The Holy Spirit: Why does He do what He does?

Good seeing everybody this morning, and we'll go ahead and sing some songs.

Blessed assurance.

Jesus is mine.

Oh, what a foretaste of glory, divine Heir of salvation, purchase of God, born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

Born of His Spirit washed in His blood.

This is my story.

This is my song Praising my.

Savior all the day long.

This is my story.

This is my song, Praising my Savior all the day long.

Perfect submission, all is at rest.

I and my.

Savior are happy and blessed, watching and waiting, looking above.

Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.

This is my story.

This is my song, praising my Savior all the day long.

This is my story.

This is my song, praising my Savior all that day long.

When a thought like spills your tempest costs, when you are discouraged speaking, all is lost count your many blessings.

Name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord hath done Count your blessings.

Name them one by one.

Count your blessings.

See what God hath done.

Count your blessings.

See what God hath done.

Count your blessings.

Name them one by one.

Count your many blessings.

see what God hath done so amid the conflict, whether great or small.

Do not be discouraged.

God is over all Count your many blessings angels will attend.

Help and comfort give you to your journey's end Count your blessings.

Name them one by one.

Count your blessings, See what God hath done.

Count your blessings.

Name them one by one.

Count your many blessings, see what God hath done.

All right, ladies, I want you to sing out on this one.

We're going to need your help on this one.

Love one another, for God is of love.

He who loves is born of God and knows God.

He who does not love does not know God.

For God is love, god is love.

Love for none other.

For love is our God.

Be with us in school, our God and our God.

Love for none other.

All things love, all things.

Love For God is love, all things.

Love.

God is love.

God is love is love.

Love the Lord, my God, with all thy heart, with all thy soul, all thy strength, all thy mind.

Love the Lord, my God, with all mind.

Love the Lord, that God, with all thy heart, for God is love, god is love.

God is love.

Love the Lord, another, the God, with all thy heart, with all thy strength, all thy might, all thy might.

Love the Lord, another, the God and God's mind.

Behold my God with all my heart, for God is love.

God is love.

God is love.

All right.

The scripture reading today comes from John 16, verses 8 through 11.

John 16:8–11

It says sin, because people do not believe in me, about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer, and about judgment, because the Prince of the world now stands condemned.

Father, we thank you so much for the promise of heaven.

Thank you so much for that place that you promised that is full of joy and peace.

We thank you for your love for us, your amazing grace, and we ask you to help us open our hearts to your word this morning, in Jesus' name, and all God's people said Amen.

Good morning, glad that you're here.

Most of our Some of us are pretty good at preparing for the unexpected, and then there's people like me who's not good at preparing for the unexpected at all, and sometimes things happen that catch us off guard.

You remember?

I remember 9-11, when that happened, that I thought things are crazy, we're going to do something.

So I went down to get gas right after it happened and gas was like six bucks a gallon.

You remember that?

Because I was on empty and the line was lined up all the way almost to the red light down here in Buysville from Circle K.

It was crazy, because life just sometimes things happen and we're not prepared for it.

I read about things that you need to have in your emergency kit and I know some people that are preppers, and preppers are people you make fun of until it happens and you need them and then you stand on their front porch and you're saying, hey, you made fun of me.

You just the water is going to get you.

You know just that type of thing.

But they talked about things that you need to have in your emergency kit that you usually don't think about.

And so I thought, yeah, you know to be prepared.

This was an Altoid.

Do you know what Altoids are?

You know what are they?

Mints?

And they said you need to make sure you have several boxes of Altoids in your prepper kit, not because your breath is going to stink, because if the world's coming to an end you really don't care about that but so you can eat.

And they said you can do amazing things with Altoid tins, like you can make a grill out of it.

That's what I had.

That same look, sharon.

Or you can store your s'more stuff in there and you know, if you're in the middle of catastrophe, you know you want to relax.

You take your s'more stuff, put it on your Altoid tin grill and you cook it.

And so they said that they talked about pantyhose, and so I had to dig out all my old pantyhose and I thought you have to have your pantyhose.

You need to have several pair of pantyhose in your survival kit.

Now why do you think you would need pantyhose To strain the water, catch fish?

Somebody told me you use it in the 830 service to catch catfish.

You put liver in it.

I mean, there's just I didn't know there was all these uses for pantyhose.

I hadn't wore a pair of them in years or I wouldn't have thrown them out.

And so all these things you could use it for tying cord.

You know tying and making cords out of it, just all these things.

So if you don't have any pantyhose in your survival kit, you may not make it.

And then it talked about shoelaces.

You need to make sure you had shoelaces in your survival kit for obvious reasons.

One to tie things up.

They said you could make it a trip wire just in case somebody's breaking into your house during the emergency and it can set off explosions.

I mean there's all types of things you can use your shoelaces for before tying your shoes.

Duct tape, of course, is the universal thing.

You need duct tape everywhere.

And so they talked about all these things that you need to have.

And they said you needed an old sewing machine.

What's this?

Called A treadle, treadle, treadle, treadle sewing machine Because you don't have electricity.

You know you may have to repair your pantyhose or something, I don't know, and so you know.

You look at all that and it talks about all these things that you needed to survive.

Now, you know, what I think would be neat is, instead of having a list of all these things, is to have somebody that could guide me through this difficult time in my life.

Because they've been there.

It would be nice to have somebody say you know what?

I have all the stuff you need, and when the catastrophe happens, when Armageddon happens, it's all going to come to the end.

I'll get you through it.

That would be the nice thing to have.

That's sort of what happens in the Bible when Jesus was talking to his apostles in John chapter 14, 15, and 16, he's sort of preparing them for the catastrophe, for the difficult time that's ahead.

John 14 · chapter mention

Jesus tells them in John chapter 14, 15, and 16, now I want you to remember he's been meeting with these 12 guys for three years.

John 14 · chapter mention

They've been with him every day for 12 years.

They've been with him for every day, every day for 12 years, and he's talking about how he was going to be the savior of the world.

He talked about the kingdom of God that was going to come.

And so these guys are thinking all right, jesus is here, this new King's here, we're going to defeat Rome and we're going to be a great nation again.

And Jesus was talking about the spiritual kingdom.

And then he says by the way, guys, I want to let you know I'm going to die, I'm going to have to leave you for a little while.

Now imagine spending three years of your life following somebody that you thought was going to be the savior of the world.

And he says they're going to kill me like a criminal.

Would you be a little confused?

But he said don't worry, even though I'm going to die, I'll be back.

I'll be back, you know, like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

That was a terrible impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

We got a good one here.

Wait just a minute, I'll be back.

That was almost as bad as mine, but anyway, that was pretty good.

That was better than mine.

I'll be back, all right, but anyway.

So he tells them about I'm going to leave.

But he says don't worry, I'm going to leave somebody with you.

And he talks about the Holy Spirit.

And so in chapters 14 and 15 and 16 of the book of John and I'd encourage you to read it this week.

He prepares them about what's going to happen, because he's getting ready to leave them.

He says he's going to die, but he prepares them, he encourages them, he tells them listen, everything's going to be okay.

He tries to get them to unify around the mission hey, the mission's still here and he assures them that there will be help for them and that help, he says, is in the person of the Holy Spirit.

Now he gives them a lot of promises about the Holy Spirit and we need to be intellectually honest about what we're going to look at, because those promises he makes aren't promises to us, they're for us.

Sometimes God makes promises to people in specific contexts and we'll claim them.

For example, you see that 2 Chronicles passage all the time where it says God says I have a plan for you, a plan to prosper you.

Well, he's not talking to us, but yet we'll put it on a t-shirt.

So even though some of these promises at least two of them aren't to us, they are for us and we can learn some things about the Holy Spirit that can help us.

We've been talking about the Holy Spirit the past couple of weeks because people don't understand it.

We've talked about the Holy Spirit is a person.

He's not an it.

We've talked about the Holy Spirit is God.

We've talked about what the Holy Spirit does in our lives.

Is God.

We've talked about what the Holy Spirit does in our lives and how he guides us and all the things that he does.

But this week I want to talk about.

Why does the?

Holy Spirit do what he does.

What's the whole purpose of the Holy Spirit?

And I think it's important for us to understand that.

You know, once you understand the purpose of something, it helps make a little more sense.

If I don't understand what the purpose of the Holy Spirit is, then it's not going to make a whole lot of sense.

And sometimes I see things because my mind doesn't work right and I wonder you know, what in the world is the purpose of that?

I'll give you an example.

If you've got a pen like this in the back of the pew in front of you, look at it and I want you to ask something have you ever looked at these pens like this and wondered why there's a hole in the top of the cap?

I heard it over here so you won't choke, because, who knows, you may swallow this if you get bored or get hungry.

And so I looked at that and thought I never knew that.

Now, neil, you probably knew that, but I sat there and looked at that and said they put the hole there because if somebody swallows it you won't choke.

Now that I know the purpose of the hole in the pen the pen cap it makes a little bit of sense.

Now I'll demonstrate.

No, no, not really, but it does that.

And then I started looking at this tube of hemorrhoids Not hemorrhoids, this tube.

I did have some hemorrhoidal cream, but I didn't bring it this tube of cream.

All right, huh, tmi, tmi, you don't know the half of it, but anyway.

No, yes, this is being recorded.

This is going all over the world.

But anyway, have you ever noticed on the caps of these tubes there's that little pointed thing there.

Did y'all knew that?

Why did I not know that?

I mean, I knew it.

Do you know what it's for?

Yeah, so you put this off.

Did you know this, jim?

See, I didn't know that.

If you never knew it.

How did you ever use it?

I took scissors and cut it off.

This way I'm the guy that sits there trying to peel the little aluminum off of it because I never knew.

Did you know that, haley, see, see?

Did you know that?

Gang man, you did.

You got hemorrhoid problem too, but anyway, you know that.

Game man, you did.

You got hemorrhoid problem too, but anyway, you see that.

And you think, man, now that I know the purpose of that, it makes sense.

Do you know that on your keyboard, on the letter F and J, there's a little dot there?

You knew that.

Do you know why?

So that when you do whatever you type because I don't do that, I do this.

That's why it takes me four days to do my sermons that little nodule there, so that you don't have to look at the keyboard and you know that fingers go there and they never.

I never knew that, but now that I know the purpose of the little nodule there, it makes sense.

And then I noticed this on the pop cans you break it off, you turn that around the little hole in it.

Quentin, did you say that?

You have a lot of time left on your hands if you know what all this stuff is for.

And you turn it around where the little hole is there and then you can stick your straw in that little hole now, did you know that?

Your straw in that little hole?

Now, did you know that?

Am I that dumb?

You don't have to agree with me on that.

Huh, well, that's what I thought.

But if you stick the straw without it and then you try to drink with the straw and you're trying to move, it just moves around.

That's why they do it.

I never knew.

Did you know that, jim?

See, it's just amazing.

But now that I know that it makes sense, now that I understand the purpose of the hole in the pen and the cream and the straw there, it all makes sense.

When I understand the purpose of something, it helps, it make sense.

So when I understand what the purpose of the Holy Spirit is, then it will make sense on why he does what he does.

Why does he pray for me and take my groanings to God?

Why does he do the things that he does?

Once I understand his purpose, it makes sense.

And so we're going to look at three scriptures that come from John, chapter 14, 15, and 16, to help us understand what that purpose is.

John 14 · chapter mention

Not that I've made a total fool of myself because I didn't know what the hole in the top of the pop can was.

Remember a couple of weeks ago we talked about weird jobs and how the guy that milked snakes for a living and how that's a snake milker.

But once you understood that he milked the venom out of the snake in order to help make antidotes for people who get snake bite, snake bitten, snake bit, whatever.

It makes sense.

So once we understand what the purpose of the Holy Spirit is, then what he does, what he does in our lives, will start to make sense.

First, I want us to look that when John talks to his disciples.

Here's what he says.

He says now, you know, I'm getting ready to live and die, and he describes the Holy Spirit as a helper and he says I will ask the Father and he will give you another advocate.

Now your Bible may say another helper, or it may say another comforter Huh, Advocate Another advocate to help you and be with you forever.

This helper, this advocate, is the spirit of truth.

So I want you to understand.

Jesus is telling these apostles hey, I'm getting ready to die.

And they're going.

What's going to happen.

Well, what are we going to do?

He says don't worry, I want you to know, the Father's going to give you another helper besides me.

This helper is the spirit of truth, the spirit of God that's going to live within Christians, and he's truth.

You can trust him.

And so he talks about how he's going to give them that, the Greek word.

There is a word that we get, an English word which I've never used in my life paraclete.

Now, do you know what a paraclete is?

Framer, what's a paraclete?

No, that's a parakeet.

A paraclete what?

No, it's not a couple of pairs of shoes, it's not a paraclete.

It's a paraclete.

And it's a word that means I've been here too long, josh, you're in for it.

But it's a word that means to run alongside someone.

Apparently, it's someone who speaks.

They're a helper.

They run along someone, they advocate.

It was a word that was used to talk about people in a trial.

That would be a good witness on your behalf.

They're there to help you.

And so Scripture, jesus, says I'm sending you this Holy Spirit.

He's God and I'm leaving you, but he's going to be here and I want you to know he's going to be your helper.

Now, while this promise is to the apostles.

We receive this same promise other places.

For example, a couple of weeks ago we looked at Romans 8, 26, where it talks about how the Holy Spirit lives inside Christians.

And one of the things he does is when we're so heartbroken, we're so just ashamed of our sin, we're so confused, we're so angry that we don't even know what to say to God in our prayers that the Holy Spirit will take our groanings and he'll take them to God and say here's what Woody means.

Woody's so hurt right now, but here's what he means.

So the whole idea of the Holy Spirit being our helper in this verse even though it's to the apostles, we know that he's also our helper because of other places Does that make sense?

Not every promise made in the Bible is to us, but it's for us because we can learn from it.

And so God says I'm sending you this helper.

I want you to know that.

He says another helper, jesus is helping us, but he says I want you all to understand something else I'm sending you another helper.

So how did the Holy Spirit help the apostles?

There's Paraclete, one called alongside the help.

How did the Holy Spirit help?

You're telling me.

Are you looking.

Are you telling me something, jeff?

Or you just?

Oh, I thought you wanted me to move this up.

You're just scratching.

I got some cream if you need it, but anyway.

But how do you do that?

How did the Holy Spirit help the apostles?

Well, one thing he did is he taught and reminded them of all things.

In John 14, 26,.

Jesus says listen, I know you're worried because I'm leaving you, but the advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name circle that phrase in my name, because we're going to talk about it in a minute will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

So he says I want you to know that I'm gone for a while.

I'll be back then.

I'm gone again when I send to heaven.

But I'm giving you the Holy Spirit and he's going to remind you of everything.

When you're up there preaching on P, holy Spirit, and he's going to remind you of everything when you're up there preaching on Pentecost and you're saying, what do I say?

The Holy Spirit's going to remind you Remember they didn't have Scripture and I think it was Tacey who had the 830 service said this that without the Holy Spirit doing this for the apostles, we wouldn't have had Scripture Because the Holy Spirit reminded them of everything Jesus said.

Had scripture Because the Holy Spirit reminded them of everything Jesus said and they wrote it down.

So even though this promise isn't to us, it's for us and it benefits us.

So he says I'm going to do that.

Now.

I'm not telling you that the Holy Spirit cannot put ideas in our mind.

Satan can.

We've talked about this.

We call that temptation.

The Holy Spirit, I think, can as well, and he can help us recall Scripture.

But what he did for the apostles is he taught and reminded them of all things.

Now we're going to look at the common thread through this lesson and what we learn about the Holy Spirit here is this that the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name.

Jesus says the Holy Spirit is coming in my name.

What does that mean?

Have you ever you don't have to answer this have you ever been running and somebody say stop in the name of the law?

I said you didn't have to answer it, sarah, I'm not going to answer it.

Stop, huh.

He's showing his authority.

Stop in the name of the law.

I have the authority of the law.

I'm a representative of the law.

You better stop.

Well, the Holy Spirit whom the Father says Jesus said he was sending in my name, the Holy Spirit is coming in the name of Jesus.

The Holy Spirit is coming as a representative of Jesus.

The Holy Spirit, it comes only through the authority of Jesus.

And so when we learn about the Holy Spirit is yes, he came to teach him of all things, but he comes as a representative of Jesus, and it's important for you to understand that, because we're going to tie this all together in a minute.

The point is this the Holy Spirit is coming in Jesus' authority.

That makes no sense to me.

I don't know.

The Holy Spirit is coming.

Jesus is authority.

I don't know what that means, but here's what I mean to say the Holy Spirit is coming, maybe it should be by Jesus' authority my bad To represent Jesus.

The Holy Spirit is coming by Jesus' authority to represent him.

I don't know what I did.

It was a bad week.

It's right in the paper, alright.

Whatever it says is what I mean.

But the whole point is this the Holy Spirit is here as a representative of Jesus, by the authority of Jesus.

Whatever the Holy Spirit does, he's doing it as a representative of Jesus.

Does that make sense?

All right, that's important.

I want you to understand that.

The second thing we learn is this that the Holy Spirit he says when the advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father will testify about me.

So Jesus says let me tell you something else the Holy Spirit is going to do.

I'm going to give you apostles of the Holy Spirit.

And he says the Holy Spirit is going to testify, he's going to guide you into all truth and he's going to testify about who Jesus is, about who Jesus is Nowadays.

When you want to buy something, or if you want to eat at a restaurant, or if you want to stay at a hotel or something, usually before we make that decision we read reviews.

Right, you go on Yelp or somewhere and you're going to find out.

And if somebody says, well, I found a cockroach in my salad, you're not going to go eat there, testifying about something's important.

Here's some crazy reviews.

Here's a couple of them.

This person wrote a review about this book that I'm sure all of you have called Crafting with Cat Hair.

It's a bestseller, crafting with Cat Hair, and here is a review.

It worked like a charm.

I purchased this book as I was tired of people sitting too near to me on the bus, and so I've read this book.

And nobody sat near to me.

It worked like a charm.

There you go, crafting with Kate Norman.

You probably have his book, don't you?

So that scarf you gave me the other day oh okay, I thought I had fleas Anyway, crafting with cat hair.

And then I love this guy.

He bought the big beach ball and I loved his review.

You probably can't read it, but here's his review.

Well, let's see if I got it here.

Yeah, he says we took this ball to the beach and, after close to two hours to pump it up, we pushed it around for about 10 fun-filled minutes.

That was when the wind picked up and sent it hurtling down the beach at about 40 knots.

It destroyed everything in its path.

Children screamed in terror as the giant inflatable monster crushed their sandcastles.

Grown men were knocked down trying to save their families.

The faster we chased it, the faster it rolled.

It was like it was mocking us.

Eventually we had to stop running after it because its path of injury and destruction was going to cost us a fortune in legal fees.

Rumor has it that it can still be seen stalking innocent families on the Florida Panhandle.

We lost it in South Carolina, so there's something to be said about its durability.

Now that makes me want to run out and buy that thing.

Take it down to Seneca Lake and just see what happens.

But we buy things based on testimony, based on what somebody says about it, and the Holy Spirit comes and Scripture says that he comes to testify.

What is the Holy Spirit testifying about?

According to this verse, jesus.

Jesus says I'm giving you the Holy Spirit and he's going to testify.

He's going to tell you I am the Savior of the world.

He's going to tell you I am the King of kings.

He's going to tell you I will forgive your sins.

I am the way, the truth and the life.

I will give you grace to sustain you.

He's going to testify that I do love you, no matter what happens.

He's going to testify about that.

That's what the Holy Spirit is.

He's going to come and testify about all truth, and Jesus is the truth.

So what have we learned so far, god?

Since the Holy Spirit is a helper, why does the Holy Spirit do what he does?

He teaches and reminds the apostles of all things so they can tell other people about who Jesus.

He comes and he testifies as the Spirit of truth and he testifies that who is the truth.

The point is, everything the Holy Spirit does points to Jesus.

And you're going to say what does that have to do with me?

A lot in just a minute.

Then the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin and I believe this promise that he tells the apostles does apply to us today.

Jesus says when the Holy Spirit comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin.

When the world says, hey, it's not that big a deal, go ahead and live any way you want to, the Holy Spirit's going to come and he's going to prove the world is wrong, that sin will destroy your life.

Sin will destroy your relationships.

Sin will rob you of peace and joy.

Sin will load you down with guilt.

He's going to prove the wrong.

The Holy Spirit's going to come and convict the world of sin and prove it is wrong about sin.

He's going to prove that it's wrong about what is righteous, what makes you right with God.

And the Holy Spirit's going to come and he's going to come in judgment as well.

Here's what he's going to teach about sin About sin because people do not believe in me.

He's going to come and let the world know that the reason, the root cause of your sin is you don't believe in Jesus.

You think you know better than what Jesus does.

You think you know what makes you happy more than what Jesus does.

Does you think you know what makes you happy more than what Jesus does?

You think life's about you, not about Jesus.

So he's going to give it the world that you know what you've done it your way.

How's it been doing it?

Sure, how's this country been by doing it its own way?

And he's going to come and he's going to talk about being righteous and being right with God and he's going to show the world you can't be made right with God by your goodness.

Your religion don't make you right with God.

Your lighting candles don't make you right with God.

You keep something dark.

What's going to make you right in God is trusting in the righteous work of King Jesus.

That's what makes me right with God.

And then, when it comes to judgment, the Holy Spirit's going to let you know that this prince of the world, everybody that thinks Satan the way, the world.

He is condemned, he's lost.

When Jesus walked out of that grave, satan knew it was over.

The Holy Spirit's going to come and tell you that Jesus came to earth so you don't have to live a life of sin and so you can live a life of purpose.

And when he died on the cross, he died on the cross so that you now know that the only way I can be made right with God is through the blood of Jesus, because I'm a sinner.

And when he walked out of that grave, the Holy Spirit's going to let the world know.

Satan lost and death is no longer a big deal.

Jesus defeated it.

And the only thing Satan had over you was death.

And all of a sudden, jesus said you know what, when you die, if you trust in me, you're going to live again.

It's over Satan.

It's over Satan.

The Holy Spirit came to make Jesus the center of attention.

It's all about Jesus.

It's all about Jesus.

And you're saying, okay, woody, I understand that now.

But what does that mean?

See, the Holy Spirit's purpose is no different than our purpose.

It's to glorify Jesus, it's to point people to Jesus, and the common thread through John 14, 15, and 16 is that the Holy Spirit does what he does.

Everything the Holy Spirit does in your life, he does it.

So Jesus is glorified, and here's what that means to you.

It helps me know if what I'm seeing or experiencing or doing is from the Holy Spirit or not.

When people say, oh, you know, I just had this great feeling and it was just and it was just.

Oh, you know, I just had this great feeling and it was just.

It was just and it was just.

Well, is it about your feeling or about Jesus?

Does that make sense?

Anything that thrusts the Holy Spirit, anything that makes the Holy Spirit the center of attention, is not from the Holy Spirit, and I know of some places where I understand the Spirit moves.

But if it's from the Spirit, jesus gets the glory, not the Holy Spirit.

I understand spiritual gifts, but his spiritual gifts glorify me, they look at me.

They're not from the Holy Spirit.

I understand God can do miraculous things, but if I get up and I do look at me.

It's not from the Holy Spirit, because everything the Holy Spirit does points to Jesus.

I understand we have our favorite preachers.

I understand it's good to recognize people whose ministries are doing good things.

I understand we have our favorite songs.

But I hope that your favorite preacher is your favorite preacher because he points you, he makes you conscious of Jesus, not because he's funny.

My prayer every week is this when we used to meet back there and pray pre-COVID, and now we sort of meet up here, but when I met with him and prayed, if you leave here talking about how good Stop 9 is and not how good Jesus is, we failed.

We failed.

I'm not saying you don't appreciate Stop Night.

I think we're a great church.

We're a messed up bunch of people, but that's what makes us a great church, because we're all nuts.

Your preacher's dysfunctional.

If people leave here talking about boy, that's a great praise team and not boy.

We serve a great God.

I love our praise team because they lead me into God's presence.

They point me to Jesus.

If the praise team becomes about the praise team, it's not from the Holy Spirit.

If the preaching becomes about me, it's not from the Holy Spirit.

If we start talking about how great Stop 9 is instead of how great Jesus is because he's working through us.

It's not from the Holy Spirit.

Does that make sense?

I see the Holy Spirit.

Does that make sense?

I see the Holy Spirit.

I see the Holy Spirit when people make meals and take it to other people in our church.

Who is sick?

I see the Holy Spirit when I see people back here thanking Jesus because he's delivering them from addiction.

I see the Holy Spirit when a couple of weeks ago I saw a young lady with stage four cancer coming out of that water, crying because she's now saved and she's no longer afraid to die.

I see the Holy Spirit when I hear people like Jake or Nate who say I want to study the Bible, I want to learn how to be better at ministry.

I see the Holy Spirit when I see little kids praying and holding hands out in the hall.

I see the Holy Spirit moving when people go out and they walk around a circle for four hours on a track at Buckeye Trail to raise money to send water and living water to a people dying of thirst in Africa.

I see the Holy Spirit when I see young families coming here and saying you know what?

I want something better for my life and saying you know what I want something better for my life.

I see the Holy Spirit when there's people who have been freed from the chains of legalism and they're starting to relax in God's grace, and the common theme in all of those is that every one of them points them to Jesus.

Whatever the Holy Spirit does points them to Jesus.

Whatever the Holy Spirit does brings attention to Jesus.

And if what I'm doing or feeling or experiencing is not bringing attention from Jesus, it may be from somebody, but it's not from the Holy Spirit, because the purpose of the Holy Spirit is to bring attention to Jesus.

Does that make sense?

So when somebody and the attention's focused on them and not Jesus, it may be exciting, it may be a great Christian concert, but if it doesn't cause attention to Jesus, it's not from the Spirit, because that's what he calls us to do.

Anything that glorifies the Holy Spirit is not from the Holy Spirit.

Anything that glorifies anyone or anything besides Jesus is not from the Holy Spirit, because that's his purpose.

I had some homework for you, but I can't remember for the life of me what it was.

There you go.

I asked the Holy Spirit.

I'm glad I put it up here, or Josh put it up here.

I asked him to keep you focused on Jesus this week.

Just say get up tomorrow morning and say God, help the Spirit, keep me focused on Jesus, because that's what he's supposed to do, not on me, not on my talents, not on some other person.

Just Jesus, just Jesus, just Jesus.

You want to be saved, you want to be baptized into Christ.

Just Jesus.

If you have prayers, you need the prayers of a church family, because there's something going on in your life.

There's only one answer Just Jesus.

We need a bumper sticker Just Jesus.

The Holy Spirit will point us to Jesus.

Let's stand and sing together.

Hark, the gentle voice of Jesus falleth.

Tenderly upon your ear, sweetest cry of love and pity calleth.

Turn and listen, stay and hear.

Ye that labor and are heavy laden.

Lean upon your dear Lord's breast.

Ye that labor and are heavy laden, come and I will give you rest.

Then his loving, tender voice obeyed.

Bear his yoke, his burden take.

Find the yoke.

His hand is on you, laid Light and easy for his sake.

Ye that labor and are heavy laden.

Lean upon your dear Lord's breast.

Ye that labor and are heavy laden.

Come and I will give you rest.

Thank you everyone who's able to be here with us this morning.

We appreciate it.

Great job, woody.

Just an awesome job.

Glad everyone could be here.

Just a reminder for the preschool parents have their kids stop by for a memory verse treat at the end there Prayer Okay, we'll have a closing prayer and then we'll close with a song.

Let's all go to God in prayer.

Dear Heavenly Father, we come to you at this time thanking you so much.

Each and every one of us this morning woke up.

That's something to be thankful for.

There are so many things going on in our lives with a congregation this big, but we are so thankful we woke up.

When we wake up, we look out.

We see your sunrise, we see the birds, we see your clouds.

We should always be thinking of you every moment.

We thank you so much that you give the Holy Spirit to us.

If it were not for the Holy Spirit being able to guide me personally, I wouldn't be here right now.

If we all would feel the presence of the Holy Spirit and use him in the manner he was meant to be, what a wonderful world this would be.

We're not always perfect, but in your eyes we are, and we thank you for that.

There's so many times where we pray and we ask for things.

Let us not forget it's not our will be done.

It is yours and only yours, and your time, not our time.

As we leave this place, watch over us.

Allow us to be able to search the Holy spirit this week and to bring him into our hearts and our lives so that we can shine bright for all those around us, so that he can see what we have.

And they ask a question.

And let that Holy Spirit guide us to have the right words to say to those who ask it's all these things we ask in your son's name, Amen.

I might want to turn that.

There we go To Canaan's land.

I'm on my way when the soul of man never dies.

My darkest night will turn to day where the soul of man never dies.

No sad farewells, no tear-dimmed eyes, dimmed eyes where all is peace and joy and love and the soul of man never dies a love light beams across the foam where the soul of man never dies it shines to light the shores of home where the soul never dies, no sad farewells, no tear-dimmed eyes, where all is peace and love.

Soul of man never dies.

I'm on my way to that fair land where the soul of man never dies, where there will be no parting hand and the soul of man never dies.

Thank you all, have a great day.