Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] I wish that I was a little bit more tech savvy.
[00:00:05] And maybe it's just cause I'm old. But when I say that I want to be tech savvy, really all I want is I just want my stuff to work.
[00:00:12] I want my phone to work, I want my computer to work. And sometimes it just doesn't work and I don't feel like it cares how I feel about that.
[00:00:21] And I hate it when I get to the place where I'm stuck and I have to reach out and ask for help.
[00:00:28] We have great IT folks around here. Kevin is very gracious with me. I've learned it. I'm going to give you a free tip before you call someone related to it.
[00:00:38] Here's what you do.
[00:00:40] Turn it off and turn it on before you call anybody. Turn it off and turn it on.
[00:00:48] But I heard a story told by an IT guy that made me feel a little bit better about my level of tech stuff savviness.
[00:00:56] He told the story about someone in his corporation that called him asking for help. Now, this was someone that was kind of up there within the organization, and she needed some help. And so he does what he does best. And he starts walking through all the different questions because she couldn't get her computer to turn on.
[00:01:16] So he's going through all the different questions and he finally gets to the last question that he needs to ask her. And the question was this.
[00:01:26] Did you plug it in?
[00:01:29] She went ballistic. She was like, what kind of an idiot do you think I am? You wouldn't think that I would think about the need to plug in my computer. And he started apologizing profusely. And he says, I will come, I will look at it, I will try to figure out what's going on. He gets to her office and gets underneath her desk and he finds that she's got a power strip underneath her desk. And she's got everything plugged in to the power strip.
[00:01:57] Including the power strip.
[00:02:03] Yes, yes, it was plugged in, but it wasn't plugged into anything that had any power in and of itself.
[00:02:12] I think, friends, sometimes this is what our faith can look like.
[00:02:17] We can read the promises of Scripture, this life of power, this supernatural life. And we just think, I'm not experiencing that. I'm not experiencing what the Bible is talking about because we aren't plugged in to the source of that life.
[00:02:36] I learned this the hard way in ministry.
[00:02:40] In my first couple years of ministry, I'd come to Faith in Christ as a college student, and I Was so excited to go change the world. I wanted people's lives to be changed. And so when I showed up on campus, I worked hard, I was striving, I was straining, I was gutting it out and I was miserable.
[00:03:04] The problem was, it was I, I was trying to do those things. This was a picture of my life.
[00:03:14] And I actually got to the place where I was so frustrated and joyless and miserable. If I were to describe the low point of my life, I remember sitting with my boss, my director, on a bench in the middle of the campus, telling him about how I felt. And he said, well, let's just go. Let's go talk to students about the beauty of the gospel and that'll make us feel better.
[00:03:39] Here's what I said to my boss.
[00:03:42] Why would I want to go tell them so that they can be as miserable as I am?
[00:03:49] That was the low point.
[00:03:52] But it was in that low point that God actually met me.
[00:03:57] And over that next season of time, God, by his grace, he helped me learn to know and experience a life changing reality.
[00:04:06] And my prayer, and I've, I've been praying this for all of you and I've got other people praying for all of us that we would experience this reality. We've got to understand that the Christian life, the Christian life is not difficult.
[00:04:22] It's not.
[00:04:24] The Christian life is impossible.
[00:04:28] There's only one person that's ever, ever lived the Christian life and that's Jesus himself.
[00:04:38] And the only chance, the only hope that we have that we would ever be able to live the Christian life is if Jesus lives his life through us in the power of the Holy Spirit.
[00:04:52] That's what our life needs to be plugged into. Not ourselves, but not our hard work, not our do more, try harder mentality. We need to be plugged in to the source of life.
[00:05:04] And the scripture makes it very, very clear that source of life is only the Holy Spirit.
[00:05:12] Now, as we jump back into Romans and we're going to be in Romans chapter eight, I just want to quickly remind you that when we go back through the last seven chapters of the book of Romans, Paul is doing everything he can to help the church in Rome because he didn't know if he was ever going to get there. He wants them to understand and know the Gospel inside and out, everything and the implications of the Gospel.
[00:05:37] But when we get to Romans chapter 8, Paul makes a turn.
[00:05:43] Because Paul understands that the Gospel is not merely to be understood.
[00:05:51] It's not just about the information of the gospel. The gospel needs to be loved. And it needs to be lived.
[00:05:59] We need to understand how do we actually live out the realities of the gospel? So it's not just information, but it's actually transformation. We're transformed from the inside out by the power of the Holy Spirit.
[00:06:13] Because what Paul's gonna help us understand is that Christianity is not friends. It is not primarily about the head and the will.
[00:06:22] Christianity is primarily about the heart.
[00:06:25] And it is a heart where the Spirit of God dwells.
[00:06:31] And that's the kind of heart where there's actually real change is possible, real change in our thinking and our behavior.
[00:06:39] Because when we are plugged into the source of life, the Holy Spirit, we have power.
[00:06:46] And at the very beginning of Romans chapter 8, Paul helps us make the connection to everything that he's been talking about for the first seven chapters.
[00:06:55] The Gospel and the reality of life. Change through life in the Spirit. Romans chapter 8. Starting in verse 1, Paul says this. Therefore. Therefore, in light of everything that I've said for the first seven chapters, therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit.
[00:07:18] The law of the Spirit, what who gives life, the Spirit is what brings us life has set you free from the law of sin and death.
[00:07:28] For what? The law was powerless.
[00:07:31] The law in and of itself, it was powerless to bring life change, powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh. God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.
[00:07:46] And so he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully, fully met in us.
[00:07:58] Who's us?
[00:08:00] The us is those who do not live according to the flesh, but live according to the spirit.
[00:08:09] I think this is a picture of what it looks like, trying to live according to the flesh.
[00:08:16] I got it.
[00:08:18] I can do this.
[00:08:20] We understand from the gospel. The gospel, righteousness before God is not something that we can do. God needs to do it for us. And so that life change that we seek to happen in our life, we can't just say, I got it now, God, you brought me the gospel, you brought me this righteousness, but now I will take care of the life change within me. It's not how it works. We've got to become people who are deeply, deeply dependent upon the Holy Spirit.
[00:08:49] Carl Jung, who was a Swiss psychologist, he made a breakthrough insight, and that insight was in his definition of what is psychological health.
[00:09:01] Now, if I were to try to distill down what it was that Jung was saying, it would be this. He says that everyone, every last one of us has a gap in our life.
[00:09:14] There's a gap that exists between our perceived self and our actual self. There's a gap, every one of us, between our perceived self and our actual self. And when I say perceived self, I'm talking about who I think I am.
[00:09:34] I'm talking about how I think that I come across to other people. It's about what I. I think others think about me and see me.
[00:09:44] He says there's a gap between how we see ourselves and our actual self, which is who I really am, which is how I really come across to other people, and how others actually, actually in reality see me.
[00:10:03] And he explains that psychological health, sometimes we would refer to it in this day and age, we would often call it emotional intelligence.
[00:10:12] What psychological health or emotional intelligence is, is that we learn how to narrow that gap between our perceived self and our actual self.
[00:10:24] And I'm gonna say it again, that gap exists for every last one of us.
[00:10:30] But our awareness of, of that gift, of that gap is different for every one of us. And here's the crazy irony, the ability to be able to see that gap. It is easier to see that gap in the lives of other people than it is to actually see that gap in our own life.
[00:10:53] We need to be aware.
[00:10:55] But think about. I just want to back up for a second. But just think about how true that is. When you look about when you look at the lives of people in your life, maybe it's your family, even your own family, it's easier for you to see the gaps in their life than it is for them to see it. Your friends, your coworkers, your boss, your pastor.
[00:11:18] The reality is, if you got to know me, it would be easier for you to see the gaps in my life than it would even be for me to see those.
[00:11:25] And even though this same self delusion is present in all of us, it's just difficult for us to see it all that, all that. To try to help you understand that, I believe it to be true that our spiritual life works in much the same way.
[00:11:43] Every one of us has a gap.
[00:11:46] There's a gap that we experience between what the scripture says, says is true about someone that follows Jesus and our actual life, our daily grind of this life. There is a gap, and that exists for all of us. But spiritual health and spiritual maturity in the same way is us thinking about how do we close that gap between what the scripture describes and what I'm actually experiencing in my life?
[00:12:20] Because the scriptures talk about a powerful life, a supernatural life. There are promises of the kingdom that can sometimes be very different from our actual daily grind of our life. There can be a gap between the things that we actually believe in our head and the things that we deeply know in our heart. There can be a gap.
[00:12:42] There can be a gap between what I say I believe and what I actually live out in my life.
[00:12:50] Another way to say it is there can be a gap between my talk and my walk.
[00:12:56] I mean, think about it. Think about the picture of what the Bible describes as an all in follower of Jesus. The bar is incredibly high. And we look at our life, we look at what the Bible says about what it means to be a godly spouse. The bar is incredibly high. But we look at our own life and our own struggle. What does it mean to be a witness for Christ? The bar is high. But our own life can sometimes be so different. What does it mean to be a part of a spiritual family? How do we engage with one another? The bar is so high.
[00:13:29] What does it mean for us to handle our money and our finances like Jenny was just talking about? The bar is so high.
[00:13:37] There's a gap.
[00:13:39] But here's the hope.
[00:13:42] Here's the hope. Romans, chapter eight is going to help us think about how do we deal with the gap.
[00:13:49] If that gap exists for all of us, then the question we need to ask is how do we deal with that? And maybe you've never tried to think about that or articulate how you navigate the gap, but you have a strategy.
[00:14:05] Some people, their strategy is, I give up.
[00:14:11] I look at that gap and I just think it's too big.
[00:14:14] I'm completely disillusioned. When I look at the scriptures and I look at my own life.
[00:14:19] I don't know, I quit.
[00:14:22] It's just too big.
[00:14:24] And some people, your strategy is, I'm gonna fake it.
[00:14:28] I'm gonna pretend, because I know that there's a gap. But I don't want everybody else to know that there's a gap. So I'm going to fake it till I make it.
[00:14:38] For some people, the reality of that gap causes them to just suffer in silence. The reality of that gap can actually bring fear and insecurity into our life. Like, do I even really know God? Like, why is my life stuck in the way that it is? And some people leads to incredible insecurity.
[00:14:59] Cause we're saying I'm missing something.
[00:15:04] And sadly, a lot of people, they just make peace with it.
[00:15:10] It's just.
[00:15:11] It is what it is.
[00:15:13] I'm just gonna ride this out until I die.
[00:15:17] Here's what we do, here's what I'm afraid a lot of people do.
[00:15:23] We take the beauty of, of what is described as a life of an all in follower of Jesus, and we realize that there's a gap with our life.
[00:15:33] And to try to deal with that, what we try to do is we try to lower the level of the Bible so that it matches our experience.
[00:15:42] Friends, Paul isn't gonna let us do that.
[00:15:46] He says, hold the Scriptures high, hold the reality of what the scriptures say about our life. And we need to think about how do we raise our to the level of the Bible.
[00:16:00] That's what Paul's gonna teach us in terms of how we deal with the gap in our life.
[00:16:06] And he's gonna help us understand that the only answer is God's spirit.
[00:16:11] God's spirit is the only one, the only hope that we have of narrowing that gap in our life.
[00:16:19] Because I believe that this might be true, that there are many of you that are sitting in this room right now and if you were to be asked, what do you think about your life? You would just say, if everything that the scripture promises, everything that the gospel promises is all that I'm experiencing right now, I'm actually kind of underwhelmed.
[00:16:43] I think that there's more.
[00:16:46] I think that I'm missing something.
[00:16:49] And if that's you, I want you to say on one level, it's a good place to be because it's when you realize that, that it'll create the thirst in you that it's gonna take to not stay there.
[00:17:02] The Holy Spirit is God's plan A for narrowing that gap in our life. And friends, there is no plan B.
[00:17:11] Because this Christian life is not difficult, impossible.
[00:17:18] One person, only one person ever lived the Christian life.
[00:17:23] And the only hope that we have of living the kind of life that he described is if he lives his life through us in the power of the Holy Spirit.
[00:17:35] And now I've talked enough times to people about the Holy Spirit that I know that on some level there's probably at least three categories of people in this room.
[00:17:44] There's some that I would describe as thirsty, there's some that I might describe as skeptical, and there's some that I might describe as uninformed.
[00:17:56] The thirsty.
[00:17:58] Some of you are like, yes, Holy Spirit, let's talk more about the Holy Spirit.
[00:18:04] But sometimes I've experienced that people, that although there's incredible amounts of thirst, there's not a lot of biblical or theological underpinnings, a foundation that that thirst can be tied to.
[00:18:19] My hope for this series is that we would do a good job of digging a biblical and theological well that you could drink from that would quench that thirst that you have for a greater experience of God's spirit.
[00:18:34] I realize that when I say the Holy Spirit to some people, you're skeptical.
[00:18:39] You're skeptical. And maybe because you've grown up in a church tradition, and some church traditions, they're all about the Holy Bible, not so much about the Holy Spirit. They try to marginalize in some ways, the gifts and the work of the Holy Spirit in our life.
[00:18:55] And I'll make you this promise. I'm not gonna talk about or invite you to do anything that the scripture doesn't invite us or talk to us about living.
[00:19:04] But I'm going to challenge a little bit that we would think about looking at our experience and can we take what is written on the pages of scripture and raise our experience to the level of the scripture? I'm going to challenge us to close that gap.
[00:19:22] For some people, when I talk about the Holy Spirit and you look at your past, it wasn't that you grew up in a tradition where there was the Holy Spirit was marginalized, where the Holy Spirit was nothing. You grew up in a tradition, maybe where the Holy Spirit was everything.
[00:19:37] Nothing else mattered but that. And when I've talked with people, sometimes we can be in places where we've experienced things that are confusing, maybe even painful, sometimes even manipulative.
[00:19:49] And so when you hear the Holy Spirit, there's something in you that just says, I'm resistant.
[00:19:55] I'm resistant to experience something that relates to my past. And I know what this feels like. It wasn't that many years ago that I had some friends of mine that their hope was that I would experience something greater of the Holy Spirit. And I'm super open to that because I believe.
[00:20:13] I believe that there is power in the Holy Spirit. But I went to this event with them, and as I began to watch what was going on around me, sometimes there just wasn't a category to put into words or into my paradigm what it was that was happening around me. And then to make things even more confusing for me, the person that was leading this event up front picks me out of the crowd and invites me to come up front.
[00:20:43] How intimidating is that? What if I did that to one of you and just said, hey, we're gonna come up. I'm going to have you come up here, and I had been watching enough that was happening in here. There was an expectation. There was an expectation that something would happen in my life that was happening to everybody else. And I wasn't resistant to that. I promise you. I was praying like, lord, my life is yours. I belong to you. If there's anything that you want, anything that you want me to experience, I am open. But I will not. I will. I'm not gonna do something that I don't believe comes from you. Just to try to please and fit into the people around me.
[00:21:21] You know what happened to me when I was up there?
[00:21:25] Nothing.
[00:21:26] Nothing that they wanted to have happen for me. And the not so subtle conversation after that was kind of like a little pat on the head. Like, well, good try.
[00:21:37] Maybe someday you'll have enough faith to go from JV Christianity to real Christianity.
[00:21:44] Now, I'll be honest. Like, I wasn't in a place in my life where I was insecure about that. But I know that people have experienced things like that and it causes them to be like, I don't know. I don't know if I want to think about and talk about the Holy Spirit in that way.
[00:22:01] But I want to promise you we're going to talk about the Holy Spirit as a person to be known.
[00:22:07] The Holy Spirit is a person to be known and be known by.
[00:22:11] He's not just this experience that we're gonna chase time after time after time. In fact, when we get to that spot of Romans chapter 8. One of the ways that the Holy Spirit ministers to us in the most profound ways is in the midst of our suffering and in the midst of our pain in this life.
[00:22:30] Following the Holy Spirit isn't just about mountaintops experiences. It's about experiencing him in the midst of the valleys of our life.
[00:22:39] He gives us power in all places in our life.
[00:22:44] Lastly, some of you I put in the category of uninformed.
[00:22:49] You just don't know what you think about the Holy Spirit. And now let me be really clear. When I say uninformed. I'm not saying unintelligent. You just. You don't know.
[00:22:58] It was like Paul in Acts, chapter 19, when he was in Ephesus and he asked a group of people, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? Believed? And they answered, no, we haven't even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.
[00:23:13] They hadn't experienced him fully.
[00:23:17] Maybe in some ways, that might just be the best place to start.
[00:23:21] A blank slate, a blank canvas.
[00:23:24] And that we would allow the scriptures, Romans chapter 8, and other scriptures related to the Holy Spirit to paint this picture of what it looks like for us to live the Christian life.
[00:23:36] And here's what I'm praying for you as well. I'm praying that you'd be able to let go of any skepticism that you might have and that you would actually be excited about what could happen in your life. And the reason I want you to be excited is that this thought of sending the Holy Spirit, pouring out the Holy Spirit, it excited Jesus.
[00:23:59] He was so excited for his disciples. In fact, this is what he said to them in John 16. He says, but very truly, I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the advocate, that word advocate is referring to the Holy Spirit. The advocate will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him to you. That's the promise of Jesus.
[00:24:26] What is he saying?
[00:24:28] According to Jesus, and he is crystal, crystal clear about this.
[00:24:34] The Holy Spirit is an enormous improvement, is an enormous upgrade to what to direct relationship and conversation with the second person of the Trinity, Jesus himself, self. He's saying that when that happens, it is going to be so much better for you because the Holy Spirit, when he empowers our life, when he indwells our life, he takes us to a deeper and a more personal connection with him.
[00:25:10] Now, I think it might be fair, it might be fair to say that for some of you, you're a little bit skeptical of that.
[00:25:18] Is it really better than having Jesus with me all the time 24 7, teaching me, talking to me, helping me walk through this life?
[00:25:28] Jesus says, yes, it might be okay to be skeptical because his disciples were a little bit skeptical as well.
[00:25:38] But this has always been God's plan.
[00:25:40] He wants, he wants us in every way to be able to experience, in a very personal way, his presence and his power. Let's just think a little bit about the biblical narrative. When we go all the way back to creation, God with humanity in the garden, unhindered relationship, walking in the garden, talking in the garden, opportunity for deep connection with God. But then sin enters the world. Humanity decides we want to do it our own way. And that intimacy, that fellowship with God was broken. And so then when we look in the next season of the Bible, the nation of Israel, God's presence and his power, it was confined to the temple, the tabernacle, but this was a way that people, they wouldn't have unhindered connection to him, but they were able to. Once a year, the high priest would go in and with the blood of goats and bulls would sacrifice for the sins of the people to bring that right relationship with God. There was a tabernacle.
[00:26:53] But then it gets better than that. Two thousand years ago, God himself decided, I am going to come.
[00:27:03] Going to come. God in the flesh.
[00:27:06] This is what John says about Jesus.
[00:27:10] John 1:14. It says, the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
[00:27:17] If we were to just translate that more directly, it would be that he made his dwelling, would be that he tabernacled among us. What Jesus is saying is that I have become the tabernacle. I am the one in my humanity that is housing the glory of God. This physical embodiment of God's divine life.
[00:27:40] Living, breathing, walking, talking, temple available so that we could look at the life of Jesus and say, this is what it looks like when God walks on earth.
[00:27:55] What could be better?
[00:27:57] What could be better?
[00:27:59] But that's the promise that Jesus made. It does get better, he says.
[00:28:03] And when we read the beginning of the book of Acts, we see that God's spirit is poured out. Acts, chapter two in Pentecost, his presence and his power is poured out personally.
[00:28:13] And we just see the ripple effects of that, the power and the presence of God going out into all the world. It's better.
[00:28:21] It's better. And here's how the Apostle Paul described what was going on first Corinthians 6:19, when he was talking about the temple piece. It says, do you not know that your bodies speaking to believers. Do you not know that your bodies are temples, Tabernacles of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God?
[00:28:45] We are the temple now.
[00:28:47] We are the tabernacle.
[00:28:50] God's presence.
[00:28:51] His power is in us.
[00:28:56] This is what we need to understand, friends.
[00:28:59] It's in grabbing a hold and experiencing that power in our life that narrows the gap between what we read in the Scripture about the Christian life, the supernatural life, and the life that we're actually living. It closes the. The gap.
[00:29:18] This is how Jesus described it also in John, chapter 14. From John 14 to 16, Jesus is describing to his disciples this idea of the Spirit coming and indwelling them. But in verse, in chapter 14, verse 12, here's what he says. Very truly, I tell you, whoever, whoever believes in me will do the works that I have been doing.
[00:29:43] And they will do even greater things than these because I am going to my Father.
[00:29:49] That's Jesus saying.
[00:29:51] It narrows the gap.
[00:29:54] If I go, the Spirit comes, He empowers you. It narrows the gap between what we read in Scripture and our Daily grind life.
[00:30:05] Who's it for?
[00:30:08] Whoever.
[00:30:10] Not just for special people, not just for the super spiritual Whoever, whoever believes in me.
[00:30:19] That's the promise. And I love how Eugene Peterson describes this reality that in living the spirit for life, there is no gap.
[00:30:28] Eugene Peterson said it is the lived conviction that everything, absolutely everything in the scriptures is the livable, livable.
[00:30:41] Not just true, but livable.
[00:30:44] This is the supernatural core, a lived, resurrection and Holy Spirit core of the Christian life.
[00:30:51] The gap can be narrowed, the gap can close.
[00:30:57] But we can't do it on our own because the Christian life, friends, it's not difficult.
[00:31:04] It's actually impossible.
[00:31:07] Only Jesus lived the Christian life. And the only chance that we have to live the Christian life to close that gap is if he lives his life through us in the power of the Holy Spirit.
[00:31:21] So my question is maybe I'm hoping that the question that you're asking is where do we start?
[00:31:30] What do we do if we want this kind of life?
[00:31:34] I think the first question that you need to ask is am I thirsty?
[00:31:41] Am I thirsty?
[00:31:44] For a greater experience, a greater intimacy, a greater power from on high. Am I thirsty?
[00:31:52] Maybe another way to say it, is there an honest and wholly discontent with the gap that you're experiencing in your life?
[00:32:01] And if the answer to that question, if you ask that question and you come to the answer that yes, I'm thirsty, here's the invitation of Jesus.
[00:32:10] John, chapter seven.
[00:32:12] On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, let anyone again, let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.
[00:32:31] Whoever, whoever believes in me. As the scripture has said, rivers and a beautiful picture. Rivers of living water will flow from within them.
[00:32:47] By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time, the Spirit had not been given since Jesus had not been glorified.
[00:33:00] The promise was coming.
[00:33:04] But you've got to ask the question, are you thirsty?
[00:33:09] Is there a desire? Is there any desire for more? Any desire to close that gap in your life?
[00:33:17] The second question that would follow on that is, am I available?
[00:33:22] Because that's the invitation of Jesus. We can be thirsty, but we've got to be available. Come to me and drink.
[00:33:30] Don't try to plug your life into your own good works, into your own self effort. Do more, try harder. It doesn't get it done.
[00:33:41] It is the power of the Holy Spirit in your life.
[00:33:45] Not do more, try harder.
[00:33:48] Here's your assignment.
[00:33:51] I want to get over the next season as we're Stepping into Romans chapter 8 and a lot of talking about the Holy Spirit. I want you to read Romans chapter 8 regularly. It only takes a few minutes to read it, but I don't want you to just read it.
[00:34:06] I want you to ask some questions. Like what questions does this raise in your life? When you look at this picture of the Christian life that Paul is describing In Romans chapter 8, what are the questions that come to your mind?
[00:34:21] And here's my hope, friends. My hope is that many of those questions we will actually talk about over the next 12 weeks as we unpack Romans chapter 8 together.
[00:34:32] But I also know that this is true. There's too much there. Even though it's 12 weeks in one chapter of one book, there's not enough time to talk about it all. I want to give you a couple resources that have been really helpful for me and I think they would be helpful for you as well. One is this resource by Tyler Staten called the Familiar Stranger. A book about this idea of the power of the Holy Spirit and how we engage with that power in our life.
[00:35:02] And the second book is this by N.T. wright, into the Heart of Romans.
[00:35:08] This is an entire book by N.T. wright on Romans chapter 8. And I'll just warn you about N.T. wright, he's a scholar. If you're going to read this book, you're not going to be swimming in the shallow end of the pool.
[00:35:20] It's going to be on the deep end of the pool. But it is so rich and helpful and if you think that would minister to you, grab NT Wright's book, you won't be disappointed.
[00:35:33] The Christian life, friends, it's not difficult.
[00:35:38] It's not.
[00:35:40] It's impossible.
[00:35:42] It's absolutely impossible. Only one person ever, ever lived the Christian life and that's Jesus himself.
[00:35:51] Our only hope to live the Christian life is if Jesus lives his life through us in the power of the Holy Spirit.
[00:36:03] Let's pray.
[00:36:08] Jesus, you know what I've been praying for my own life and what I've been praying for, my friends?
[00:36:16] Jesus, I want us to be as excited about the Holy Spirit as you were. You were so excited to send the advocate because it was gonna be better.
[00:36:25] Not only for the disciples that you were talking to at that time, but for all of us, forever.
[00:36:31] Jesus, there's more and we know that and we wanna experience it.
[00:36:36] Jesus, I pray that you would stir our hearts with a thirst, a thirst for more.
[00:36:45] A thirst to dig into this word of yours and to understand this provision of the Holy Spirit. And how do we allow that spirit to transform our life from the inside out.
[00:37:00] We need you, Jesus and Holy Spirit, we ask you to move.
[00:37:05] You're the real teacher.
[00:37:06] You're the only one that can change us.
[00:37:09] And so we submit and surrender to you.
[00:37:13] And it's in Jesus name that we pray.
[00:37:16] And all God's people said amen.
