everyday life, right?
But what I want us to do tonight is really look at the Holy Spirit and see how he is helping us even today,
right at this moment even.
And what we've covered so far is we've talked about who the Holy Spirit is and that the Holy Spirit is God and
the Holy Spirit is fully God yet also a person.
The Holy Spirit has personhood.
What does that mean? It means that he has a will, he has intellect, he has emotions.
It's not just some random being.
We've also talked about the Holy Spirit working in the Old Testament and the New Testament and also at salvation.
We've covered that extensively as we should.
How the Holy Spirit and dwells us, lives inside of us when we are saved and when and seals us that we're not ever going to lose our salvation
and then baptizes us into the family of Christ.
And tonight I want us to see that the Holy Spirit is working in you believer this very day.
So let's start off with the question. I want you to be honest. I want someone to tell.
I'll tell you mine, but I want you to tell me yours.
All right, let's go to this question.
Have you ever had an imaginary friend?
Okay, raise your hand.
Okay, I got honest people.
All right, okay.
Anybody want to tell me their imaginary friend?
Who is their imaginary friend?
Mr. Eli, what's your imaginary friend?
Who was your imaginary friend?
Billy? Okay, I like it.
Zeke, what about you?
Zeke was your imaginary friend?
Wow, that's good Zeke.
Zeke's imaginary friend was Zeke.
All right, I like it.
Anyone else? Anyone else got one?
All right, let's see.
Abby, what you got?
Bob? I like it.
Bob, you were her imaginary friend. Did you know that?
All right, my imaginary friend was...
Okay, I was a weird kid, so this is going to be a weird story.
All right, but my imaginary friend was...
Go ahead, Logan, you put that slide up there.
It was a group of animals, right?
So here's what I did as a kid.
Before you're like, wow, he's weird.
When I was like two years old, my mom bought me a whole bunch of action figures, animal figures, I guess, that looked just like that.
And I was obsessed with them.
I play with them all the time.
So naturally, when I had to go to school, I wanted to keep playing with them.
So I made this whole animal zoo at my school.
And I would play with my friends and stuff too, but I really enjoyed just playing with my zoo animals because they were less maintenance than my two-year-old friends, I guess.
And I remember doing it, I remember there was one time I was laying in my cot at nap time, and I had a storybook, and I was reading my zoo animals the story, and it was very cute and sweet.
Or weird, one of the two.
But what it did is it gave me this escape from people, and I kept on to it for probably longer than I probably should have, right?
But I really liked it.
I had a vivid imagination, and I liked having these imaginary friends with me.
And it's something like, you keep for a little while, but if I came to you tonight, and I was like, and I still have those imaginary friends, you'd be like, that's probably not good, Miles.
We probably need to talk, right?
But it's something you keep for a little while, and then you move on from it as you get older, and it's not really real, and it's just an idea, right?
I was telling my mom, the zoo animals are on our car today, and she's like, yeah, okay, son, right?
But it was something that eventually I moved on from.
What I want us tonight to do is be careful not to do the same thing to the Holy Spirit, and not put it in the same category.
And our immediate reaction as it should be is like, I would never do that.
The Holy Spirit is God.
He indwells me.
But what I found in my own life, this is my personal experience, is that I don't think about him a lot.
And what the Holy Spirit does in Scripture is it points to the Savior, right?
But the Holy Spirit, sometimes I'm not really thankful for it.
I think of the Holy Spirit in this different way.
A commentator kind of wrote about the Holy Spirit like this.
He said, the Holy Spirit, a lot of people think of the Holy Spirit as kind of like the buzz you get when you sing your favorite hymn at church.
The doctrine of the Holy Spirit often ends up becoming an empty affirmation in a theological checklist.
Now, if I went to each one of you and said, do you believe that the Holy Spirit is real living inside of you and is God?
You would say yes.
But how much do we actually think about the Holy Spirit?
Even bigger than that, how much do we think about the Holy Spirit effect in our life even this moment?
And I thought, why do I do this?
And I thought about it and kind of what I want to make sure I don't do is I don't unbiblically over-emphasize the Holy Spirit.
Because I've seen in different cultures, different ways that people misuse the Holy Spirit and they get too supernatural.
And I don't want to do that.
But then it results in this kind of like pneumophobia of like, I'm kind of scared to think about the Holy Spirit.
So instead to help me feel better, I don't want to do wrong doctrine and I don't want to over-emphasize,
but I don't want to de-emphasize and I'm working through how I'm thinking about the Holy Spirit.
And what ends up happening is I make the Holy Spirit this emotionless entity that does something.
Like, I know the Holy Spirit's there, but it's like, what does the Holy Spirit do?
What does He do?
And what we all need to recognize is that when Christ ascended, He sent the Holy Spirit for a purpose in our lives, for even today.
And it's not just out salvation that the Holy Spirit works as we've covered, how He seals, how He dwells, how He baptizes,
but the Holy Spirit is working in our everyday lives.
And Jesus makes that purpose very clear.
Look with me at John 14-16.
Jesus says, And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another comforter that He may abide with you forever.
Jesus is saying that He's going to pray to the Father, and the Father's going to send this another comforter.
That word, another, in the Greek is allon.
Like, why does that matter?
Why it matters is it means another of the same kind.
It's saying that I am Christ and I am about to ascend up into heaven, but I'm seeing you someone of the same kind.
You say, I'm still seeing you God.
It's not some different entity.
It's not some emotional entity.
It's still God that's being sent to you.
That's what He's making sure we know.
It's still God, not some random person being sent to you.
But it's also a comforter.
That word, comforter, is pericolleton, and that's a packed word.
And it means that the Holy Spirit is a comforter, is an advocate, a counselor, an intercessor.
That word has so much meanings, but at its simplest form, what that word means is the Holy Spirit is a helper.
The Holy Spirit is God and dwelling within us to help us.
And the Holy Spirit is so valuable and significant, and we have to know how the Holy Spirit helps us as believers in our everyday life.
And that's our main point for today.
I've said it a few times because I really want us to grasp that idea.
Every believer can be confident that the Holy Spirit is a helper in their everyday life by recognizing three actions.
We're going to see three actions of the Holy Spirit that I want us to work through today.
The Holy Spirit is our helper, and when we say helper, we're not saying that the Holy Spirit is lesser and a mere servant.
It does what I say.
I don't get to boss the Holy Spirit around.
That's not what helper means at all.
But it means that God loved you so much and cared for you so much that he's provided a helper for your everyday life.
For the Sunday, for the Monday, for the Tuesday, for the Friday, every day, he's provided a helper.
So let's see how he helps.
Number one, we see that the Holy Spirit teaches.
We see this in John 16, 12 through 15.
And what we pick up is Jesus doing his farewell discourse.
He knows his time is short, and he's teaching the disciples.
He's saying everything they need to hear.
And one of the things he says is the promise of the Holy Spirit, specifying what the Holy Spirit is, who the Holy Spirit is more so, and what the Holy Spirit will do.
And we see this in John 16, starting in chapter 12.
Let's look at it together.
Jesus says,
In verse 12, we see that Jesus, we've got to make sure we see the context here so we don't take it out of context.
But we see that he is talking to his disciples.
In verse 12, he's saying,
I'm about to go, and I still have a lot more to say to you, but you're not ready for it.
He's about to die and then resurrect and then ascend.
But he says, I have so much, but disciples, you are not ready for it yet.
I kind of thought of it this way.
Okay, here with the next slide, Logan.
All right.
So we got this equation, right?
Okay.
Anybody can solve it?
Anybody?
Anybody want to volunteer?
Man, I don't know what any of them mean.
I don't know what a single thing means.
I think that's pi right there.
I think I got that.
That's it.
That's all I know.
All right.
That says eat at the top.
I'm not sure if that's coincidental, all right.
But we see this equation, right?
Okay.
You would never be able to solve this equation if you didn't first know, get this, like addition, right?
If you didn't know addition, you're like, you needed a lot more than just addition to solve that, right?
If you don't know the starting point, if you don't know this even simple truth, you're not going to be able to get to all these complicated truths.
You can't even, I can't even start that.
I don't know where to start.
I don't even know where it begins, right?
But what Jesus is saying here is there's so many things he has to say to them, but the disciples just can't get it yet, right?
Because they have still so much to learn.
They still got to go to simple addition to make sure they're, they're firm that Jesus is the Messiah, right?
And that he's coming back again, that he's not staying dead, right?
And that's what he's trying to get them to understand, and there's so much more, and the disciples wanted to know so much more too.
But Jesus comforts them.
He says, I'm not going to tell you everything right now, verse 12, but verse 13,
when I am gone, I'll be sending you the spirit of truth, and he will guide you into all truth.
He will provide for you the proper doctrine, the truth.
I mean, think how confused the disciples must have been.
Like, just through their whole ministry with Jesus, and then especially afterwards, where Jesus ascends, and they're like, well, now what?
What's next?
And they go back to this promise, and they see that Jesus says he's going to send a comforter.
But what does that mean?
He says he's sending someone to guide us into all truth, and they have to rely on this promise that Jesus will send clarity and certainty of truth from the Spirit.
And he says, this is the truth from the Spirit.
He continues on, and he talks about the Spirit we'll hear, and he will speak of what he hears.
And he will show you about the future, right?
That the disciples were able to have this special revelation that came from the Holy Spirit.
That's how they were able to write this, the Word of God, right?
That's how we know what happens in the future.
That's how we have revelation, John Ryan.
It's not just by coincidence, the Holy Spirit working, guiding John into all truth.
And then verse 14 gives a little more specificity.
It says it will be perfectly in line with Jesus' teaching.
It will all be in God's will.
It's the same track of truth pointing to God's glory.
And then verse 15, he talks about how the whole Trinity is working here.
He's saying that the Father gave it to him, Christ.
Now Christ gave it to the Spirit, and now the Spirit will give truth to the disciples,
and then that truth will also be given to us in this modern age.
Alright, let's work through this more.
That's going through the passage, but how does this apply to the Holy Spirit?
First, we have to see that there's this need here.
The Holy Spirit helps fulfill our needs.
What is our need?
The need here is truth and guidance.
The disciples were about to be leaders in a world for Christianity,
in a world confused by false doctrine, uncertainty, discord, division.
Things weren't great there.
And how were they supposed to do it?
What is the right way to go?
In some ways, it's the same for us.
We struggle with that.
There's false doctrine.
How do I navigate that?
How do I navigate uncertainty?
I don't know what's going to happen in the future, or even tomorrow.
How do I work through division?
It's confusing.
You just open up your phone and you'll see how confusing the world is.
And there's so many opinions, right?
And everyone, like going to social media is crazy.
Like everyone that goes on social media and posts something,
thanks, they're right, right?
That's why they're posting about it.
And not everyone can be right.
There's so many different opinions there.
But he says, breathe, here's the help.
The help is what the Holy Spirit does, what He provides.
The Holy Spirit provides truth.
How so?
Inspiration inspired the Word of God.
He inspired the Word of God.
Let me prove it to you.
2 Peter 1 verse 21.
It says,
The Holy Ghost is the one working.
God is the one working in His Word.
This isn't just mere coincidence that this got together
and that it's true and that it guides us every day.
This is God's Word.
This is the Holy Spirit.
And as these disciples were moved by the Holy Spirit,
they were guided in all truth.
And that's how I know the Bible is true, right?
I'm not relying on man-made knowledge,
and we could go through the arguments about it
and even how it's been translated there.
But really, I know that it's true because my God tells me it's true
and He wrote it.
That's how I know it's true.
And what also is amazing is that this book,
Hebrews 4-12 talks about it.
It's not dead.
It's alive.
It's active.
It pierces me, right?
It gets to the very core of who I am.
It is alive.
It transforms.
It's sufficient, as Paul says.
It's my source for truth.
Man, you're in a confused world where no one knows what truth is anymore.
And everyone says, this is my truth.
This is my truth.
Like, no, this is the truth, right?
And we see that the Holy Spirit gave us this truth.
May we not act like we have been given nothing.
We have the word of God.
And when we study it, we see how applicable it is,
how it helps us, how it strengthens us through each day.
And we all want truth and guidance,
but He's given us the help there through His Word to guide us
to make a lamp unto our feet, to help us not feel lost.
You know, sometimes the objection I have to when a preacher says that,
is like, yeah, Miles, I know I need to read the Bible.
I don't always understand it, right?
It's hard.
And I have this desire, but how do I do it?
Here's something I've been doing that I should have started a long time ago.
And this is not like me pet, not at all.
But I've done this crazy thing.
It's kind of like, duh, Miles, right?
It's before I do my devotions, it's like, I pray, right?
And it changes everything, right?
Like, it's crazy, right?
I'm like, Lord, I'm going into our devotions for D group have been Hebrews.
And every time I'm like, Lord, I'm going into Hebrews, all right?
And I don't understand everything about Hebrews.
I understand a lot more after Pastor Ben Sirius prays Lord for it, right?
But I don't understand everything about Hebrews.
You know what the Holy Spirit does?
It helps me, it guides me.
It says it opens up His Word to me.
It's a game changer.
Because I see that I'm not just reading it by myself.
I have the Lord with me, help me.
How does the Holy Spirit help you?
He gives you truth and helps you understand it.
That's amazing to me.
So that's the first help, His guidance in leading through the Word.
That's pretty applicable, right?
We need truth.
He's given us the truth, right?
All right, let's go to number two, all right?
We see what He does in Scripture.
Now, we also see that the Holy Spirit prays.
That's not something we necessarily think about.
It's more so me praying to God, right?
But you see in Holy Spirit, who is God, it is praying and praying to the Father.
And this isn't just me saying it.
We see it in Romans 8, verse 26-27.
Likewise, the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities,
for we know not what we should pray for as we ought.
But the Spirit itself makes its intercession for us
with groanings which cannot be uttered.
And this verse, if understood properly, transforms your prayer life.
Let's focus on the need here. Let's look at it.
So we see in verse 26, it starts and it tells us our need.
It says, likewise, the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities.
Our need here is strength and weakness.
That we have this infirmity.
That what infirmity is saying, weakness. There's this shortcoming.
We aren't all powerful.
We aren't all perfect.
We aren't all knowing.
We have real weaknesses, real hardships
that we don't know how to get through
and we don't even necessarily know how to ask for help for.
Like, we know the struggle's there, but how do I even ask for help
to even start tackling that problem in my life?
And things get hard.
And there's a reason I've noticed is that the older you get,
the more ready you are to go to heaven, right?
Because you're realizing, like, I'm just ready to be with my Savior.
And, like, I'm 24 and I'm like, Lord, come back.
Like, there's... And I know life does get harder,
but we see that He doesn't leave us alone through those problems.
And what we see is that, likewise, the Spirit helpeth our infirmities.
He says, I know you're weak. Like, no one's arguing that, right?
He knows we're weak, but He doesn't leave us there.
He loves us. I mean, there is real pain and real weakness
and real hurt, even, like, tonight.
And we need strength. And Paul gets even more specific.
He talks about even specifically weakness we have.
He says, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought.
I don't know if you've ever been there and you're like,
I don't know how to pray about this.
Someone gives you a really hard prayer request.
They're going through cancer. They're suffering.
Someone just passed away. Something really bad happens.
Like, how do I even go about coming before the throne?
Or even this idea of praying in public, right?
And the nervousness that can sometimes come with that, right?
We get that, youth group, right? When Miles stares at you and says,
you're praying, right? And there's like, I'm praying.
And then you have to think of words to say, and there's this nervousness, right?
And then even like, in how we practice our prayer,
how we give prayer requests,
how we don't even know where to start in our prayer.
We don't even know what the content of our prayer should be.
We kind of beat around the bush and say the same five things every time we pray.
But how do we get deep into our prayer life?
How do we say things? How do I actually talk to him?
And it's this question of how do I pray?
And then if I am praying, am I doing it right?
And there's this profound mystery. Prayer really is.
Because like, think about it.
We've been in Christian circles for a long time,
but think about prayer and think about how kind of amazing it is, right?
Is that we are by ourselves, right?
And in this realm, right? Physically, right?
And we're alone and the prayer we send up gets to heaven.
Like, that's crazy to me.
That what I'm saying when I say, Lord, help me, he gets it, right?
Because what's happening in prayer is like,
think about what's really happening in prayer.
Is that when you pray, you come before the throne room of the Father.
Okay, Hebrews 4.16, you come before God's throne.
And then Hebrews 7.25 says,
on one hand you have Christ interceding for you, right?
That's what his work is now. That's in Hebrews. We see that.
And then also we see that the Holy Spirit's interceding for us.
That's the verse we just read.
Says, but the Spirit itself make its intercession for us.
Prayer is a beautiful thing because the whole trinity is working.
And the crazy thing is that the whole trinity is working
and caring about my prayer request.
That's amazing that the God of the universe
cares about what I'm saying
and cares deeply about who I am and what's going on in my life.
And what we see how the Holy Spirit helps,
to be very specific, is he intercedes on our behalf.
The Holy Spirit intercedes.
He literally comes between us and the Father and he pleads our cause.
That's what it means by intercede.
And he tells the Father exactly what we need and what we mean.
And that's a very doctrine we don't think about a lot.
But it's crazy to me that when I pray,
the Holy Spirit's interceding and it goes perfectly to the Father
that he is praying on my behalf.
What an intercession does is say I have Sophie over here, right?
And then she, this illustration falls apart, but we'll try it.
We have Sophie over here and she's yelling a message all the way to Alan, right?
And they can't hear each other because she's like whispering.
Probably in this building you probably could, right?
But if she's yelling this all the way over there and Alan can't hear it,
he sees Sophie's mouth moving, right?
What Alan needs is he needs this intercessor to come in and deliver that message.
It's someone that comes in between.
And what we see how the Holy Spirit does is he comes in between you.
When you are on your knees praying, he comes in between and he talks to the Father
and he intercedes on our behalf.
There's this twofold work that he's doing.
He's communicating with the Father and he's helping us pray.
I don't know if you've ever felt that, but the Holy Spirit helps us pray.
Even in some ways, I believe, because I've experienced it and there's no other way, right?
And Scripture testified to it more so, is that when you come up and you're called on to pray,
I get so nervous, like every time, right?
And then I'll start praying.
And sometimes I'm coming up the stairs and I'm like, Lord, I got to pray.
I got to say words. I got to say something, right?
I can't just stand there in awkward silence, right?
I'm like, Lord, what do I even say?
And then I start talking, right?
And I don't mean to get super mystical or supernatural,
but if you have ever preached in a public setting or prayed in a public setting
and you realize that the Holy Spirit's helping you and giving you words and guiding you and strengthening you,
that's what the Holy Spirit does.
Every time we come up here to preach, man, it's the worst thing ever.
If I'm just the one preaching up here, if it's just me and my power, right?
The Holy Spirit comes and helps. That's how involved the Holy Spirit is.
That's how involved He is in everything we do.
He's not just some emotionless entity.
He cares about you. Why would He be distant when you're called up to pray?
When you're in your closet by yourself praying, why would He be gone?
He cares about you.
The Holy Spirit is involved. God is involved.
And what we see is we continue on with groanings which cannot be uttered.
And what that doesn't mean is that the Holy Spirit's making some random noises or differing tongues.
What it means is there's this deep compassion.
The Holy Spirit cares about what He's praying about.
The Holy Spirit compassionately cares about you.
He compassionately cares about what you're going through.
That's what that means.
That He's groaning. That He knows what you're struggling for.
And what's crazy to me is that He cares as much about the stubbed toe of a three-year-old to the arthritis of an eight-year-old.
He cares about someone whose car was broken down.
And He cares about someone whose family member just passed away.
And they're praying and He cares because He pleads our case.
He intercedes on our behalf. He cares about our case.
And what we see in verse 27 is adds to the comfort of it.
It says,
And He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit
because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
What that means is the Father perfectly knows and understands the Holy Spirit in His requests.
And what the Spirit does on our behalf is perfectly aligned with God's will.
When the Holy Spirit prays, when the Holy Spirit intercedes,
it's perfectly aligned with the Father's will.
You know, you've been here because you're human.
It's that you say, Lord, I'm here and I'm struggling.
I don't know what to say, but I need help.
And what happens there is that He does.
The Holy Spirit pleads our case for help perfectly to the Father,
and the Father listens and helps us.
What an amazing privilege.
Like, we as Christians can get so nervous about everything we do.
And we want to make sure we're doing it perfectly
and we want to make sure we're doing it right and we don't want to fail.
When the Holy Spirit is involved, there isn't a failed prayer.
He works.
He guides.
He prays.
And what's interesting to me is the two biggest things that help you grow,
the Holy Spirit's involved in.
He's involved in Scripture.
He's involved in your prayer life.
The Holy Spirit's involved in your life.
He helps you to grow.
And then, let's zoom out a little bit.
We've gotten very specific, but the Holy Spirit also,
and finally, the Holy Spirit sanctifies.
The Holy Spirit sanctifies.
Now, let's make sure we know what this word sanctification means
before we dive into it, okay?
I'm going to throw a decent amount of theology here, but it's good.
More so, soteriology, the idea of the doctrine of salvation.
But the word sanctified, the most simple definition for it is,
you've been set apart for holiness.
You've been taken from something and been placed to something better.
And what we see is there's three different types of sanctification.
They all work together.
There's first this positional sanctification.
It's the moment when you believed on Christ,
you were immediately, that moment, justified and declare righteous.
But I believe in you have forever been united with Christ forever.
That goes back to Pastor Corey's great message on baptism in the Spirit.
And that we're sealed and we never lose our salvation, right?
There's this positional sanctification
that no matter what I am saved,
and when God sees me, he sees someone who was innocent rather than guilty.
That's the first sanctification, okay?
That's very important because it means that no matter what,
we're not losing our salvation, right?
No matter what, God sees us and declares us righteous because of what Christ has done.
We've got to get that.
Positional sanctification, beautiful, right?
So we have positional, but we realize, as we've all been here, right?
Even today, that we still struggle with sin.
I've been saved, if I die right now, I know I am going to heaven.
Praise the Lord.
But I still sin and mess up.
And that's where this need comes in.
Our need here is resisting the desires of the flesh.
And we see this in Galatians chapter 5 verse 17.
It talks about it.
It says,
For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit.
They're against each other.
And the Spirit against the flesh.
And these are contrary of the one to the other.
So that you cannot do the things that you would.
They don't work together, right?
There's either the Spirit or the flesh.
You can't have both.
There's this constant battle.
And sometimes it can feel like I'm failing and like I keep giving in to the flesh.
And my need is I want to resist, but I feel like I'm not.
And I'm never losing my salvation.
Praise the Lord.
But man, I can feel with them.
And Paul talks about this.
I feel with them that I still want to sin, but it's weird because I don't want to sin.
But yet I keep sinning and my flesh wants me to sin, but I want to glorify God.
And there's this battle in between, right?
You should feel that tension as a Christian of I want to do what the Lord says, but I keep messing up.
And I'm not perfect.
And there's that battle.
Now the encouraging thing is that he doesn't leave us in that battle alone.
Encouraging thing is, is that we have help.
Okay.
Look what the Holy Spirit does.
He transforms us, transforms believers specifically into Christlikeness.
He transforms us.
All right.
Let me see if I can help illustrate this with a story.
Okay.
It's very random, but that's kind of how my mind works.
All right.
Go ahead Logan, you hear me with that next slide.
All right.
So this is a road.
All right.
This isn't the exact road I'm going to be talking about.
But as a kid, I, there was this place that we called, it was, it was a lot like this.
Like this is very scary looking.
But the road I'm talking about is a lot like this.
It was a road my mom and her friends used to go on because they lived in Fayetteville,
North Carolina there for a very, very long time as to back in their kids and they would
go around and they would go on their bikes and they'd go up and down the neighborhood.
But they had this one spot that they would call, it was a lot like this and they would
call it, not the nicest name, but they would call it bloody murder.
Right.
And that was like where you don't go because that's the bloody murder stream.
You don't go down there because it's really scary.
Right.
And my mom would tell me about this when I was a kid, we would drive down.
She's so used to drive our bikes down there.
We'd call it bloody murder.
And as a kid, I was like, I got to go down bloody murder.
Right.
I got to do it.
Like I got it.
My mom did it.
I can do it.
Right.
I got to do it.
And I remember that I was, I was, it was supposed to be super dangerous.
Like it was a, it was a hill that shot right down.
There was all these little potholes and there was always a stick.
And as a young kid, I always wanted to go down it.
And my mom, cause she's an awesome mom was like, no, you're not going down the hill.
Right.
But then one day finally I was old enough and I got a new bike and I was ready.
And I said, first thing my mom gave the bike, it's like, can I go, can I go down bloody murder?
Right.
Which is a weird thing to say to your mom.
But like, I'm like, can I, can I go down this really scary street?
And she said, yeah, yeah, she did.
And I went up to the top of it and I was absolutely terrified.
I was looking down at it and I don't, I don't think I can do this.
Cause what I was seeing is like, I'm going to shoot down there and like, there's not like a nice little stop at the end of it.
It's like, I'm going in the tree.
Like there's a little curve and there's like this little daycare there.
And I was like, I'm going to go flying up and just like landing their place slide in the daycare.
Like this isn't going to go well.
And I was terrified.
So I chickened out.
I was a win.
All right.
But then one day I, I'm my friend came, my best friend, Jack.
And he's like, I told him about bloody murder.
I was like, yeah, we have this, we have this hill and we call it bloody murder.
And of course it's like elementary school boys were like, bloody murder.
We got to go down it.
Right.
So then he talked me into it again.
So we went up to the top of the hill and I was still scared because it was steep.
I didn't know how to use my brakes very well.
What if a car just popped out around the curve and just like hit us?
Right.
What about the holes, the branches that were there?
What about the neighbor's rabbit dog that came out from time to time?
Would that come and chase us?
Are we going to make it?
But I remember I had a friend with me and he didn't like,
push me to go down it.
Right.
He was in a jerk and like, oh, there you go, Miles.
You did it.
Right.
But he went alongside me and actually went right, right before me and I followed right
along from him.
And what he would do is, because he's a great friend, is that he would tell me where the
holes were.
He would, he would help me avoid the branches.
He would tell me when I needed to use my brakes to make sure I wasn't like dying.
Right.
And we, it seemed like forever, but it was so much fun.
We're going down and he's showing me how to make sure I avoid everything, how I do it
safely.
And we reached the very end and we're hitting our brakes and we turn and we do this nice
little drift.
That was really cool.
This is how I imagine it in like my, my six year old mind.
So that's probably not very accurate.
Right.
But we made it to the finish line.
We got to the end of the street and we were alive.
And I was so thankful that I didn't have to go down this road alone.
I didn't have to do it alone.
Right.
And I was so scared of all the twists and turns.
I was like, how in the world am I supposed to make it out of there?
And that's the idea we're talking about here.
And the idea is that we have this positional sanctification we've been saved, but now we've
been moved to what's called progressive sanctification, that we have this, this new identity, this
new walk with Christ.
But then this walk starts and I'm walking down this road and I'm realizing this road is really
hard.
There's sin seemed like there's a trap at every corner.
It seems like there's, there's people saying one thing, but I don't know if they really
believe Christ since how do I remain faithful?
How do I not go off track?
How do I become less like the world and more like Christ?
And what we see here, my illustration is, is guiding us to is that there's a helper there.
You've been positionally sanctified.
Now you're being progressively sanctified.
And the praises is that what that means is he's setting you apart to be holy and you
don't have to do it by yourself.
The Holy Spirit is your helper.
The Holy Spirit is sanctifying you.
The Holy Spirit is the one setting you apart for holiness.
The Holy Spirit is the one invested in your life that's so encouraging because you could
give me stories of your life, whether you're a teenager, whether you're, you're 80 years
old, you can tell me stories of your life and you're saying, this is where I went off track.
This is how God brought me back.
This is how God helped me avoid going off track.
There was the pothole here, but he guided me away from it.
He's helped me.
He's grown me.
And what I'm seeing is that I'm not even close to being perfect, but I see that he's growing
me.
He's helping me.
I'm seeing more victories than even losses.
And I'm seeing his grace even in those losses.
And what it says is our progressive sanctification takes time.
It's why it's progressive.
There's not this flip of switch we can all hope we get.
There's this road filled with ups and downs, but the Spirit is right side along us.
And it shows us in Romans 8.13, specific help the Holy Spirit gives.
Let's look at it.
Romans 8.13 says, for if we live after the flesh, ye shall die.
If I'm living by the flesh, I'm headed towards death, right?
But I've been saved.
And what we see now is that, but if ye through the Spirit do mortify, put to death the deeds
of the flesh, ye shall live.
By what Jesus did on the cross, I have been redeemed.
I have been saved.
And now by the Spirit, my flesh and its desires are being done away with.
They're not nonexistent, but I know that I'm growing.
And it's not because of my own perfection, it's because the Holy Spirit working inside
me to make me more like my Savior.
What an honor to be like Christ.
And what I'm seeing is that one day, oh, this is great, one day I will reach the bottom
of that hill.
One day you will reach the finish line and you will be with your Savior in glory.
And what the Bible calls it is perfected sanctification, that you've reached heaven with your Savior
and you have been changed.
Let's prove it through Scripture.
We see it in 2 Corinthians 3, 18, but we all with open face beholding as in a glass,
the glory of the Lord are changing the same image from glory to glory, even as by the
Spirit of the Lord.
There will be a day where I will be made perfected, made perfectly holy.
And it's no more my flesh, but it's just me with my Savior forever.
And we'll be very clear.
That was a lot, but I want us to see the Spirit's help and us being sanctified and us being
set apart is removing away from sin and moving closer to our Savior, to having a relationship
with Him.
He's never going to cast us out when we are saved.
Make sure you understand that.
No sin can separate you from the love of God when you are saved with Him.
But we get to grow closer and I get to know my Savior more and be more like Him each day
until I reach my home in glory when I'm with Him forever.
And we have to see that through our life, we don't got this.
Sometimes that's definitely starting to some of this morning.
Sometimes I'm like, I got this.
I got this.
Usually I don't.
Like 99.9% of times I do not got this.
I tell myself I do and then end up failing.
I can't do this life by myself.
And Christ says, you weren't supposed to.
When I ascended, I sent someone to help you, to guide you, to strengthen you, to pray for
you, to teach you.
Don't think you're doing this by yourself.
The Holy Spirit's endulled and empowered you.
I'm being transformed.
The Holy Spirit is not only giving me the tools.
He is the one helping me to grow to be more like Christ.
He's right there with me and dwelling me, filling me.
I have this tendency to make God really small and to make me really big.
To make my priorities and my life about me.
But the more I'm in God's Word, and I don't do it nearly enough, but the more I'm in God's
Word, the more I'm meditating on His character, the more I'm meditating on salvation, the more
I realize how He's working so magnificently in every area of my salvation, of my sanctification,
of my life.
Even my life today couldn't be possible without the Holy Spirit's help.
That's how involved the Holy Spirit is.
That's what it means that the Holy Spirit is a helper.
That He's helping you through each day.
You know, tonight, if you have trusted on Jesus and believed in Him as your personal
Lord and Savior, and you know that His work on the cross makes all this possible, I have
the Holy Spirit because of what Christ lovingly did on the cross for me.
How He gave a sinner like me a new name written down in glory and a new identity.
And I've been transformed because of Him.
Man, tonight, if you haven't believed in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, had a time where you've
seen your sin, seen your need for Him and what He did on the cross for you, how He died
for you, how He took on your sin, if you haven't believed in Jesus as your Savior, let me tell
you, like, you're missing out.
Like, you're really missing out.
It's the best thing ever.
It's the best thing that's ever happened to me, how the Lord saved me.
Being a Christian is amazing.
Sometimes we focus on all the like, oh, it's hard, it's hard.
I have to do all these things and sanctification is hard.
Being a Christian is like really amazing.
And it's way better to live life as a Christian than anything else because I have God with
me every day helping me.
I want you to be encouraged that when you believe He's with you, the Holy Spirit's with
you.
Believe us here tonight, I want you to know that God hasn't left you alone.
He's left you with Himself, the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit indwells you right now and the Holy Spirit can help you right now.
The Holy Spirit is not a passive bystander in our life, but an active advocate for every
believer.
He's not on the sidelines.
He's not in retirement now because you got saved.
The Holy Spirit is here in your life, working and helping and giving all the glory to the
Father for it, through it.
I think about the word advocate.
That's another way to translate that word comfort that we read about in John 14-16.
It's that the Holy Spirit is like pleading our case.
Man, the Holy Spirit is so invest in you.
The Holy Spirit cares about you more than anyone's ever cared about you.
God cares about you more than anyone's ever cared about you.
He's invested in you.
He's sealed you.
He's redeemed you.
He's justified you.
That's all that God's done.
And He's transforming you.
What we see is the Holy Spirit was sent by Christ to be our comforter, to be our advocate,
to be our intercessor, to be our counselor, to be our helper.
And what we have to make sure we do is not try to push back, not try to grieve the Holy
Spirit.
Not try to say, I have this in my own hands, but look at the three actions the Holy Spirit
has done for us.
It still does for us, right, even right now.
First, we need to be guided into all truth.
Read God's word and understand the word.
People who read God's word and seek to follow God and are looking at His word for truth
aren't lost, right?
Because it gives you the guidance you need to get through your day.
I felt lost before, even as a Christian, like, what am I doing today?
It's 10 o'clock on Tuesday.
What am I doing?
And what I need to do is have myself so saturated in God's word and see this truth.
That's what I need to do first, right?
It's not a checklist of legalism, like, God do this and God do this to be close to God.
It's the idea that I need to give my whole life's surrender to Him.
So first, I'm guided into all truth.
And second, I'm praying.
There's literally not any reason for you not to pray.
Like no reason.
Like the veil has been torn.
We get to pray to God.
And the Spirit does all the work there of interceding.
Just talk with God and He's going to get the message.
He knows and hears and cares.
Then number three, be growing.
God's desire for us is to grow.
And He better than anyone, Hebrews talks about, knows the struggles of sin.
And He gave us the Holy Spirit so that we can, not by ourselves, but through His power,
reject the flesh and see how He works.
It's all too easy to miss the most obvious and encouraging parts of the Holy Spirit's
ministry, but don't let it escape you tonight.
What I need to do more in my week is let go of the reigns and the Holy Spirit, you're
my helper, help me.
And He does.
And what He does is, and when we let go of the reigns, we see how the Holy Spirit helps
us.
He points me even back to the Savior and His work and His lasting work, to the Father's
glory.
It's all about Him and His glory through my life.
And what the Holy Spirit does is it helps me stop looking at myself, but to start looking
upward and see how it affects everything else in my life.
That's what the Holy Spirit does.
That's how the Holy Spirit helps you every day, every hour.
That's what the Holy Spirit does.