November 12, 2023 |
Sunday Morning
John 16:1-15 | Warning and Working
John C. Majors |
John 16:1-15
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Well, good morning Valley View.
It’s great to be with you today.
I was traveling last week.
I went with Julie to a conference.
She was going to a conference
about teaching
and I went to support her
by mountain biking
while she was in the conference.
It was a very helpful thing for her.
So we had a few days away together.
That was good.
And thank you to Colby
for bringing the word last week.
Really grateful for him.
Does a great job.
Yeah.
And I also want to say
thank you to our veterans.
I know yesterday was Veterans Day,
but for those who have served,
thank you so much for serving.
When I think of veterans,
I think of a verse
we covered a couple of weeks ago.
Greater love has no one than to lay
down his life for a friend.
And many
of us have signed up to difficult jobs.
But rarely do we sign up
to lay our life down in that job.
And those
veterans have and so thank you for that.
And when I think of the military,
I also think of something that I think
relates to today’s passage.
One thing that is really important for
the military is to deal with truth.
If you’re going to confront a hostile
enemy, you’ve got to deal
with the truth of the situation.
Winston Churchill, no perfect man,
but he was known for being one
who was fastidious to get the facts.
World War Two, Prime Minister of England.
How many planes does the other side have?
How many tanks do they have?
What are their fuel reserves?
Where are their bases?
We’ve got to know the facts.
We got to know what we’re dealing with.
We can’t just be oblivious to it
so that
we can prepare for what might come.
And in today’s passage,
I think we’re going to
just see a hint of that
with Jesus
saying to the disciples,
We’re in John chapter 16.
We’ve been working
through the Book of John.
In fact, we’ve been working,
maybe some might say
slowly through the Book of John,
but we’re going to start to pick up
speed.
We’re in chapter
16 and each chapter
is going to move
along a little more quickly.
We’re in really
the final hours of Jesus’s life,
even though there’s six or seven
chapters left.
But in this passage,
we’re going to see two things.
First, we’re going to see Jesus
give the disciples a warning.
Here’s what’s coming.
Here’s what you need to deal with.
Here’s the reality of the situation.
Here’s truth.
He doesn’t try to soft pedal
to make it sound better than it is.
Here’s what’s coming.
But he
doesn’t leave him just with the warning,
but he also gives them
the work of the Holy Spirit.
You’re not left
to figure this out on your own.
There’s a warning.
But then we have the work
of the Holy Spirit to guide us,
to get us through
the difficult situation to come.
This was relevant to the disciples
then, and I think it’s
going to be relevant to us today as well.
So if you have your Bibles, turn to John,
Chapter 16.
If you don’t have a Bible,
we have Bibles in the connection corner.
We’d love to put those in your hand.
The page numbers on the screen.
Page 848 In that particular Bible
makes it easy for you
to find the passage, easy
for you to get through the Bible
and find what we’ll be reading today
so that you can read from God’s
Word your own copy of God’s Word.
John Chapter six.
So we’re going to start by reading
just these first couple of verses here,
verse one:
I have said
all these things
to you to keep you from falling away.
They will put you out of the synagogues.
Indeed, the hour is coming
when whoever kills
you will think
he is offering service to God
and they will do these things
because they have not known the Father
nor me.
But I have said these things to you
that when their hour comes,
you may remember that I told them to you.
Here we have Jesus
speaking to the disciples,
and we’re
in this long section
called the Upper Room Discourse
or the farewell discourse,
kind of his final sermon
or message to them that goes
across chapters 13, 14, 15, 16, 17
long section of Jesus
just investing in his
guys right before he leaves.
But here
he gives them this warning.
He says to them, Here’s
what you need to be mindful of
and what is coming.
He said, The first thing I’ve said
all these things to you
to keep you from falling away.
That’s the warning he gives to them.
Now, why does he need to warn them
about that? In particular?
Why does he need to warn them
about falling away?
Jesus, we’ve been here with you
through all this.
Up to this point.
Well,
they don’t know what it’s about to come.
They think they do,
but they don’t know
all that’s about to come.
And by the way, we got to keep in mind
that just probably a few minutes ago,
one of their own fell away.
You know,
again,
many, many weeks
we’re talking about a few verses,
but in real time, 15,
20, 30 minutes ago, Judas
walked away.
He was there with them this whole time.
He saw the same things they saw.
He walked away.
What makes them think
they’re any better than him?
Well,
there’s still the temptation to think
I didn’t walk away.
I’m better than that guy.
But, man, they’re
facing the same challenge that Judas did.
They are not better than him.
I shared with our Wednesday night group
we’re working through
the topic of forgiveness.
We meet on Wednesday nights
after the meal and have a Bible study,
kind of an open service,
sing a hymn
together, study the topic of forgiveness.
And there’s this really powerful
story, post-World War two.
So World War two, obviously,
America, a number of other countries
when beat the Nazis,
in particular in Germany.
But a lot of the Nazis went on the run,
went into hiding.
One in particular, probably
the most high profile guy
they hadn’t
captured was hiding in Argentina.
It’s 1962
when they finally find him,
track him down.
And Israelis, they extricate him,
take him back to the country,
put him on trial.
His name was Adolf Eichmann.
And of course, they’re bringing in people
in particular from Auschwitz,
the death camp there.
And there was a guy they bring in,
Yehiel De-nur.
They brought in a number
of different people to testify. Yes.
That’s the guy. Yes.
This is what I went through.
They bring him in.
He’s testifying.
But in the midst of his testimony,
he just collapses on the ground
in a puddle,
sobbing uncontrollably, body convulsions
he can’t even stand.
They have to grab him by his arms.
In fact, here’s a picture.
After they had got him set back up,
they just had to drag him out.
He was in just this uncontrollable
state of emotion,
understandably so.
And afterwards, he was interviewed.
Mike Wallace interviewed him
60 Minutes and said
what was going on there?
I mean, clearly,
you were overwhelmed with emotion.
Was it just the craziness of the moment?
Was it all the memories of what happened
before, maybe lost loved ones
and family members?
And
he said, no, it was none of that.
None of that.
In that moment, I’m staring at a man
who I thought was some god
of a general
who had control over people’s lives.
And he did.
But in that moment, I saw him
for the very plain, ordinary, boring–
in fact,
they use the word banal– man that he was.
And here’s the quote that he
said, what that did to him.
I’m going to put this on screen
for you to read as well
when he saw him that way,
if you can put up that quote.
Here it is. It’s coming.
That’s the right one.
I was afraid about myself.
I saw that I am capable to do this.
I am like him,
the guy who seems so plain,
so boring, so normal.
If he was capable of that
in that moment, he said that
that must that be inside me
too.
I’m ultimately no better than that guy.
Maybe I didn’t end up down the same path.
And I think the disciples in this moment,
Jesus is saying,
You think you’re better than Jesus.
Be careful, Judas.
Sorry. You might think that too,
Be careful.
Be careful.
Watch out.
Troubles are coming.
Struggles are coming.
Don’t fall away.
That word for fall away
has this whole idea
of stumbling over something.
Tripping over something.
It’s the
we get our word scandalized from it.
It sounds the same
in the original language.
Scandalize. And we even use that today.
If someone is in a public scandal,
you know, they had a fall from grace
or what
we like
to say kind of euphemistically,
they fell into sin
like they didn’t have a part in the
problem or something, just fell into sin.
Nooo, well, there may have been a choice
there as well.
Scandalize, don’t fall away.
Don’t be drawn away.
Tough times are coming.
In fact, he says a couple of other things
to them here about what is on the way.
The reality of it. Look at verse two,
they will
put you out of the synagogues,
which doesn’t seem like that
big of a deal to us.
You go find another church here,
but there that meant
complete ostracization.
Your life was utterly changed.
They’ll put you out of the synagogues.
Indeed, the hour’s coming
when whoever kills you will think
he’s offering service to God.
That’s messed up,
completely upside down.
But we’ve seen this in Scripture that
that was Paul.
He was passionate
about killing these Christians
who are ruining my faith,
my belief in God.
Before he knew Christ,
he thought what he was doing
was the right thing.
They don’t know this is about to come.
And he says to them,
Watch out, be careful.
Be mindful.
Not only will
they think they are offering service
to God when they kill you,
there’s a reason why they do that.
Look at verse three.
They will do these things
because they have not known the father
nor me.
There is a reason why they act
the way they do.
They don’t know Christ.
And I think
it’s really helpful
to take a step back and recognize that
because I don’t know about you,
but it’s easy to get angry.
Maybe it’s something you saw
on Social media or something
you see in the news.
It’s easy to get upset
with non-Christians
for being non-Christians,
but we shouldn’t be surprised by that.
In fact,
our natural bent before
knowing Christ was to reject him.
I mean, we’re all that way
going back to Yehiel De-nur,
who am I to say I’m so much better
that I’ve figured it out?
Nah, that should cause us
to just pause
and yes, we should have sorrow.
Yes, there is a part of maybe
righteous anger of wishing
that things were right
as God intended them.
But yet also there’s a measure of
I shouldn’t be surprised that people
live out full rejection of God,
and that should give us pause to
we should be aware of that as well.
Be careful,
be watchful, be mindful.
There will be those who fall way.
I think a practical takeaway of this
for us that’s really important,
something that each of us
needs to be mindful of.
What Jesus is warning the disciples of
is that problems will come.
This isn’t going to be an easy
problem, free life
and we shouldn’t try to sell
Christianity as being problem free.
In fact, I would say
there’s a chance
you might have more problems
if you follow Christ.
We have friends in Phoenix,
they grew up Mormon,
their families, both sides Mormon.
They come to know Christ,
they become Christians.
They turn away from the Mormonism
and their family disowned them
and never
spoke to them again on both sides
Their life didn’t get easier.
And so we don’t sell them on that.
I’m not here selling Christianity
to you based on the benefits.
Come be a Christian,
and here’s
all the good things
that will happen to you.
No, here’s here’s what
we want you to experience
is the person of Jesus Christ.
Come to know him,
fall in love with him,
the person of Jesus Christ,
and then everything else
will follow from that.
You,
I hope you see the radical difference
between the two approaches.
I don’t hang out with my friend
because of his boat.
He’s my friend.
I love him. I care about him.
I care deeply about our friendship.
And if he gets a boat,
I like him a lot more after that.
Right?
Maybe.
You see the difference.
We don’t come just–
here’s what I will get from Jesus,
this is why I follow him.
I follow him because I love him.
Because there is nothing better than him.
And hard times will come
and we don’t soft pedal
Christianity based on the benefits
to people. There’s a person, Jesus Christ,
God in human flesh, who we follow.
And this is the warning
He gives to the disciples.
Hard times are coming.
Now, here’s
the beautiful part of this passage.
He doesn’t just
leave them with the warning–
hey, hard times are coming.
Good luck.
No, he doesn’t leave them that way.
He’s going to tell them that
I have given you a power to get through
what is coming.
In fact, the warning is what is coming.
But here is the power.
It is the work of the Holy Spirit.
And in these next few verses,
we’re going to see four
key ways
the Holy Spirit works in our lives
to help us through the challenges
we face.
He doesn’t leave us alone
just to figure it out ourselves.
The Holy Spirit is at work.
If you know Him, he comes alongside you.
He works in your life.
We’re going to see that
in these next few verses.
In fact, turn look back down at verse four,
depending on your Bible,
there’s a paragraph break
there around in the middle of verse four,
and I’m going to start
kind of in the middle
of verse 4-4b-
I did not say these
things to you from the beginning
because I was with you,
but now I’m going to him who sent me.
And none of you asked me
where are you going?
But because I have said
these things to you,
sorrow has filled your heart.
So he’s recognizing the situation.
I’m about to leave you.
I talked openly about it before.
They did ask him about it before.
Now they’re not asking anymore.
And I know
you’re full of sorrow in this moment, but
you’re full of sorrow,
nevertheless,
verse seven, I tell you the truth,
it is to your advantage that I go away,
for if I do not go away,
the helper will not come to you.
But if I go, I will send him to you.
So this is the first way
the Holy Spirit works right here.
Jesus is saying to them,
I’ve got to go away
so that you can have the presence
of the Holy Spirit around you.
This is the first way.
Just His presence is with us.
Go and put that number one up presence.
Now, here’s
what’s kind of strange about this.
Jesus says,
If you look back,
it is to your advantage that I go away.
If you’re the disciples,
even now, you’ve got to wonder, is it
you’re saying that the Holy Spirit’s
better than Jesus?
It’s better to have Him than
Jesus around?
You know, if you ever hear these quizzes
where they ask people
if you could have a dinner
with anyone dead or alive,
who would it be?
Jesus is always on that list, right?
But no one ever goes, well,
the Holy Spirit.
I’d really love
to have dinner with him as well.
Well, but he’s with you.
That’s why we don’t
we don’t say it,
They didn’t know that at the time.
Why would it be an advantage to them
that Jesus, who’s there
with them in the person–
his physical presence there–
why would it be an advantage
for him to leave?
I’ve got to do
just a quick pause down on the Trinity
short topic to address it
here in church for everyone.
Probably the most complicated topic
in the history of Christianity.
But I’ll quickly say this
Father, Son, Holy Spirit,
they’re all equally God.
It’s not like God, the Father,
he’s really God.
Then there’s Jesus–
he’s closer, but still mostly God.
Then there’s the Holy Spirit
who’s kind of like junior God.
It’s not like that.
In fact,
one guy wrote a whole book
called The Forgotten
God about the Holy Spirit.
Kind of tend to tack him on after,
know, they’re
all three are equally God, but they play–
there’s a lot of different words
you could use here,
and I need to be careful–
different roles,
different persons in the way that they
live out life,
in the way they relate to us.
And so here
when we see
Jesus, here’s
one thing that Jesus did different.
He took on human flesh.
He came into the world,
both God and man,
which, by the way, he put on himself
a physical limitation.
He chose to limit himself.
It feels really weird to say
that Jesus had limitations,
but on earth in a physical body,
he chose to take
limitations upon himself.
And you’ve all experienced this.
It doesn’t make him less God, by the way.
So when you had your first child
and that toddler
finally stood up
and in them you saw a future NBA
basketball star.
In that moment,
you knew greatness was in your genes,
and so you ran out and bought
one of those basketball goals
that goes about this high,
the plastic ones.
It’s somehow adjustable but never works.
You know what I’m talking about?
And you immediately got
them playing on that goal.
Now, when you played with them,
you didn’t come up to them and dominate
and block their shot
and dunk on top of that.
I hope you didn’t.
But that’s a temptation.
I know.
Take it while you can. Right?
They’re going to grow up.
No. Here’s what you did.
You you got down in front of them
on your knees
and you got down to their level.
Let’s play.
I tried.
I missed. You
got down where they were.
And when they got a little older,
you changed it up.
Maybe you only played left handed,
kept your arm behind your back.
Maybe they got two points to your one.
Does that make you less of a parent?
I’d say it makes you more
meeting them where they are.
And Jesus came and chose
to limit himself.
And here’s the advantage.
His physical limitation.
He left.
He’s leaving the scene.
The disciples don’t know it. With them
now will be the presence
of the Holy Spirit
who will be with them, guiding them
all the time, anywhere,
everywhere.
And look,
I wish day to day I really realize that.
I mean, imagine how differently
you would live life
if every day you were overwhelmed
with the reality
that the presence of the Holy Spirit
is with you every step of the way.
I would change everything.
None of us do it.
But the more we grow,
the more we come to know him,
the more we connect with him
and the more aware
we become of the Holy Spirit
in our lives, in His presence.
So that’s the first one, his presence.
But let’s keep reading.
Look secondly,
at how the Holy Spirit works,
verse eight.
And when He comes,
he will convict the world concerning sin,
righteousness and judgment.
That’s part of the Holy Spirit
maybe we could do without, right?
We don’t really need that conviction
part Lord,
especially not around sin,
righteousness and judgment.
I mean, just keep piling it on.
Well, let’s unpack these a little bit.
Look at what he says concerning sin,
because they do not believe
in me, concerning righteousness,
because I go to the father,
you will see me no longer
concerning judgment,
because the ruler of
this world is judged.
So the second way
the Holy Spirit works
is through convicting,
through conviction.
We’re going to talk about each of those.
What does that mean?
Of course,
first is sin.
Look back at verse nine concerning sin,
because they do not believe in me.
This is the first way
the Holy Spirit convicts.
And it’s the first one in this list
because that’s the starting place.
Sin blocks belief.
Sin builds barriers between you and God.
Sin undermines truth.
And so if you don’t believe,
you’re not going to know Christ.
You’re not going to want to follow him.
And so there’s got to be
conviction of sin.
There’s got to be this place
where you become aware
that the way you think, the way you live
is against following Christ.
And coming back to that same issue of
we don’t
make Christianity
easy, try to sell it easy to people.
And it’s the same way with sin.
We don’t soft pedal on sin.
If someone asks you, Hey, does
does the Bible teach?
And by the way,
this is an important difference.
Does the Bible teach
that this is whatever behavior is sin,
not just do you think?
Well, let me show you.
Here’s where scripture says
that this is not
what God has planned for people.
If someone asks you that
answer faithfully from Scripture,
point them and do it graciously.
It’s not in a condemning way.
But look. Yes.
No, this is what Scripture says.
We don’t we’re not trying to hide that.
We don’t kind of go,
Yeah, I hate to say it.
I think
we try to hide that from everyone else.
But no, it does say that
what you’re talking about
is sin.
And here’s why we don’t.
Tim Keller, who is a pastor
in New York City,
passed away recently, very influential.
He had a lady come up to him in church
after he talked about following Christ.
And she said to him,
I really like what you’re saying.
I like some of
where Christianity is heading.
I like this Jesus guy.
But let me ask you,
if I were to follow him,
does that mean I’d have to put aside
my romantic relationship
with this other woman?
And he said,
I can address that directly and I will.
But let me tell you,
if you follow Christ,
there’s all kinds of things in your life
that will change,
not just that one thing.
You know, we don’t bargain with God.
I’ll follow you.
But let me let me
let me just hang on to this.
No, If you follow him,
everything will change.
And here’s what he said
and you’ll want to change.
Look, if you’ve got life
perfectly figured out,
you don’t want any change in life.
Everything’s good.
I’m good to go.
And if you meet that person,
I’d love to meet them as well.
None of us have life figured out,
even if it appears we do.
Where are you going to find hope?
Where are you going to find purpose?
Where are you going to
find meaning in life?
I couldn’t do it on my own.
I haven’t met anyone yet that has.
The Christ will give you that
in him you will find.
And that means conviction of sin.
The Holy Spirit is the one who convicts.
He does it for the world.
That’s who he’s talking about here.
He does it for us to.
Thankfully, he does that for us.
Doesn’t leave us where we are.
You’re not to stay where you are.
He doesn’t leave us where we are.
Come as you are.
But don’t stay where you are.
So the first is he convicts of sin.
Second is righteousness
concerning righteousness.
Because I go to the father
and you will see me no longer.
Now, this one’s a little harder.
It seems kind of weird.
How do you convict about righteousness?
Let’s think about
that word righteousness.
For our purposes.
I’ll just say you might
shorten it to the word rightness.
How do I know I am right?
How do I know that if I see God,
that He will accept me,
that I am living rightly
in a way that He will accept me
and he will convict the world concerning
righteousness, There’s a verse
that I think is real helpful
to understand
what he’s talking about here in terms of
what is the right way to live.
Look at Luke 18:9.
That’s just one book back from John
and it’s on page 824 in the church Bible.
This is a parable
where Jesus is contrasting
two different people: a Pharisee
and a tax collector
and how they both see
themselves before God.
And I’m not going to
read through the whole parable.
But this first verse
highlights the whole purpose
he tells on the front
end why
I am sharing this parable. Verse 9:
He also told this parable to some
who trusted in themselves
that they were righteous
and treated others with contempt.
I think we all have the temptation
to think
and here’s
the phrase we use self-righteous,
but I’ve got it figured out
the way I live,
this is how I justify myself before God,
the way I live, the things I do.
This is why he will accept me.
This is why I am right.
And Jesus contrasts here,
there are those
who think, No, I’m good.
I got it all figured out
and then look down on others.
The Holy Spirit came to convict
of that kind of self-righteousness,
and Jesus came to
show the
correct standard of righteousness.
Here is true righteousness.
It’s him.
It’s knowing him and following him.
So that’s righteousness.
And then number three,
I will convict concerning judgment
verse 11,
because the ruler of
this world is judged.
This one is also a little tricky.
He will convict concerning judgment.
Even that phrase
the ruler of this world is already
judged is
maybe kind of hard to swallow
because there are times
where it doesn’t feel like
the ruler of this world
is already judged.
But we live in this in-between moment
where he has been judged.
God allows sin
to continue on Earth for a season,
but it won’t always be that way.
But conviction around judgment
here–
what he’s responding to– Jesus came
when he came,
John 12:47,
I did not come to judge, but to save.
He didn’t come to judge
in the moment, he came at that time,
You will later, but to save.
But the problem was when he came to save,
others were judging him.
Others were saying,
No, you’re not the right way.
No, you’re, in fact, Satan himself.
No, the Pharisees, don’t follow him.
Don’t trust what he has to say.
How do we get rid of him?
There was judgment being heaped upon him,
and the Holy Spirit came to convict
those to judge rightly.
So,
the Holy Spirit convicts.
The Holy Spirit brings
different levels of conviction around
sin, righteousness and judgment.
And through this,
you know, the Holy Spirit exposes–
we’re talking about the world
here with those terms– and he says world,
but the Holy Spirit also exposes in us
the ways that we think
we are saving ourselves.
I do it too, right?
If I just do this thing,
if I say this thing,
if I treat this person
this way,
God will have more favor shown upon me.
And clearly there are right ways
to live according to Scripture.
But the only thing that justifies
you is Jesus and His death,
burial, resurrection on your behalf
and the Holy Spirit
comes to convict around that.
Don’t self justify,
lean on Christ.
So that’s number two.
Number three,
we’re going to skip
to the end of the passage verse 14.
Here’s what the Holy Spirit does.
He will glorify me.
Jesus says of the Holy Spirit.
He will glorify me,
for He will take
what is mine and declare it to you.
All that the Father has in me is mine.
Therefore, I said that he will take
what is mine and declare it to you.
The key phrase for us,
and this is number three
the Holy Spirit glorifies Jesus.
The Holy Spirit
points to Jesus, again,
talking about the Trinity.
There is a relationship between Jesus
and the Holy Spirit
and the Father that we see even in this verse.
He will glorify me, takes what is mine
that I got from the Father.
There is this beautiful interaction
between them
where they’re building up one another,
encouraging one another,
pointing others to each of them.
And the Holy Spirit
glorifies Christ.
It’s a beautiful picture
that I think as a church
paints a picture of what unity means
for us.
I’m looking to build up others around me.
I’m not looking to
tear them down
so that I look better than them.
If there is a difference
between us, I move toward them, not away.
I don’t avoid them.
I move toward them.
If there’s someone here
that you have a big problem
with or a small problem with,
you move toward them.
This is a radical difference
between the church in the world.
You know what I’m talking about.
And I know where some of you work,
some of your coworkers.
It’s all about the backbiting
and it’s all about,
let me put you down so I can move up.
I’ve experienced it, too.
Not here.
Okay.
There’s no comment on church staff,
other places.
You know what I’m saying?
But when you’re in a place
where people move toward one another,
push through conflict,
love one another, build one another up,
who doesn’t want to be around that?
That’s what we all long for.
And so the Holy Spirit glorifies Jesus.
And then number four,
the Holy Spirit guides us to truth.
Look back at verse 12.
I still have many things to say to you,
but you cannot bear them now,
which is wise.
All right.
We’ve all been in that place
where that’s all I can absorb.
Jesus knows
you’re not going to get this till later.
I can’t tell you any more.
Won’t make any sense.
But then verse
13, when the spirit of truth comes,
he will guide you into all truth,
for
he will not speak on his own authority.
But whatever he hears, he will speak
and he will declare to you
the things that are to come.
The Holy Spirit guides to truth.
We are called to be people of truth.
Our standard of truth
is up here.
We move away from lies and falsehood
in our lives,
even though we’re often tempted,
even in the subtlest way,
to move away from truth.
But you have to start
and at the beginning of this whole
message today was start with reality.
Start with where you are.
Can’t ignore truth.
I wish I could remember who told me this.
I know it’s
I’m pretty sure it’s somebody here,
but I can’t remember who it is.
But it was so funny
I had to share it.
One parent– I can’t remember who it is–
they said there was this day
where one of their kids
came into the room
and just had chocolate
all over their face,
just everywhere, smeared
and the parent was like,
Johnny, have you been eating chocolate?
No.
Nope, not me.
Are you sure?
You know his hands are like, sticky.
Can’t hardly pull his fingers apart.
Nope.
Never seen chocolate,
Deal
with truth.
Acknowledge the truth of where you are.
The Holy Spirit convicts.
But he also guides you to truth.
He got you to a place where you’re open
to hear from him.
You’re open to hear from others.
You’re open for God to work in your life.
This week,
I got to visit with a number of friends
when we were–we went back to Arkansas–
we had a number of friends there.
That’s where Julie was
with the conference,
and I was supporting her
and I met
with a number of different friends
along the way,
conversations that we had, catching up
on how God has worked in our lives.
And one of the guys,
one of the guys I met with,
he told me, John,
I got to tell you,
God has done
some amazing things in my life
in the last two years,
and it all started
with a conflict in their marriage.
You can start to look at conflict
in your marriage
that way as an opportunity
for God to work in your way– in
life in amazing ways.
And he said, Here’s what happened.
My wife brought up an issue,
he said, and I remember the phrase,
it’s seared in my brain,
the exact words I used.
I said to her,
This problem is not my problem.
It’s your problem
and you need to get work done.
Great way
to start a conflict
confrontation in marriage.
So she says, okay, whatever.
She meets with the counselor.
She says the counselor
gave me this book to read.
I’m going to read it.
She was going away on a trip,
already planned,
when I come back, we’ll talk through it.
He says, good.
Finally, you’ll get fixed, right?
I don’t think he said that part out loud,
but he was thinking it.
But here’s what happens.
He was in this season, in fact,
a few of us talked about this morning
being recovering control freaks. Right.
Working on that as well.
He was in the season–
I better read the book before she reads
it to make sure it’s
okay for her to read it,
make sure that she is hearing the
right information.
He reads the book, and he said, John,
I’m weeping throughout the whole book.
Because I see in this book
that I was the problem, not her.
His heart was tender.
He was open to hearing
from the Holy Spirit.
The problem for him was
he had walked away from God
and in that moment
he had all the despair of realizing
he was the problem,
but none of the power of the Holy Spirit
to work to guide Him.
And so he had to turn back to Christ
and watch him work.
The Holy Spirit warns, He convicts,
and Jesus
warns them, hard times are coming,
but you don’t have to walk alone.
The Holy Spirit is with you.
The Holy Spirit will guide you.
The Holy Spirit will protect you.
You can lean
on Him through everything.
Let’s pray.
Jesus, we thank you for this morning.
Thank you for your word.
Thank you for your Holy Spirit.
And we know problems come.
We could go around to person
after person after person
and problem and challenge.
And we have to be aware
that those problems
want to draw us away from you
want to force us to turn inward,
want to push us into self-reliance.
Thank you for giving us
the Holy Spirit that we can lean on.
We don’t have to depend on ourselves.
I’ve failed
myself over and over and over again.
I don’t want to lean on myself
and yet I still choose to do so at times.
Lord, help us to listen to your spirit
moving in our lives today.
Help us to hear from you
in fresh, new ways today.
In fact, right now I would ask
wherever you are,
just even quietly where you are,
you would cry out to God and say,
Lord, help me to hear your voice today.
It’s what we all want.
Every one of us wants that.
Help me to hear from you today.
Jesus, would you move? Holy Spirit
would you stir?
Thank you
for how you are working in this church.
Thank you for so many
who love
you. Lord, help us to love one another
well so that the whole world looks at us
and says, I want that.
Whatever that is.
I’ve been looking for that.
I pray that kind of love and unity
would just pour out all around
us. This week.
Thank you
that we can gather freely.
Thank you for so many
who have sacrificed for us.
We love you, Jesus.
Amen.
