About the Holy Spirit

Last Sunday, we sort of wrapped up a series we started at the beginning of the year called A Really Good Year.

And the idea behind this is we're we're trying to have a really good year, but a really good year based on God's definition of good, not our own.

Things get a little off when we decide what is good.

We actually see that in the very first story we have of people in the Bible.

There's these two trees, one is the tree of life, the other is the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and they weren't supposed to eat from that tree, but it actually says that they looked at the tree and its fruit looked pleasing to them.

In other words, they said, That looks good to me, and we all know how that story ends.

God has a very different definition of good.

Usually for us, good just means easy.

Good means I get what I want when I want it, and there's no problems.

And God's version of good is quite different than that.

But if we could surrender our good and desire his, things would go much better for us in the sense that we would know him, we would walk closely with him, and we would experience what he has for us in life.

Which often isn't easy, but it's good.

And so, in exploring that, we've looked at a few concepts.

We said that in order to have a good year, we need to be filled.

We don't want to be empty.

And in seeking to fill that emptiness with all kinds of stuff that don't satisfy, like the stuff that our world offers us much of the time.

We talked about how we want to be free, and we'll talk a little bit more about that today.

And last week, we started talking about the Holy Spirit, and we said that we need to be spirit-fueled.

If we want to have a good year, we have to be filled, free, and spirit-fueled.

But sometimes you just bite off more than you can chew.

And so I thought that I could have this whole conversation about the Holy Spirit last Sunday.

And I don't know if you're like me, I very frequently underestimate how long something will take, or maybe I overestimate my ability to do it.

Like a couple months ago, I told my wife, hey, today I'm gonna clean out our attic.

And I said, today.

I put a timeline on that.

Now, I'll say this, it's not my fault.

Um, my wife has never been in our attic.

And she believes somewhere deep inside of her that our attic is a portal to another dimension with limitless space.

And so when she buys new Christmas trees and decorations, seasonal things, I'll be like, where are we gonna put it?

She's like, you know, in the attic.

I'm like, you've never been in the attic.

The attic is the attic is like a game of Jenga right now.

And so, but I was like, you know what, I'm gonna do it?

I said, I'm doing it today.

And like two weeks later, attic was done.

So sometimes that happens.

Um, well, that happened last week with the Holy Spirit, and I really wrestled with whether or not we should just move on.

We have a new series we're gonna start really soon on the book of Philippians.

We'll go through the entirety of the book of Philippians.

It's only four chapters, so it won't take us a year or anything like that.

We went through the whole book of Matthew last year.

Um, Philippians is incredible, and the the sort of theme for that study is unbreakable joy.

How can you have a kind of joy in your life that nothing can stop?

Really excited about that.

But I just, the more I prayed about it and thought about it this whole week, I just felt like, man, there's there's stuff that we need to we need to tie the bow on the Holy Spirit conversation.

Um we really always talk about the Holy Spirit.

We sing, it's a huge part.

The Holy Spirit is God, so that's not something that we put in a little category.

But sometimes you open up a can of worms and then you just have to deal with the worms.

So that's what we're gonna do today, right?

I'm excited about it because the Holy Spirit is so important, fundamental.

Some of us didn't grow up in church at all, and so the whole concept of a Holy Spirit just seems kind of like out there, maybe, or maybe it seems really cool.

It's supernatural for sure.

And if you believe in a supernatural God, you shouldn't be surprised when there are supernatural aspects to God.

Some of us grew up in church cultures that were very comfortable talking about the Holy Spirit, and so you have a comfort level with that, which is great.

Some of us grew up in church cultures where there wasn't that comfort level.

And many of us have just been part of the American church, which for the last 30 years or so has very often treated the Holy Spirit like an add-on.

Like an extra.

Like if you went out to a really nice steakhouse and you had the choice to add something onto your steak.

You know, you're gonna add a lobster tail or some something, I don't know.

The Holy Spirit is not an add-on.

The Holy Spirit is not an extra feature that you can choose if you'd like.

The Holy Spirit, at least the Holy Spirit, as Jesus and Scripture describes to us, the Holy Spirit is foundational, the Holy Spirit is fundamental.

And as much as we can, because we're humans and our ability to understand the Holy Spirit is fairly limited, but as much as we can, we need to understand what the Holy Spirit does for us, what the Holy Spirit wants to do within us.

Because there is no way to experience God's good apart from his spirit.

And so let's look at some scripture just to get our heads wrapped around this a little bit.

Ephesians chapter 2 kind of introduces us to the idea of the Spirit in us, and it says that God is so rich in mercy and he loved us so much that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

It's only by God's grace that you've been saved.

I know the word spirit doesn't show up in that scripture, but it's talking about spiritual life.

It says that we used to be dead.

And you might say to yourself, I don't remember that.

But it's not talking about physical death, it's talking about spiritual death.

And I've talked about this before.

We have categories for this.

Um, all of us have described our phone at some point in time as being dead.

And when we say, oh, my phone is dead, we don't mean that it's physically broken.

We mean it doesn't have the power inside of it to do what it's meant to do.

So it's just a paperweight.

And there's this concept in scripture that without the Holy Spirit inside of us, we are we're dead.

We're not able to do what we're meant to do or be who we're meant to be because we lack the power of the spirit inside of us, but Jesus has changed that by giving us his spirit.

The Bible describes God as spirit.

Jesus himself actually said, God is spirit, so we must worship him in both spirit and in truth.

Scripture describes Satan as a spirit, meaning not bound by a physical body.

The Apostle Paul in Ephesians chapter 6 says that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against unseen spiritual forces.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

So there's this concept clearly taught in Scripture that there is a spiritual reality, and there's actually a spiritual reality within us.

We're taught that in Romans 8.16, for example, that his spirit, that is the Holy Spirit, joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God's children.

Romans 8.11 says the Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in us.

So the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, through faith in Jesus, lives in us and is doing something.

And we're going to talk about that this morning.

Because this is as foundational as any idea, concept, topic, experience you could have if you want to grow in your faith and truly experience what God has for you, all the good that He has for you.

You have to understand, Jesus talked about the Holy Spirit as such a necessity and a blessing.

Think for a moment about how amazing it would be if you could hang out with Jesus in the flesh for a day.

If we're honest, most of us would probably say, yeah, that would be an upgrade.

If I could be with Jesus in the flesh, if I could talk to him face to face and hear his voice and see him, that that would be a huge upgrade over what I have access to now.

But interestingly, Jesus thought the opposite.

And so in John chapter 16, he's talking to his disciples, and he's telling them that he's about to leave them in the flesh.

John 16 · chapter mention

But listen to what he says.

John 16, 7, he says, but in fact, it is best for you that I go away.

It's best if I'm not here in the flesh, according to Jesus.

He says, because if I don't, the advocate, and that's a term Jesus used to describe the Holy Spirit, the advocate won't come.

But if I do go away, then I will send him to you.

Jesus said, It's better for us that we don't have him here in the flesh, because it's better for us to have his spirit.

It's actually an upgrade.

In John 14, verses 15 through 17, Jesus says, If you love me, obey my commandments, and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate who will never leave you.

John 14:15–17

He is the Holy Spirit who leads into all truth.

The world cannot receive him because it isn't looking for him and it doesn't recognize him, but you know him because he lives with you now and later will be in you.

Jesus tells his disciples, you've experienced the Holy Spirit outwardly.

You've seen the Holy Spirit work through me and do miracles and all kinds of things, but Jesus says to his disciples, one day you will experience the Holy Spirit in you.

The power of God, the person of God, at work within us.

That is the promise of the Holy Spirit.

But how does that actually work in our lives?

We began to talk about that last week.

And there's been a word that we've sort of used over the last few weeks to describe what the Holy Spirit, what God offers to us, and that word has been freedom.

And you might ask, well, freedom from what?

And we've sort of focused on a few different things, some more than others, but I would say it's freedom from death, from the law, and from sin.

And death, we won't spend a lot of time on that.

Um everybody dies.

Actually, more than a hundred percent of the people who have ever lived have died.

And the reason it's more than a hundred percent is because there were people like Lazarus and this young girl that Jesus rose from the dead, and then they died again.

They died twice.

Right?

So that's that's more than a hundred percent.

Um, and there's even some people in the Old Testament, there's stories of that.

So death is a reality, but but the spirit brings life.

And Jesus showed us that he has a life that death does not defeat.

And actually, we read it a minute ago.

The same spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead lives in us.

That same spirit is in us.

And so what we are free from as believers, or should be, and sometimes it takes work to be, because we have stuff we have to process, is we're free from the fear of death.

Because we know that death does not have the last word.

In fact, as we go through the book of Philippians, we're gonna see a lot of that with Paul, because Paul wrote Philippians in prison, awaiting execution, and it's filled with statements of joy because he didn't fear death.

Jesus has released us from that.

Um, we're free from the law.

We've talked a little bit about that.

We'll go through a little bit more of that, kind of wrap that up today, and we're free from the power of sin.

Sin being, well, a lot of things.

The Greek word for sin means to miss the mark.

It's an archery term, it means you don't hit the bullseye.

What is that bullseye?

That would be a holy, righteous life as described by God, actually in the law.

No one has done that other than Jesus.

We have all fallen short, all of us sinned, but sin is also described in scripture in the book of Genesis as a force within itself that is crouching at the door, so to speak, and trying to influence us and tempt us and move us away from God.

So sin, sin has lost its power over us because of Jesus through the power of his spirit within us.

We'll talk more about that today.

So, mostly over the last few weeks, we've focused on this concept of the law.

The law being all the rules that come along in the Old Testament.

Before Jesus, that is how the people who followed God, the true God, interacted with him via a series of laws.

And there's a word for that that has changed over the course of history, but we use the word religion.

By religion, we don't mean devout worship of God, adoration of God.

We don't mean humbling yourself before God and recognizing that he's glorious and amazing and better and bigger.

We just mean that man-made, or at the very least, man-obsessed.

Even sometimes God gives us laws, and then men will come along and interpret those laws in certain ways and dictate it in certain ways, and it just becomes this cold, rigid system of rules and regulations.

And anyone who grew up in that, many of us have, there's benefits to it in the sense that you know the rules, so you know what to do or not to do.

But anyone who's really grown up in that kind of a religious system knows that it doesn't lead to life, it doesn't bring out passion and joy.

It's it's something entirely different.

And so, for example, in Galatians chapter 5, verse 18, the apostle Paul wrote, When you're directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses.

Galatians 5:18

Jesus did something for us, and he freed us from the law.

And so we have language in the New Testament that we're not under the law, that we're not obligated to the law, that we're dead to the law.

In Galatians chapter 3, he uses an interesting example.

Galatians 3 · chapter mention

He says, let me put it this way, another way.

The law was our guardian until Christ came.

It protected us until we could be made right with God through faith.

And now that the way of faith has come, we no longer need the law as our guardian.

The law served a purpose.

Multiple purposes.

It shows us what God says is good and what's not good.

Ultimately, we kind of learn his character and virtue via the law.

But the law won't get you all the way there.

It just won't.

And so a good example of that would be the Ten Commandments.

The Ten Commandments are good.

Like it's good not to kill people.

That's a good thing.

It's good not to lie.

But you can actually do that and not really love people.

You could technically follow the law and check those boxes, but in a cold, self-righteous way.

Because they're all sort of in the do-no harm category, at least as far as it relates to us and other people.

Just don't hurt people, don't do bad things.

But Jesus, he came along and he kind of upped the inning.

He said, hey, what about this?

You you men who say, this is Jesus talking when he said, you men who say you've never committed adultery, have you committed adultery in your heart?

Have you have you lusted?

Have you fantasized?

Because if you have, don't pretend like you're holier than thou.

Jesus said, hey, you've never murdered someone.

Great.

Have you hated someone?

Have you wished they were dead?

Have you celebrated someone's misfortune because you hate them so much?

That's that's a heart issue.

And the law is very good at changing your behavior, but it can't change your heart.

The Holy Spirit, however, can.

And this has always been the way that God has designed it.

This isn't some new thing when Jesus comes up.

In fact, my favorite verse, if you were to say, What's my favorite scripture?

If you were to ask my wife Megan, she would know this because she's gotten me a lot of gifts with this scripture on it.

It's from the Old Testament, Ezekiel chapter 36.

Ezekiel 36 · chapter mention

This is engraved on the front of the Bible that she gave me, the Bible that I use.

God said, I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you.

I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart, and I will put my spirit in you, so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations.

God is saying, You need help.

The law isn't gonna get you there.

You need something to happen in your heart to actually be able to live the life that I'm calling you to.

You need my spirit.

This is the way it's always been.

So where the law can't get us all the way there in terms of heart change, the spirit can.

The spirit can change your heart.

And so Jesus has moved us from the law, which isn't bad, but into a whole new place.

In Romans chapter 7, Paul writes, At one time I lived without understanding the law, but when I learned the command not to covet, for instance, the power of sin came to life and I died.

Romans 7 · chapter mention

So I discovered that the law's commands, which were supposed to bring life, brought spiritual death instead.

Sin took advantage of those commands and deceived me.

It used the commands to kill me, but still the law itself is holy, and its commands are holy and right and good.

This is so interesting.

Paul is saying, yeah, the law was it's good, but it actually enticed me to sin.

And anyone with kids, you you get this, because like the second you tell a child, whatever you do, don't do that, like that child wants to do that more than they've ever wanted to do anything else.

There's something about it.

Like, once you say, mm-mm, no, no, no, don't don't do that.

I mean, I've joked before that if we put a sign that said, uh, absolutely no one under the age of 12 allowed in a room, and we stuck that on the janitor's closet, every kid under 12 will be like, what is in that room?

Right?

So it's an interesting thing about our enemy, about Satan, he's opportunistic.

He will use good things that come from God and twist it to entice us to sin.

So Paul is saying, look, even though the law was good and holy, the law actually created sin in my life.

It brought death to me because of how the enemy twisted it.

It's all pretty complicated.

My point in all that to say is that the law, it doesn't get us all the way there.

We need the Holy Spirit.

And so last Sunday we we wrapped up by asking for that.

In Luke chapter 11, Jesus says, I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for.

Luke 11 · chapter mention

Keep on seeking, you'll find, keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.

For everyone who asks receives.

Everyone who seeks finds, and to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

You fathers, if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead?

Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion?

Of course not.

So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?

We should ask for the Spirit.

We should invite the Spirit in.

And Galatians chapter 5 tells us what happens when the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives.

Galatians 5 · chapter mention

It says the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

And there's no law against these things.

God doesn't have to manage love, real love, via law.

You sacrifice, you inconvenience yourself for people you have.

He doesn't have to put guardrails around joy, real joy.

And when we love people and our lives are filled with those things, with gentleness, with patience, when that's what guides us, not only do we technically follow the things that God says are good, but we do it in the right spirit with the right heart.

So we we need the Holy Spirit.

Point is, law doesn't get us there.

Law doesn't defeat death.

We need the Spirit to do that.

Law doesn't defeat sin.

We need the Spirit to do that.

And so what I want to do for the rest of our time is I want to share a way of looking at how the Spirit actually operates in our lives that has been really helpful to me because this is kind of confusing stuff.

And I wish it was the case where you just, man, and some people have this experience where they they meet Jesus and they pray a prayer, and it's like everything changes.

And they're not tempted in the ways they used to be tempted, and they see the world in completely different ways, and I don't know, maybe they have abs for the first time.

I'm not sure what else happens, but they're just like, boom, I'm a whole new person.

And I'm joking about that last part, but I do know people who have genuinely had such an encounter with the Lord that in one moment it's like a whole new person.

And then there's the rest of us who would say you're in the rest of us category, where okay?

Where you're like, yeah, I'm changing, I think.

It's like I'm definitely not who I used to be, but man, the growth feels small sometimes.

And sometimes our enemy will even use that to cause us to doubt whether or not it's genuine.

And we should always take stock of our heart and ourselves and ask tough questions.

But but I think for a lot of us, where we struggle is just a misunderstanding of how this actually looks and can operate in your day-to-day life.

Because every day you have the option to choose the spirit.

So I'm gonna map this out in a way that has helped me out over the years, okay?

I've got two columns.

Two columns.

And I've shared a version of this before, but it grows and adapts a little bit, and where we're gonna land is a little bit different than I've ever landed before.

So I'm excited about this.

So here we go.

Birth.

Everyone was born.

Anyone in the room not born?

Just want to make sure we're on the same page.

Great.

Uh you're born.

When you're born, you have a nature.

And and there's so many like little kids here.

Our church is full of children.

We have kids all over the place.

I believe that one of the calling cards of a healthy church should be the laughter of children running through the hallways.

And if that's not theirs, something's off.

We have lots of that.

And children are wonderful and they are beautiful, and in many ways they are innocent, and in many ways they are not.

And and our world doesn't like to think about it like this because our world must be, oh, you're born and you're just innocent, like for a minute.

You know, but not for long.

Because naturally, are we are we selfish or unselfish?

Yeah, like those of you.

Who have children, none of you have ever taught your kids how to lie.

I hope.

But you didn't have to, they figured that out on their own.

I remember the first time I ever saw one of my children lie to me.

And unfortunately, this is always going to be about my oldest because he got there first.

But Liam was maybe two, and he was playing in the backyard.

We had this tiny little postage stamp backyard, and and we had a dog at the time, and so uh there was a little shovel, and that's the shovel that we used to scoop, you know, the stuff.

And uh throw it over the fence.

Not into another neighbor's yard.

It was woods in the back.

It was woods.

Take that, Tom.

And it wasn't like that at all.

No, no, it's like I didn't I use that, and we had told Liam, hey, this this shovel, yucky, like yucky, you know, he was two.

So I'm watching him play in the backyard, and our windows were tinted.

So that I could see him, but on the other side it was just a reflection, and he's playing with that shovel.

And so I yelled his name really loud from inside the house, and he heard it, and he like freaked out, just threw the shovel.

And then, and I just watched, it was so hilarious.

Because then he like, what do I do?

And he ran and he got the shovel and he went and he lifted up this little lid of a container that we put in, he put it in and set it, and then I opened the door right after that happened.

And I was like, What you doing?

He went, nothing.

And I said, Were you playing with the shovel?

And he went, No.

I'm like, you liar.

You but it broke my he lied to me.

He knows it.

It doesn't take kids long naturally to lie, to steal, to hurt.

That's our nature.

We're born a little broken.

We we have a word for that nature in scripture.

It's very often called flesh.

Flesh becomes sort of a catch-all phrase for that part of us, how we operate apart from God.

It's our flesh.

And the flesh is mitigated by law.

That's the way you try to deal with the flesh in the flesh is law, and the law leads to death.

Because all of us stand condemned by the law.

No one of us could say, nailed it, nailed it.

Let the law examine me and see what it finds.

No, you don't want that.

But that's my no, no, we have more time.

I promise.

No.

Um, someone's alarm went off.

But Jesus says in John chapter 3, in a conversation with a man named Nicodemus, which might be the most important conversation that's ever happened in the history of the world, he says that you cannot enter the kingdom of God unless you are born again.

John 3 · chapter mention

We're told that we need to be born again.

And when we're born again, when we surrender our lives to Him, and a new life inside of us begins, we get a new nature.

And there's a word that we have in scripture for that new nature.

It's spirit.

It's the opposite of the flesh.

And the spirit leads to freedom, and that leads to life.

Now, the way I have it mapped out here, it all makes sense.

It's all neat and tidy, but uh, this is how it feels on a day-to-day basis as a Christian.

It does.

Like Galatians chapter 5, verse 16.

Galatians 5:16

Paul writes, so I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives, then you won't be doing what your sinful nature craves.

The sinful nature, your flesh, wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants.

And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires.

These two forces are constantly fighting each other.

So you are not free to carry out your good intentions.

But when you're directed by the Spirit, you're not under the obligation of the law.

So on a day-to-day basis, this is how it feels.

And by the way, this is why so many Christians are hypocrites.

Like there's a level of hypocrisy that's true evil where you have people who pretend to be followers of Jesus, maybe they're even pastors or leaders, and then they do horrible things and they steal and they harm people in horrific ways.

And that's like a whole other level.

That's not hypocrisy.

That's just evil.

That's wolves in sheep's clothing.

But then there's the garden variety, day-to-day hypocrisy, where someone might look at you and go, You're a Christian and you act this way.

I'm like, yeah, it's hard.

It's not easy.

There's two of me in here.

And sometimes the bad me is just much better fed than the good me, honestly.

Because there's a lot in our world that feeds our flesh.

And some of us just have really well-fed flesh and skinny spirit.

So you gotta feed your spirit.

You gotta spend time in the word and time with other believers and in prayer so that that spirit gets stronger.

That's part of how it works.

But the reality is, part of why we're hypocrites is because we're trying to do what the spirit is leading us to do, but then the flesh is still there and it desires the opposite, and it's a bit of a battle, and sometimes we find ourselves on the wrong side of it.

But I do think, all that said, all the mess aside, for me, that this, and we're gonna develop this in just a minute, but this has been like a framework that helps me so much in conversations, and just as I process my life.

And I'm gonna share an example of a really difficult conversation that I had with someone, actually, when this was something that I feel like God was showing me for the first time, and I don't mean like I woke up and drew this out, I was having a conversation with someone asking me how this all works, and I grabbed a piece of paper and this started to develop, but it was a really difficult conversation.

And I'm gonna use another example in a second that's that's not as controversial, but it has to do with homosexuality.

And here as I say that, yay! Um look, as a church, we've never been a church that will sort of shy away from talking about things that are controversial.

We're also not a church that looks forward to that.

It's like, here we go, yeah.

Um I'm sharing this because it's an actual conversation that ended up being the genesis of this entire thing, which I found is very helpful in my life, and I hope it's helpful for you as we work our way through it.

This is the actual circumstance and situation that I was in when I felt like the Lord showed me this for the first time.

Um and as I talk about this, anytime we talk about something that is controversial, if I say something that you agree with, don't say amen.

I appreciate the encouragement, but I'm good.

But there are going to be people in the room who feel differently, and that's okay.

In fact, at his hands, we have these words that kind of guide us.

I should have written them down, but I didn't.

Just we have plenty of words right now.

Um, but it's the words love, accept, agree, and endorse.

We love everyone, we love everyone.

Period.

End of story.

We love you.

But love and acceptance can actually happen apart from agreement or endorsement.

And sometimes our world tells us that if you disagree with me, you hate me, and that's silly, that's childish.

Because actually, if you can only love the people you agree with, I would say that is not actual love.

That's at least a very convenient love.

But if you can love people that you don't agree with, that that's something special.

So if you're here and if I share some things that you don't agree with, that is totally fine.

I just want you to know that you're loved, and I'm happy to have any conversation with any of you if you want to talk with me afterwards, anytime.

Okay, so here's the situation.

I had a lady that came up to me many years ago, and she was she was struggling.

And what she shared with me was that she very much loves the Lord.

She loves Jesus.

And I love Jesus, we had a lot in common.

And and that love was genuine.

I will say that, that love was was genuine.

But she expressed to me that she struggles because, as she described herself, she said, I'm a lesbian.

And I've really struggled to reconcile that with my faith.

And I have to give her credit.

Um scripture is very clear when it talks about what God views as healthy human sexuality.

He's very clear about it.

And there are people in our world today that will try to twist it and say, actually, technically, it's this and then look, anytime you have someone who's trying to do the whole well, actually, if you look at it a certain way and it becomes this really twisted way where it they're basically saying that the Bible isn't saying something that it says very clearly, that just beware of that.

Scripture's very clear about this, that doesn't make it easy.

And so she said, Look, I know what the scripture says, and I know that scripture does not condone this as a lifestyle.

She said, But this is who I am.

And I just don't know what to do.

And she looked at me and said this phrase, and I'm sure many of us have either heard this or thought in these terms.

She said, I was born this way.

And as soon as she said that, I looked at her, and I mean, sweet lady, and we had a great conversation.

And I asked her, which birth are you talking about?

And she said, Well, what do you mean?

And so I got a piece of paper.

Sorry, okay.

Um, and I said, Well, uh Jesus says that you must be born again.

And she goes, Yes, I'm very familiar with that.

I said, Okay, and that's something that you've experienced.

She said, Yes, I gave my life to him at a younger age and all of this.

And I said, Okay, cool.

So the question I asked her after that, I said, Which which birth, when you said I was born this way, these feelings that I have, these desires that I have, they they've been with me since birth.

Which birth were you appealing to?

And she said, Okay, I get it.

This one.

And we all do that.

We're actually trained to do that.

We are conditioned and trained by our culture to view this one as the real one.

This is the real you, and this is some not quite real you, but I would argue that if you're a follower of Jesus, it's the exact opposite.

Like this me, first birth Justin, he's gonna die one day.

This Justin won't.

Right?

This me, I hope, is dying a little bit every day.

This me needs to grow.

But every single time I make a decision in my life, truthfully, every decision I make, I'm appealing to one of these natures.

I'm appealing to one of these births.

And we're conditioned by our culture to believe that this is the real us.

Now, again, the issue I'm talking about, homosexuality, that's a tough one.

In fact, we had a class just this last week on this subject.

It was a class called the Biblical Sexual Ethic, and it's just something a lot of people, I taught on this three or four years ago.

I've had a lot of people ask me to teach on it again, so we did it as a class, and I had a lady in the class who asked an unbelievable question.

She said, I have a very close friend.

And this friend, similar to the lady that I talked to, loves the Lord, but this friend has told me this is how I've been since my childhood, since I was born.

How would you, like, what would you say to that person?

And we had a, I won't get into too much to the weeds of it, but essentially what I said was we're living in a very unique time.

A very unique time in history.

It's the first time in history that people are taught, and maybe not explicitly taught, but taught by culture, just osmosis, that your sexual desires are your identity.

That is who you are.

Paul addressed all kinds of these behaviors in the New Testament.

In the people in the Roman world, this stuff was prevalent.

But it was always viewed as behavior.

It's what someone does, not who someone is.

But in our culture, if you know our history, about 50 or 60 years ago, there was this massive push, and a new worldview started to take root in American culture.

It's all over the world, and it's called secular humanism.

And secular humanism denies the spiritual.

And it says that you don't need the spiritual, you don't need any belief in God to be the best version of yourself.

And that's why those of us who grew up in school in this era, we had posters on our walls in school, like the you know, the inspirational posters would be like an eagle flying over a mountain.

Remember those?

And it would say something like, Be yourself.

Believe in yourself.

And we were taught that.

Yeah, believe in yourself.

Because if you deny the spirit, what's left?

The flesh.

And so we were taught that you gotta you gotta be you.

And being you meant be this you.

But Jesus comes along and He He gives us a new birth, and that new birth has a new nature, and that new nature desires different things.

And even though it's very, very difficult, and this is the where I got to with the lady when we had this original conversation, was which which is it?

Is it spirit or is it flesh?

And she said, I don't know.

And I was like, all right, well, wrestle with that.

God is comfortable with wrestling.

But as we talked more, she said, Yeah, I think it's in this one.

I just don't know how to reconcile that because those feelings are very strong, and they are.

Now, like, that's a pretty controversial one, but I have I have things in my life that I have done many times for many years where I appeal to the flesh as justification for what I'm doing.

I should probably get fined for saying this because I talk about it too much, but um I'm a big fan of basketball.

Big fan.

And most of my worst moments of life in life have come when I'm either uh around basketball or when there's one in my hands.

And I think a lot of us can can appreciate this.

There's something in my brain that just goes, well, it's sports and it doesn't count.

Right?

Like we're supposed to be loving and kind and merciful and gracious, but not when we're playing sports, right?

That's not how it goes.

And so um, you know, I didn't play college basketball.

I was a really good high school player, but I'm five foot nine, and um, I've had people ask me, Did you play in college?

And I'm like, You ever seen a college basketball player?

Were they five foot nine?

They were not.

There's not a not many college coaches going, like, you know what we need?

Some five nine guys on our team.

Um, those are the managers.

So uh I could have been a manager if I would have just gone for it.

But but what that meant was in college I got to play intramural basketball, which was a lot of fun.

And I had Megan, my girlfriend, you know, if we got engaged in college, and I used to like have her come, like, babe, come watch, come watch your man.

You know?

And I'd do my thing, and I was good, and I score a lot of points, and then I'd look over at her, and she didn't seem to be having much fun.

And uh and then eventually she stopped coming.

She stopped coming.

And I asked her, like, why don't you come watch me play like it's my thing?

And I'm good at it, and you're my girlfriend, and I don't know.

There's something about being a guy and going out there and dominating, and then your girl's there.

It feels good.

Why aren't you there?

And um I'm gonna ask for her forgiveness.

I should have gotten her permission to share the story.

I'm also gonna preface this by saying the word I'm about to say could be taken in the wrong way, but it is in the Bible, it is not, okay.

She said, and I quote, when you play basketball, you're a jackass.

That was the word she used.

That is biblical, that is, I'm not saying it in that there, that's there's a lot, there's in there.

Don't be an ass.

And so it was in that context.

And she was right.

Because for my entire life, when I've had a ball in my hand, that is permission for me to be like, this Justin no longer exists.

And this Justin yells and screams and is is petty, and the referees that have had to deal with this Justin.

The poor referees.

And it's just me going, I I am deciding.

I can actually I was born this way.

I've always been super competitive, you know?

This is how I was born.

I've always had this fire when I place this.

I was just I was born this way.

It's just who I am.

Well, which me am I talking about?

Which which am I appealing to?

My flesh or my spirit?

Sometimes we just want to know, is it sin or is it not sin?

And you can find that out, look at scripture, but I would tell you that an even better filter for day-to-day life is this is this my spirit or my flesh?

Which am I going to satisfy?

Which am I going to live out of?

When I interact with my children, which me do they get more of?

And unfortunately, many days they get more of this one than that one.

Because I'm tired.

When I interact with difficult conversations, when something goes wrong at work, and I have to have one of those conversations, which me picks up the phone?

Is it this one or this one?

And the opportunity that we all have is every single day to choose our spirit, to choose what the spirit is doing in us.

And so a better way of looking at this, not the mess, yeah, yeah, this is how it feels, right?

But maybe a better way of looking at it is not side by side, but one over the other.

Because the truth is our flesh doesn't go away.

You're gonna have desires, and it is hard even with the original situation I talked about with something like homosexuality, I'll acknowledge those desires are probably unbelievably strong.

But their desires, their urges, their wants.

Is it spirit or is it flesh?

And the truth is, we are called as believers to have our flesh submit to our spirit.

It's not like you become a totally different person.

I've always been a goofball.

Always.

I've always been a class clown.

I spent so much time in trouble in school.

Like, how many of you never went to the principal's office?

Raise your hand if you never had you never got called to the principal's office.

That many of you, a lot of you just aren't participating.

I get it.

Um how many of you did?

Hey, not the hey, whoa! I thought I was in the minority.

Welcome to his hands.

It's a different kind of church.

Okay.

Yeah.

So, like growing up, I when if something was funny, then it was fun.

That might might be even more of my struggle than when a ball is in my hands.

Because if it's funny, I'm like, it's it's fair game.

As long as it's funny.

And so I was a class clown, and and that led to me often hurting people's feelings, but being like, I was just joking.

I almost got very close, I don't have time to tell the story because I'm looking at the clock, but I got very close to being expelled from college my junior year because of a prank that I pulled that was hilarious.

But went way further than I intended it to.

And honestly, if not for my friend Dwayne, uh who lied to the administration when asked point blank, did Justin McTear do this?

He's he just lied, which was wrong.

But I am grateful.

I'm glad his flesh won.

I'm just joking.

I'm not.

But no, honestly, if he hadn't lied, I would I would have been in serious trouble.

Because there was a version of me where the flesh, that ha ha funny, had total control.

And I'm I still goof off, I still tell jokes.

Shout out to Jeff from Wisconsin.

I still do that.

But I will tell you, you should have to trust me on this.

The number of times a day, the number of times per message on a Sunday, trust me, where a thought, a joke will come in my mind, like, and I go, ooh no.

Like, no.

That happens all the time.

It's happened five or seven times, like maybe between five to seven times today.

I'm serious.

It's just that now there's this spirit active in me, and when this goes, hey, hey, hey, the spirit's like, not now.

Not in this setting.

And other times, the spirit's like, yeah, that's funny, go for it.

And then other times this one does it anyway, and the spirit's like, shouldn't have done that, and it becomes, you know, back to the whole giant mess.

That's how it feels.

But as we wrap up, and and I'll invite the worship team back up.

All this to say, the Holy Spirit is in you.

If you've given your life to Jesus, you have the Spirit.

Now, as we talked about last week, you can experience more of the Spirit.

There's this concept of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

We're actually going to record a podcast that we'll publish on Wednesday.

It'll be on YouTube and on our podcast link where we're going to talk about the Holy Spirit, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, what does all that mean?

But suffice it to say, you have the Spirit in you.

The question is, ultimately, on a daily basis, which do you choose?

Which you are you going to choose to live out this week?

And every moment, every moment where, especially those moments that hit us by surprise when we have strong desires and deep urges, no matter where they come from, what kind of urges they are, the question we have to ask is which birth am I going to live out of?

Which me am I going to allow?

Am I going to choose to operate?

Am I a slave to my flesh?

And I just can't help myself, and I have to do what I feel like doing?

Or do I believe that the Spirit has put my flesh into submission such that I can live as the new me?

I can live out of my spirit, which leads to freedom and life.

And so I would just encourage all of us this week, on a daily basis, to pray and to ask the Holy Spirit, to give permission to the Holy Spirit, not that the Spirit needs it, but to give permission to the Holy Spirit to work within us, to become aware of that, to ask God to make us aware of that.

Sometimes it's just thinking in those categories, to go, Lord, oh, is this my spirit or my flesh?

And which am I going to choose?

And if day by day you submit your flesh to your spirit, what I will tell you is that your spirit will grow, it will strengthen, that flesh version of you will diminish bit by bit.

And you will be able to live the life, the good life that Jesus calls you to live.

And your life will be defined by love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and gentleness and faithfulness and self-control.

And there is no law against those things.

Let's take Lord's Supper together.

And those of you who are new, we have cups with bread and juice at the back on tables.

If you didn't grab one, feel free to.

Don't want anyone to miss out on this if you want to take part.

We do this every Sunday.

This is how we typically wrap up and close, other than baptisms, and we do have a baptism today, so that's exciting.

This little meal represents the sacrifice that Jesus made for all of us on the cross.

This bread is his body, the juice is his blood.

And he put it this way: if I don't do this, if I don't leave you, and leaving us meant dying on the cross, this is part of that, then the Spirit won't come.

And so that spirit inside of us, the Holy Spirit, the gift of that, we wouldn't have that if not for what Jesus did for us.

And so we should be so grateful today as we take this with that in mind.

And so let's pray together.

Father, we thank you so much for this, for this piece of bread, but for what it represents.

This is this is you.

And just as we as we eat this and this becomes part of us, you have become part of us, Lord.

Your spirit active and at work within us.

And we thank you for that.

We need that.

Help us live out of that this week.

Let's take the bread.

Now the juice.

And what it represents.

This is your blood spilled, poured out as an offering.

And not only did you pay a price and wipe away our debt to sin, you didn't just leave us with less.

You didn't just take our guilt away and leave us empty.

You fill us with your spirit, with your presence.

We need that, Lord, and as we take this in, remind us that you're at work within us always.

That this isn't just some one time moment where you washed us clean, but you're constantly at work within us, making us holy, making us pure.

Help us believe that.

Help us live out of that this week.

We pray this in your name, Jesus.

Amen.

Let's take the juice.