Holy Spirit is

the enormous part of the Acts story, and the part of the

gospel is a part of Scripture all the way through.

But particularly in the book of Acts, we start seeing how the

Holy Spirit operates in us when we come to faith in Christ.

So in the next couple weeks, we're going to be focusing on

the Holy Spirit. And I and I hope to bring you

several things. We're like, oh, I, I didn't know

that or I didn't look at it that way.

I didn't see it that way. And my hope is that we will

grow. The goal is to grow in our

relationship with God by growing in our understanding of the role

and the personality, if you will, of the Holy Spirit.

Now at our church, I just came up with this this week.

So this is going to be new, but I think it's going to become

part of our culture. I want, I have a new saying and

the saying is going to be trust the tangent.

Can you say this out loud with me?

Can you say trust the tangent one more time?

Say trust the tangent. Now, why do I say this?

Because most, I think most a lot of preachers or teachers, they

teach in points. Point #1, now point #2 and now

point #3 and you know, I can go have lunch, right?

I don't teach that way. If you've been here for a while,

you know, I don't teach with points.

Instead, I've, I've finally coined it.

I tend to teach with tangents. What do I mean by that?

Well, I'm always disciplined to give you a title, like by rhythm

was when I teach, I'm like, OK, here is what we're going to talk

about, and I give you a title. And when I was in seminary Bible

school, they taught us, OK, good preaching is you tell people

where you're going. It's the title, and then you go

there. And then when you're done, you

tell them where you've been. Have you ever been in the sermon

and the message in this church service where the preacher said

he was going to go over there, but then half what you were

like, he never got there. Where is he?

I have no idea where he is. Now, I must admit that sometimes

when I teach with my tangents, I might get some place and you

might lean over to your wife and go, where is he going with this?

I don't know what he's doing and just wife, just go.

Just trust the tangent. He's on one of his tangents.

But no, I will get back. And not only that, the tangents

are in your notes. So it's not by accident.

It's an intentional tangent. Why?

Because I teach with tangents. So trust the tangent.

So that means this morning what I'm going to do is I'm telling

you I want to talk about the Holy Spirit in the context of

the church at Antioch and what the Holy Spirit looks like in

the local church, what it looked like in the story of Paul and

Barnabas. That's where I'm going to.

So just trust my tangents as I get there.

OK, You good with that? Yes.

OK, Now so tangent number one, somebody people say point number

one, I say tangent number one. OK, I have a fair criticism

about modern worship songs and my fair, my fair tangent

criticism of a lot of modern worship songs is that, and I

don't want to sound like an old fart, you know, but we're just

doing that. Is that a lot of the songs now

that are coming down the worship Pike, if you will, they sound

like songs that that are like a guy could sing to his

girlfriend, right? Have you heard any of these

songs? They're like, I love you so

much, you're so beautiful. And it's I just want to be with

you and. It's all this stuff and like,

these are the types of songs that a lot of churches are

singing to the Lord. And it's just like, and again,

not that I have an opinion, OK, but but I'm just thinking these

songs are like they're just not. But I think the church should be

singing, right? So at our church, I'm very

committed. And watch me on this.

You didn't know I did this, but watch.

And in the weeks to come. And if I miss a week, then come

and say, Kurt, what's going on? But but if you go back week

after week after week, every week, we'll have one song at

least that feels like a creed. And when we find these songs, I

tend to put them in the rotation.

We sing them often. So this morning we sang the song

by Phil Wickham and some friends.

It's called I believe, right? And so watch this.

The lyrics were I believe there's one salvation, one

doorway that leads to life, one redemption, one confession.

I believe in the name of Jesus Christ.

I believe in the crucifixion. By his blood I've been set free.

I believe in the resurrection, Hallelujah, his death.

His life is death, defeat. Does that sound like a song you

can sing to your girlfriend? No, it's not right.

So we intentionally sing songs that sound like Creed.

So then the course of that song, all praise to God the Father,

all praise to Christ the Son, all praise to the Holy Spirit,

right. We get around and we have a

couple other songs, several other songs.

I'm always looking for songs like this.

A friend of mine has a record coming out this year and he sent

me like the the demo of and I'm like, we're going to do that at

our church because it's another one of these Apostle Creed like

songs. So how many of you grew up in a

tradition of a church where you said the Apostles Creed?

Anybody wave at me really high if you did.

OK, so you grew up saying the Apostles Creed, right?

And it was part of your worship liturgy every week.

It's part of it. And what is liturgy?

Well, liturgy is just the rhythm in which you do a service,

right? So we have liturgy at our church

and you might even say we're a liturgical church.

Why? Because liturgical churches tend

to say creeds every week and they have certain things they do

every week. So we have we sing songs and we

sing a creed like song every week.

So you can when someone asks you about North life, you can say,

well, our church is liturgical. And by that what do you mean?

It's like, well, we tend to sing songs that are creed like that

have great truths in them, right?

Listen to the Apostles Creed. It says I believe in God the

Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.

He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the

Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius

Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.

He descended to the dead on the third day.

He rose again. He ascended into heaven and is

seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come again

to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit. There it is again, the holy

Catholic meaning unified Church, the communion of the Saints, the

forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and

the life everlasting. Amen.

I want you to know there's a Church.

We are intentionally committed to traditional theology, creed,

like theology. And even though it might not

look like a like maybe a Lutheran or Methodist, our, our,

our Lutheran brethren and Methodist brethren, we love them

so much. We celebrate their way of

worshiping. Ours is just a little bit

different, but we adhere to the same creeds and doctrine.

And because of that, we're unified.

Now what I want you to see is that in our songs and in our

creeds, we mention it's in our theology, it's in our doctrine.

We mention often the Holy Spirit, and we mentioned Jesus

and we mentioned God the Father. So as Christians, maybe this is

a new term. It'll be an old term to many of

you, but as Christians, we are Trinitarian.

In other words, we believe in the Trinity.

What is the Trinity? Well, the Trinity is the belief

that God is 3 in one, three, and one.

And this is very important in the ancient world because in the

ancient world and in the world in which we live now, the world

had many gods, many, many, many gods.

And some religions will say, well, you know, there's lots of

ways and lots of gods and lots of gods.

And so God appears to Abraham and then to Moses and throughout

the Old Testament. And then Jesus comes along in

the same way, proclaiming this is the way, the only way, and

he's God won. But God has three different

personalities. We use that word personality.

So you'll see the God is 3 in one person sometimes.

Don't be confused by that because God is God, not a human

being, a person. But it's letting you in on the

truth that God has three unique personalities.

And I'm going to get around to why that's so important to a

Christian, but let me just keep on packing it for you.

So we're Trinitarian and we believe that God has three

distinct personalities. He's unique in three different

ways. And so and, and the three ways

are equal in importance. And I think a lot of Christians

miss this. Maybe they think, well, the Holy

Spirit is kind of like down here and like the Father's here.

Maybe Jesus is like, well, because Jesus is the Son, maybe

he's under the Father and the Holy Spirit under Jesus.

No, that's heresy. As Trinitarians, what we believe

is no God is 3 equally distinct personalities in one.

And if you're going to know God and walk with him as a

Christian, then understanding the role of the three different

distinct personalities of God becomes vitally important.

And many people who follow Jesus and who are Christians, they

kind of get the concept of the Father.

And they get the concept of the Son, Jesus, the King, the

reigning one, the Lord, the Messiah.

But often we tend to put the idea of the Holy Spirit kind of

down here as a support. Or maybe you were around a

tradition where people talked about the Holy Spirit or the

Holy Ghost. But they were what I call

granola types. Do you know what a granola type

is? It's someone who's like a fruit

or a flake or a nut, right? So maybe around some Christians.

And they were like, oh, we're all about the Holy Spirit, but

they were as weird as all get out.

And a lot of stuff they were into was like they were over

emphasizing some things, some things that were not necessarily

as important as other. And we're going to get into this

in the weeks to come, so get ready.

But maybe we're around somebody. And they talked about the Holy

Spirit, but it LED you to believe It's like, yeah, the

Holy Spirit thing. That's kind of weird.

And so I'm kind of going to stick over here with the Father

and the Son. I get the Father and the Son,

but the Holy Spirit, it's weird or it's lesser or and we miss

how vitally important it is to understand the role of the Holy

Spirit of our lives in our lives.

So this morning I want to just as an introduction, I want to

just continue unpacking like, what does it look like for us

now in following God through Jesus?

What does it look like with this Holy Spirit thing?

OK, and I say thing, but really the personality God, the Holy

Spirit is God. OK, Now there's a there's a

heresy called modalism. And I just want to mention this

briefly, I'll get more into it in weeks to come, but modalism

is an ancient heresy that the original church fought.

And the modalism heresy was that that God appears like in three

different modes. And the idea is that OK, God is

God, and at one point God is the Father, OK, when God is being

Father, he's Father. OK, But then God has to take off

his role as Father, and now God is Son.

OK, God left heaven, He came to us and now got his Son.

But God can only exist in one personality at a time.

So now he's Son. And then Jesus goes back to

heaven and he did talk about that the Holy Spirit would come.

So now God is here as the Holy Spirit.

But it gives the idea that God can only do one thing at one

time. And this is where the

illustration that that the Trinity is like water, right?

Maybe you've heard this illustration, It works for

children to kind of illustrate what the Trinity is like, but it

breaks down in some ways. Every breaks down.

It ends in heresy, really. So the idea is that, OK, water,

it can be ice or fluid or steam, but it can only be one thing at

a time. So you could say, oh, that's

what the Holy Spirit is, our God, the Trinity is like, it's

all three. It can be all three, but no, God

is all three at one time. So watch this.

Jesus could be being baptized and he's praying to the Father

and then the Holy Spirit descends when he's baptized.

So now you have Jesus existing. This is God.

Here's Jesus, here's always Spirit and here's God the

Father. They're all three interacting at

the same time. And I know this is this is a

challenging concept. I just want to introduce it to

you that now and we'll tackle it more than weeks to come.

But just knowing that, okay, God the Father is here, Jesus, yes,

God reveals himself as the Son and the Holy Spirit, but all

three can be interacting at the same time.

We're not into God dividing himself up into mode.

So we're not into modalism. OK, now again, more than weeks

to come, but I wanted you to know that the creeds mentioned

the Holy Spirit, the Apostles Creed are songs, the Bible a

great length. And so we're going to study the

Holy Spirit for the next several weeks.

And I've got lots and lots to tell you now, why is this

foundational and why is it so important?

Our understanding of the Trinity?

Because our understanding of the Trinity, watch this, it's big.

Our understanding of the Trinity and the Holy Spirit as the Holy

Spirit, as God reveals himself as the Holy Spirit.

Our understanding of the Holy Spirit dictates our relationship

with God. And maybe you've heard, Oh yeah,

some people have like father issues.

Maybe sadly and tragically, they were abused by their father.

And so they can't relate to God as Father.

I mean, that's a real thing. It's a tragic thing.

And and then some people go, well, I like the Jesus side of

God because I could relate to Jesus and I like his teachings.

And I and I read the red letters in my Bible and I've drawn to

those. Some people are that way.

And so they're like, well, I'm going to really kind of lean

into the Jesus side or I'm going to lean into the Father's side,

right. But what I'm telling you is that

you don't get to pick if you want to have a relationship with

God now and you want to flourish in your relationship with God,

then the option is here on earth with the life that we have the

the way that God has set it up, you're supposed to be

interacting with the Holy Spirit.

And I'm going to show you why I can say that OK, and why it's

really important. So here's The thing is that if

you're following Jesus and you don't get the role of the Holy

Spirit in your life, then you'll miss a flourishing spirit LED

life. And I don't want to do life

without being spirit led and spirit filled and aware of the

Holy Spirit's role in my life. Now, because I knew we were

coming this way this Christmas. We really, we emphasize this

every Christmas, but particularly this year, we

really emphasize week after week that Jesus is the fulfillment of

Old Testament prophecies. They called him Emmanuel, God

with us. He's prophesied this way.

He's called this way in the Old Testament when the Angel Gabriel

comes to Mary, he says, and he will be called Emmanuel.

And Emmanuel means that God is with us.

So again, this Christmas, we just emphasize it every week.

God puts on human skin, God comes, he's with us.

Jesus is God revealed with us. But what is the Holy Spirit?

I'll tell you John 1416 through 17, Jesus is going to talk much

to the disciples, his followers about the Holy Spirit.

He's going to drop clues over and over and over again.

In verse 16, you watch, Jesus is talking about the Father and

He's talking about the Holy Spirit all in one, their God all

in one in verse 16 of John 14. And I will ask the Father, and

He will give you another helper to be with you forever.

Now what's happening? Jesus knows that He's going to

ascend to heaven and he's going to go back to being with the

Father. And so he's saying to the

disciples, hey, listen, I'm going to send you a helper, and

I'm going to pray to the Father, and he's going to send me the

helper. And the helper will be with you

forever. He's about to leave.

The Holy Spirit's going to come and be with you forever.

Even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because

it neither sees Him or knows him.

You know him, for watch, this is big.

You know Him for He dwells with you and will be in you.

Now in the Old Testament, you see the Spirit of God talked

about a lot, but the Spirit of God is with when Jesus comes,

he's with and then Jesus says you know him and he's coming and

he's going to be in you. Do you see that progression with

Jesus is walking with them, but he's saying the comforter who

the helper is going to come. He's going to be in you in the

spirit of the truth in the world cannot receive.

He dwells with you and will be in you.

I ask you to trust the tangent. We're going to get back to Acts

13. We're going all the way back

there to the church in Antioch. Jesus is Emmanuel, He's God who

dwells with us. But he says the one who's

coming, he's going to be in you. Now how confusing would this

have been to the disciples because watch this.

Jesus had been prophesied about and he finally shows up and he

is the Messiah. And not only is he the Messiah,

but they walk with him for three years now he's resurrected and

he's with them for 40 days after the resurrection.

And he's with them. Can you imagine Jesus, Emmanuel

with them after the resurrection for 40 days?

And in these 40 days, he's talking about he's, he's

alluding to the fact that I'm going to pray God will send the

helper, the spirit of truth. And he's dropping Nuggets to

them that, that, that, that he's going to be leaving.

He's no longer going to be God with us.

And Luke continues to tell the story.

Luke 2444, it says. Then he said to them, these are

my words that I spoke to while I was still with you.

Watch this. It's just over and over and over

again this theme. And he said, I was with you that

everything written about me in the law of Moses and the

prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.

And then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.

He supernaturally goes, opens their mind.

Remember The Karate Kid movie? And in my generation, it was wax

on, wax off, right? How many remember wax on, wax

off, right? The new generation.

I haven't seen the movie, but I'm told it's like, put the code

on or put the code off or something, right?

Somebody help me with that. What is it in the new movie?

Nobody's seen it. What is it?

What is it? Take the code off.

Somebody told me this. OK, So because I was saying in

the guitar lesson one time, I'm like wax, like wax on, wax off.

And the young person, huh. What are you talking about?

I'm like The Karate Kid movie. And they're like, I don't get

it. OK, so, but remember in The

Karate Kid movie, right, he has them wax in the car and waxing

off right? Now, Why am I doing this stupid

thing? This is so dumb.

This is so stupid until the karate and he's like waxing and

he's doing the wax on, wax off thing.

And it's like his mind's open. He's like, oh, it was for this

reason. Whoa, right.

So Jesus kind of does this with the disciples.

He's been telling them all this stuff and they don't understand

why am I waxing on waxing? Oh, Jesus wanted to keep talking

about the Kingdom, keep talking about the helper that's going to

come. And then Jesus is like, and it's

like he makes the Scriptures make sense to them, right?

That's what happens here. It's like they've been confused.

But then he makes things clear to them.

And he said to them, this is written that the Christ should

suffer on the third day, rise from that, and that repentance

for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name

to all nations beginning from Jerusalem.

You are witnesses of these things.

He's like you read it that it would start in Jerusalem and

then the the good news of God's love and grace and mercy and

forgiveness is going to go out from Jerusalem and go to the

whole world and the disciples are going to be the start of it.

And Jesus said, behold, I'm sending the promise of my Father

upon you, not with you, but upon you, but staying in the city

until you are clothed with power from on high.

So Jesus is talking about the Holy Spirit to come and he's

talking in these terms. He's going to be in you.

He's going to be with you and in you and upon you and you're

going to be clothed in. I mean to get ready, I'm going

to leave. But someone else, the Holy

Spirit God is coming. And they must have been

confused. And he let them out as far as

Bethany. And after the 40 days he was

with them after the resurrection and lifting up his hands, he

blessed them every. It's not just my truth.

So of course, it's a Christian tradition at the end of a church

service, it's, it's right that the, the minister, the pastor

should say a blessing, right? So every week when I say a

blessing over you, it's just, it's, it's in the tradition of

Jesus. Jesus is like ending this time

and he says a blessing. But when Jesus is saying a

blessing over them, he starts to ascend up to heaven.

So you can imagine it's like, may the Lord bless you and keep

you and may he turn his face to you.

And then Jesus starts to like ascend all the way up into the

heavens. While he blessed them, he parted

from them and was carried up into heaven.

God with us is no longer God with us.

Now Jesus is away. He parted from them and we see

that. We don't see this at the end of

Luke's story. You actually see this in Acts.

I don't know if you know this, but Luke's gospel.

So the book of Luke and then the book of Acts, Luke writes both

of them, and I call it dovetailing.

He dovetails his story. The end of Luke is the beginning

of Acts and he kind of tells parts of the same story.

Have you seen some of The Avengers movies where they do

that like 1 movie at the end of the one movie and then you're

waiting, it's a cliffhanger and then the next one kind of starts

right at that exact moment. But they kind of tell both parts

of the story, right? So that's what Luke is doing.

So Acts 1 is the dovetail of the end of Luke and Acts 11.

Luke says in the first book, oh Theophilus, that's who he's

writing to. I have dealt with all that Jesus

began to do and teach until the day when he was taken up.

So the end of Luke and the start of Acts is Jesus taken up.

In other words, Emmanuel, God with us is no longer God with

us. And here's The thing is that

you'll hear people talk about I walk with Jesus, Jesus take the

wheel. You know what, when I'm driving,

I don't say Jesus take the wheel because Jesus isn't here.

He's in heaven. But who is here with me?

The Holy Spirit. I'm not attacking the I mean,

the song is great. I love the song, but I mean,

theologically it bothers me, right?

Because it should be like Holy Spirit take the wheel.

You know, it's like, so now the Holy Spirit is with us.

That's the end of Luke and the start of Acts.

So in the first book, so until the day when Jesus was taken up

and after he'd given the commands through the Holy

Spirit, the apostles whom he had chosen.

Then in verse 3, it says he presented himself alive to them

after suffering, meaning Jesus by many proofs appearing to them

during 40 days and speaking about the Kingdom of God.

He's telling the end of Luke again.

And then while staying with them, verse four, he ordered

them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the

promise of the Father, which he said, you heard from me for John

baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy

Spirit not many days from now. Jesus said you'll be baptized,

you'll be immersed, He'll be in you, on you, you'll be clothed

in him. He where Jesus said I'm dwelling

with you, He's going to dwell in you.

So in verse 6, when they come together, they ask him, Lord,

will you at this time restore the Kingdom?

This is when they're still with Jesus.

Before his sins, they were still confused about the Kingdom.

They thought Jesus was going to kick the Romans out.

He's going to set up an earthly Kingdom.

No, he's leaving and him leaving means that God and now he's

going to come to be with us as the Holy Spirit, not in a

different mode, but they're interacting at the same time.

But now the Holy Spirit where he used to be with us and the Old

Testament. Now we are going to now be the

temple, the Tabernacle of God and the Spirit of God is now

going to be available to be in US and with us.

Verse 7 Jesus said to them, it's not for you to know the times of

the season that the Father right the the the Trinity.

They talk about each other has fixed by his own authority.

But verse 8, but Jesus is saying you will receive power when the

Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in

Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria to the ends of the

earth. And when he said these things,

as they were looking on, he was lifted up.

So again, it's dovetail. He's lifted up at the end of

Luke now He's lifted up at the beginning of Acts.

And a cloud took him out of their sight.

And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, 2 men

stood by them in white robes and said, men of Galilee, why do you

stand? Look at the end of the heaven.

This Jesus who was taken up, who's not with you anymore.

He's not Emmanuel, God with you anymore.

He's been taken into the heavens and he will come in the same way

as you saw him going to heaven. Watch.

So Jesus ascends and they stand there waiting and the thinking

is that maybe they thought he's coming right back, right?

They still missed it. No, he's going to go away.

The Spirit of God now is going to come and be in you and with

you on you, clothed, clothed with you.

And, and now you're going to leave Jerusalem and the whole

world generations are going to hear the message of God's love,

the gospel because of the Holy Spirit and the power that is

going to come into these disciples.

And that power is still available to us.

Now I want you to see in the context of this, the progression

of the biblical narrative. In other words, what do I mean

by that? I mean the story of the Bible

this week. Chuck, who was in the first

service, he reached out to me in the middle of the week and said,

hey, what, what, what like Bible do you recommend for kids and

certainly parents? I think that we should put

Scripture in our kids in in Sunday school.

We're certainly teaching your kids to memorize Scripture.

We want them to do that. But here's The thing is that

often people just want kids to memorize Scripture.

We're committed as a church for your children learning the story

of the Bible. And even if you're new in faith

or even if you've been in faith for a long time, it might do you

good to go get just like a little children's Bible like for

1/3 grader and read it and and just to get OK, wait a minute,

wait a minute. This Oh yeah.

This is the story of the Bible because God reveals himself in

the Bible in story. It's story.

It's not just a list of do's and don'ts.

It's the story of God. And what is the story of God?

The story of God is this from Genesis to Revelation.

The story of the Bible is God with us, God, OK, God being with

us, like we interacting with God.

That's the story of the Bible. So in Genesis what happens is

God is there at the beginning. I won't read it to you for the

sake of time, but in the beginning God created the

heavens and the earth and the Spirit of God, dimension of the

Spirit of God is there and he's hovering over the waters.

And then in Genesis 3, we jump forward and we're like, OK, God

creates Adam and Eve and he's in the garden with them.

And you get the idea that God is with them in Eden.

And that's the that's the thing. It's like God created the

garden, puts Adam and Eve in it. They're tending the garden and

in Eden, God and man are together.

Well, what happens tragically, Adam and Eve disobey God.

They eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and

the relationship that walking with God, being with God is

broken. What happens after they sin

verse 8 and says, and they heard the sound, watch this, I want

you to get this and they heard the sound of the Lord walking in

the garden in the cool of the day.

And you get this, you get this impression that Adam and Eve

were familiar with the sound like what was the sound of God

walking in the garden in the cool of the day?

Well, they knew that sound so like they're familiar with the

sound of being with God and all of a sudden they hear the sound

of God coming to be with them. And by the way, what if if God

is walking in the garden is making sound?

And this would arguably what we call Christophany, It's like an

appearing of Jesus. God is showing up as we think,

as God in bodily form is Jesus. So Jesus is there God walking

with him in the garden. And the man and his wife hid

themselves from the presence of the Lord and God among the trees

of the garden. The Lord God called to the man

and said to him, where are you? And he said, I heard the sound

of you in the garden, and I was afraid.

So here's what I give you is that this idea of like the sound

of walking with God, they had it, God coming and walking with

them and the sound of God being with them that they were

familiar with, they could hear his footsteps and him coming to

be with them. And now they're afraid.

And So what does God do? Does he kill them?

No. This is a curious thing.

God puts them out of the garden. And why?

Well, because when they ate from the tree to the knowledge of

good and evil, it just it's now sin and presented and they're

going to live eternally. They can live eternally.

It's the long story theologically, but they can live

eternally in the garden. And if they stay in the Garden

of Eden eternally minus relationship with God, walking

with God, then the Garden of Eden becomes like a hell.

Because if they're not with God in the garden, then being absent

of God and relationship with God and walking with God, now that's

hell. So God does something good to

them. He puts them out of the garden

and he puts an Angel cherubim on like in the gates of the garden,

and he's so they can't get back in.

It's punishment. No, because if they get back in,

they're forever without God and that's hell.

So God keeps them out of the garden and they start dying.

But that's OK because God has already said that he has a plan

and he's going. That's the story of the Bible

where God is going to restore walking with him.

God with us. They're God with us in the yard,

in the garden. Now we're separated from God,

but the Spirit of God is going to be there.

And then God starts his plan with Abraham and Moses.

And it's the story of the Old Testament where God is restoring

this idea of being with him and walking with him.

And so he prophesized. It's like, I've got this plan.

I'm going to redeem you. I'm going to buy you back.

I'm going to buy you back. And it's all those who went

before us and all those who will go after us.

God has his plan. So the plan is, I'm going to

send myself, I'm going to be with you.

And when I come to be with you, then I'm going to give my life

for you and I'm going to redeem you.

I'm going to surprise. Satan, he doesn't know it's

coming and then it's able to storm the gates of hell.

Jesus does. He takes back the keys of the

Kingdom of hell. All I mean, he conquers sin and

death. He does all his stuff and he

comes back to the disciples and he's with them for 40 days.

But that's not the end because if Jesus stays that way, then

he's only with those disciples. And the plan is not that God is

just going to be with a few. The plan is that God with this

sense of like walking in the garden and being with, it's

going to be for all who want to come.

All of us are going to be able to have relationship.

We're all going to be able to get back to the sense of like I

hear the sound of God walking in the garden and I get to go be

with him. Of course, that's eternally, but

it doesn't. It's not the other side of

eternity. We get it here now.

And that's the story of Pentecost and the story of the

Holy Spirit. It's no longer God with us like

a few. Now it's God in US, All of us

who want to receive the Holy Spirit, God in our lives.

Now it's God in US. And that's the story of the

Bible. It goes sad in Genesis, but it

goes great in Acts. Now what I want to show you, I

want to get back now in Acts chapter 13, it's a long tangent,

Acts 13 · chapter mention

but here we go. The church at Antioch.

This is post Pentecost. If you know the story of Acts

Acts 2 · chapter mention

chapter 2, Jesus said go, wait. And the Holy Spirit's going to

come, the helper's going to come and, and he does and they snig

comes on them and it says it's like fire on them, you know, in

a good way. And and they storm out of this

upper room that they're in and they go preaching in the streets

during during the Pentecost festival.

And they're declaring and other languages the message of God's

love through Jesus. And, and they're preaching it

right. And the church is launched.

OK, then watch. What does the church look like

early on? It looks like the church in

Antioch. And this is what I want our

church to look like. While they were worshipping the

Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, all the sudden it's

the sound again of us being with God.

And how did the Holy Spirit say, I don't know, did did someone

have a prophetic word? I don't know how the Holy Spirit

said, but I do know this is that in, in, in Genesis, God's with

them, God's with them. And now the church in Antioch,

it's just while they're worshipping and praying and

fasting and praying, it's like, wow, God speaks.

It's the sound of being with God again, and it's so beautiful.

And it's not just for the church, it's for us as

individuals. So this is the arc of the story

narrative. They're separated from God.

They walk with God. They're not with God.

Now, the church in Antioch, it's just the norm, but they worship,

they pray, they fast, and the Holy Spirit speaks to them and

the Holy Spirit speaks to them. They do things like we did with

Mariah this morning. They blade hands on Paul and

Barnabas and they sent them out. This is what the church should

be looking like. We're interacting with God like

Adam and Eve did in the garden. And the Holy Spirit is the one

that enables us through this is God now revealed to us as the

Holy Spirit. And here's where a lot of

Christians, again, they miss it, right?

So in the weeks to come, I'm going to talk for weeks to come

about the Holy Spirit. So what does the Holy Spirit do?

What are the gifts? What are the fruits?

Like what you know, what about blasphemy and the Holy Spirit?

What about all that stuff, right?

I'm going to get to all that, right?

And here's The thing is that a lot of people, again, I'm going

to teach on this because a lot of people don't understand the

Holy Spirit. I understand this and it's true

in the early church. This is Astor in Acts chapter

Acts 19 · chapter mention

19. So this is 6 chapters after the

church at Antioch. It's like the garden.

They're walking with God and God speaking to them.

But here's some Christians, disciples, followers of Jesus,

and watch what happens. This is Paul and it says, and it

happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, so in the city of

Corinth, Paul passed through the island, the inland country, and

he came to Ephesus. You know, the New Testament,

there's a book called Ephesians that there's a church there.

And Paul writes a letter to them, right, called a letter to

the Ephesians. So Paul's in Ephesus and he

comes up there. He found some disciples.

These are followers of Jesus and and they're proclaiming their

faith in Jesus in in far off lands.

And he said to them, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you

believed? And they said, no, we've not

even heard that there is a Holy Spirit disciples of Jesus.

And they're like, we don't know nothing about this.

Now, are they, are they saved? Yes.

Are they Christians? Yes.

Are they disciples of Jesus? Yes.

But when it comes to the Holy Spirit, they're like, we're

close. We don't know anything about it.

And here's The thing is, I think there's so many Christians today

that are Christians. They've, they've said, I want to

surrender my life to Christ, but they don't understand the role

of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

So when you say, are you a Christian?

Yes, yes, I, I, I, I go to church and I read my Bible and I

give and I do all these things and I serve.

And then you say, do you know about the Holy Spirit?

Do you know about the power of the Holy Spirit and how the Holy

Spirit is in US and how we get to walk with him like Adam and

Eve in the garden? Like do you know about this?

You're like, I have no idea what you're talking about.

A lot of Christians are like this.

Or they'll go. They told me that when I got

saved, I got the Holy Spirit. Yes, you did.

Yes, you did. When you got saved, yes, the

Spirit of God came to dwell in you.

It's true, but if you don't know the fruits of the Holy Spirit

and the nature of the Holy Spirit and how the Holy Spirit

interacts with us, I'm going to tell you in the weeks to come,

all of these things that the Holy Spirit does, how God

interacts with us now is the Holy Spirit.

I'm going to get to all that. So if you, you live your

Christian life, you could be saved, you're a Christian,

you're going to be eternally with God, all of that.

But if you live your life going, I'm a follower of Jesus.

I'm all about Jesus. I'm all about Jesus.

Jesus is up in heaven going. I'm up here, the Holy Spirit is

with you. I went away, I was God, I was

Emmanuel, but now the Holy Spirit and you're like Jesus

speak to me and Jesus is like the Holy Spirit is there to do

that. Now it's the Holy Spirit.

So you have to learn how to interact with the Holy Spirit

because that's now how it is. We're in that period of time

where God now is with us and in US.

And Jesus is not just in one place now God is.

Jesus has a sin in heaven. So the Holy Spirit can't be

everywhere to all people, but there are New Testament types

gone. Having you heard of the Holy

Spirit. So I don't want you to be a part

of North life Church and someone says, hey, do you know about all

the things that the Holy Spirit could do You know like like you

know how you can you can pray and when you pray, do you know

you're supposed to pray to the Holy Spirit?

Did you know that Well, Jesus said when you pray, say father,

right. We pray to father, but OK, but

there are other places. I'm going to show you how you're

to interact with and speak the Holy Spirit.

We'll get all that in the weeks to come.

So my hope is that as you grow in your understanding about the

confusion that you might have or the hang ups that you might

have, again, maybe you've seen churches that were like Holy

Ghost churches, right? The Holy Ghost churches.

And it was like, I don't get that.

OK, well, does that mean all that is, all that they believe

is not available? Their churches are like, because

we don't want to have anything to do with that, Then we're

going to be over here. We're all about the Father and

all about the Son and the Holy Spirit thing.

I don't know, man. Well, I'm going to show you

scripturally, you don't get to go that you don't.

That's not the route you get to take.

You want to walk a flourishing, powerful spirit like Christian

life. Then we want to grow an

understanding of how God is revealing himself and the

Trinity. And right now the part of the

Trinity that is most available to us is the Holy Spirit.

So just end with some questions. Did you know about the Trinity?

Maybe it's new. The concept of the Trinity might

be new to you. And like the in Acts chapter 19

Acts 19 · chapter mention

where like Paul's like, did you know about the Holy Spirit?

Maybe you're like, I don't know that I know about the Holy

Spirit. They didn't either.

And Are you ready to go for a deep dive in the Holy Spirit in

weeks to come? Good, Very good.

So Jason's going to come and we're going to sing.

Now. What I love is I love this song

became so popular a couple years ago and we signed here many

times. But we're going to end with

this. And the idea is that you go, oh,

yeah, I've sung that song many times.

But then you're like, wow, I guess I didn't understand the

way that, wow, what this song means when it says Holy Spirit,

you're welcome here. Oh, I guess I didn't understand

what I was really saying. Like sometimes you might think,

oh, the Holy Spirit is the present.

Oh, it's the Holy Spirit. Is that like goosebump feeling

that I get right? If you come to church, I hope

that there are times you're like, man, sometimes people just

move to tears. They come to church and they're

like, oh, wow, I feel the presence of God.

And he said, oh, that's the Holy Spirit.

No, that's not the Holy Spirit. It's not the, it's not totally

the Holy Spirit. It's the Holy Spirit moving in a

way. We're like, I sense God, I feel

God. I can't explain it, but I feel

God. No, that's not what we were

chasing after. When we say Holy Spirit, you're

welcome. It's not like God.

Bring the good vibes, right? No, we're saying God, Holy

Spirit, you are God, you are God.

And we're saying, come Holy Spirit, you're welcome in our

lives and in me. Can you stand for me?

I'm really looking forward to the next couple weeks.

And if you know somebody that comes to our church and they

missed it, let them know. Go listen to the podcast to get

ready for next week. I've got like, well, I won't

even tell you how many weeks because I don't know yet.

So we'll see how it goes, but we're going to sing this before

we go out. Let us experience the glory of

your presence. Let us become more aware of your

presence. Let us experience the glory of

Your goodness. God, in the weeks to come, Holy

Spirit, we pray that you would reveal yourself to us and new

and deep ways that we may walk with you.

As Adam and Eve walked in the garden, let it become a familiar

sound, the sound of you among us.

And before you go, I want to say a blessing over you, if you

prepare your heart to receive this blessing before you go.

And now may the Lord bless you and keep you, and may he make

his face to shine upon you. And may the joy of the Lord that

is unspeakable and full of glory, may it abound to you.

And may the peace of God that passes all understanding may

surprise you in the midst of all of the challenges that life

brings. And then may the mercies of the

Lord, in other words, the forgiveness of God, that is new

every morning. May it be especially new to you

now and your mornings to come. And now may the Lord Jesus

Christ guard your heart and your mind.

You are salt and you are light. Go now and be salt and light

unto the world. You are blessed.

We'll see you again