Latest / The OneCry Podcast / #175 The Spirit of Revival (1- Who is the Holy Spirit?)

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#175 The Spirit of Revival (1- Who is the Holy Spirit?) · The OneCry Podcast

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  If you study revival history, you will discover in almost every great awakening,
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  it was preceded by several things.
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  It's preceded by increasing desperation.
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  It was preceded by increasing prayer and movements of prayer,
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  waves of prayer that came out of that desperation.
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  And it was almost always preceded by a renewed interest in the Holy Spirit.
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  Welcome to the One Cry Podcast, a nationwide call for spiritual awakening.
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  The goal, accelerating the movement of God through sharing revival truth, stories, and reports.
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  Welcome to the one cry podcast i'm bill
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  elliff and this is my good friend jordan bowen and uh
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  we both serve with the one cry team and we're
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  both pastors and uh we love being together and uh and talking about the things
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  of god and particularly as they relate to revival and spiritual awakening and
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  that's what this podcast is about and jordan i'm i'm really excited today because
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  we're beginning a new series,
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  and it's on an unbelievably important theme.
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  Yes. I want to ask you a question. How did you meet your wife, Sarah?
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  Yeah, so my wife and I, we met at college, and she remembers the first time we met.
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  I unfortunately don't. That's bad. Isn't that horrible? Yeah, that is really bad.
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  But when she and I ended up having a class together, we became best friends,
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  and in many ways, the rest is history.
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  The Lord just took it from there. Yeah, three kids later. Three kids later. Yeah.
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  You know, mine is a sad story. Oh, wow.
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  Because Holly and I, she sat right behind me in junior high school,
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  and I never really knew who she was. Oh, wow. And that just shows you one thing.
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  Yeah. I was one proud sucker. I mean, that's all it says.
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  I was so full of myself. But then all of a sudden, in the ninth grade,
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  I just began to notice her.
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  And I told Ernie Fargason, I said, hey, you know who I'm going to take to the Valentine banquet?
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  I said, Holly Hicks.
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  He said, Holly Hicks? I said, have you looked at her lately?
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  And I invited her, and the rest is eight kids and 27 grandkids later.
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  But, you know, I think about that, and what a tragedy if we had not gotten to
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  know those two wonderful ladies.
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  How different our lives would be. And, you know, Jordan, we're going to begin
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  a series today talking about the Holy Spirit, who he is, what he does.
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  And, you know, there's an interesting little revival fact.
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  If you study revival history, you will discover in almost every great awakening,
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  it was preceded by several things.
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  It's preceded by increasing desperation. It was preceded by increasing prayer
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  and movements of prayer, waves of prayer that came out of that desperation.
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  And it was almost always preceded by a renewed interest in the Holy Spirit. Wow.
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  And in the Welsh revival, the Holy Spirit had been forgotten in a sense.
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  And they began to have conferences teaching about the Spirit and His role.
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  And when the Holy Spirit gained prominence again, movement began to happen.
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  Isn't that fascinating? That's amazing.
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  So we believe that you and I both, I think, would agree that we think we're
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  in the foothills of the next Great Awakening.
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  The movement on college campuses that's happening is just extraordinary,
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  starting with Asbury a year and a half ago, almost two years now.
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  And so we've just felt led to do a little series on this and just talk about it a little bit. Yeah.
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  So I want to talk about who he is. But before I do that, let's give some ground rules.
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  And the ground rules are, number one, if you think you have a corner on the Holy Spirit, you don't.
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  That's good. You know, I know some people who just think, well,
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  they're the world's answer to this. And the Holy Spirit is God. Yeah.
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  And so, you know, you don't have a corner on God and you don't have a corner on the Holy Spirit.
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  Number two, I want to encourage people to just clear your mind of all preconceived ideas.
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  So we have, you know, people have ideas about you. They have ideas about me.
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  It's wonderful to just start a conversation with a fresh blank page.
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  And I want to encourage people to think in fresh ways.
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  Number three, we want to say that the word of God in our little study here is our soul guide.
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  Right? It's not your opinion. It's not my opinion. It's not how I feel.
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  Right. It's not what somebody says.
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  Does the Bible say this about the Holy Spirit? Yeah.
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  So we want to be really careful about that. And we're going to try to just look
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  at the scripture and listen to God and let him introduce himself to us in this way.
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  And another thing I want to say, the Holy Spirit's not weird. Yeah.
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  A lot of people think, well, you know, you're talking about the Holy Spirit,
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  you're weird. Well, how weird is that? Right.
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  It's not something the Spirit of God is not someone to be afraid of.
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  What's there to be afraid of in Jesus? Right. And the Holy Spirit is Jesus.
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  If you're not afraid of Jesus, you shouldn't be afraid of the Holy Spirit because he is Jesus.
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  And number five, kind of ground rule, the Holy Spirit will not make you weird,
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  but he'll make you the best you you'll ever be.
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  He, everything you were designed to be, the Holy Spirit is designed to help you become. Yeah.
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  So if you ignore him, you're going to miss that.
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  Yeah. And the Holy Spirit will never, ever cause you to do something that draws
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  more attention to yourself, but always to Christ.
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  Yeah. Because the Spirit has come to glorify Christ.
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  Yeah. So let's dive in. Okay. That's great.
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  So I want to just introduce us to John 14.
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  In John 14 through 16, we have Jesus's kind of final locker room talk to his disciples.
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  They were afraid, and he comes to speak to them about what was about to come,
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  and they didn't understand the Spirit's role.
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  And he said this in verse 16, I will ask the Father, and he will give you another
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  helper that he may be with you forever.
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  That is the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it doesn't
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  see him or know him, but you know him because he abides with you and will be in you. Yeah.
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  Now, let me say just a couple of things.
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  First of all, the Holy Spirit is not something, but someone.
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  You'll notice that in these two verses and in every passage that speaks about
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  the Holy Spirit, it uses the masculine pronoun he, he.
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  He's never referred to as an it. It's not a ghost. It's not a fragrance.
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  It's not some kind of a weird ethereal thing.
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  The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Godhead, we like to say.
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  Jesus said it like this, I will send you another helper.
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  In other words, I've helped you. I've been your helper.
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  Now I'm going to send you, when I leave, I'm going to send you another,
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  another like me, the same in kind.
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  I love what 2 Corinthians 2.10 says.
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  It says, he's talking about the things of God. And it says, for to us,
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  God has revealed the deep truths about God.
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  Through the Spirit, capital S, for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.
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  For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him?
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  Even so, the thoughts of God, no one knows except the Spirit of God.
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  So God and his Spirit are not separated here, right?
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  They are one. It is God in Spirit form.
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  And then he says in verse 12 of that same passage, 2 Corinthians 2.
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  Now we have received as Christians, not the spirit of the world,
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  but the spirit who's from God, so that we may know the things that are freely given to us by God.
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  So everything that God is, the Holy Spirit is. Everything the Holy Spirit is, God is.
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  Why is this important? Because the Holy Spirit is fully God, right? It's his spirit.
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  It's who he is in spirit form.
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  And if you can trust God, then you can trust the spirit.
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  He's not weird. He's not something extraterrestrial or something that's different than God is.
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  He is fully God.
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  And secondly, he has full personality. Now, we say about God that he has personality.
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  And what we mean by that is we have personality.
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  You know why? We're made in his image.
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  And so when we talk about personality, God thinks, God feels,
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  God grieves, God directs,
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  God illuminates, God moves, God loves, God wills, God teaches,
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  God gives gifts, he empowers, He saves, right?
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  So this is true of the Spirit, right?
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  He thinks about things. He feels things. He grieves. We can grieve the Holy Spirit.
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  We can quench the Holy Spirit.
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  He teaches. One of the great purposes
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  of the Spirit is to lead us into all truth and teach us all things.
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  So why is this fully important to know that he has personality?
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  Well, if he has full personality, then we can know him.
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  As a person knows a person in the same way.
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  And he says here in verse 17 about the spirit of John 14, Jesus said,
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  I'm speaking about the spirit of truth.
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  The world can't receive because it doesn't see him or know him, but you know him.
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  You can know him if he abides with you and is in you.
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  One writer said it like this. If the Spirit were merely a power coming from
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  above, it would be at my disposal, and I could use it at will.
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  But the Spirit is a person, and more than that, if he is God himself,
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  it is I who should be at his disposal and love and obey him in all things.
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  You can know his voice. You can hear from him, and he can lead you.
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  Why? Because you can know him.
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  You can know him. And I often have people ask me, Jordan, they say, well, how do I know God?
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  How do I know the voice of God? Somebody will say, well, the spirit of God,
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  you know, kind of spoke to my heart or illuminated a passage or has really led me here.
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  I love to use this illustration. I say, if you took 100 women and you put them
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  on a parking lot, and one of them was your mother, and we blindfolded you,
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  and then they began to call your name, Jordan, Jordan, Jordan,
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  when your mother called your name, you would know. I would know. Yeah, instantly.
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  And why would you know? I know her voice. You know her voice.
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  And the reason you know that voice is- I've spent a lot of time with her.
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  You've spent a lot of time with her. I've heard her.
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  Yeah. And the more time with her, the more you came to understand that voice and to know her.
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  So I think we want to say that in this first podcast about the Spirit,
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  He is a person. It's not something.
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  It's not a force. It's not a cloud. It's not a ghost.
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  Right. It's the person of God's Spirit. Yes. And as such, we can know Him.
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  Yeah. I want to say one more thing in this first segment, and that's this.
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  The Holy Spirit is not just somewhere.
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  Now, in a sense that God is omnipresent, the spirit is omnipresent.
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  So he's, where can I go from your spirit?
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  The psalmist said in Psalm 139, if I ascend to heaven, you're there.
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  If I go to the depths of Sheol, you're there.
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  So we know he's omnipresent, but he's not just somewhere.
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  He's also, if you're a believer, he is in you.
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  Now, Jesus said something really strange to his disciples that they didn't understand.
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  It's found in the same season that he was talking to them.
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  In John 16, 7, he says, I tell you the truth.
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  It's to your advantage that I go away.
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  For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you. But if I go, I'll send him to you.
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  Now, the disciples right here, we got to get the context. They were freaking
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  out. Right. They had been following Jesus.
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  Just think of being in the presence of the Son of God.
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  You and I have never been with somebody who had perfect motivations.
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  Right. Who was perfectly pure. Who never said a wrong word.
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  Who every word was fit for the need of the moment. But that was Jesus. Can you imagine? Yeah.
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  And this is why they followed him. And everything he did was right and righteous and miraculous.
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  And then all of a sudden he says, by the way, I'm leaving.
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  And they just freaked out. They left everything to follow him. Right.
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  But then he says this amazing thing in John 14. He said, by the way,
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  you're going to do greater works than me. Yeah.
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  And they thought, well, there's no way. Well, what they didn't realize,
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  it wasn't greater in significance.
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  There was never going to be another son of God. Right.
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  Right. But greater in scope. Yeah.
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  In other words, it was going to have a far greater reach practically because
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  Jesus could only be in one place at one time.
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  If he was in Capernaum, then if Peter was in Jerusalem, he was not with Jesus.
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  Yeah. Right? Right. But then Jesus said, it's a good thing that I'm leaving.
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  Because if I didn't leave, I couldn't send the Holy Spirit to you.
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  But if I leave, I'm going to send the Holy Spirit. Now listen to this.
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  Who will be with you, he said, and will be in you.
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  Now this is the, can you just imagine Peter hearing those words for the first
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  time? How incredible that was.
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  I'm going to send the Holy Spirit and he's not going to be just beside you or
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  occasionally visit you or every once in a while, if you're really good, he's going to show up.
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  He's going to live inside of you. And we know on the day of Pentecost,
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  that's exactly what happened.
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  The spirit was given to indwell every true believer who would trust in him.
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  And I was thinking about this the other day, Jordan. Can you imagine that moment
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  at Pentecost when the tongues of fire came down and they were all speaking in
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  different languages and people were understanding and all this,
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  just like the beginning of Jesus'
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  coming that was attested to by signs,
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  the coming of the Holy Spirit was attested with many signs because this was
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  a whole new age. But then...
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  They came to lay their heads down that night, and they thought, the Holy Spirit is in me.
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  The Spirit literally is residing in me. And this means a couple of things I want to remind us of.
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  If he's in you, he's completely in you.
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  So a minute ago, we came into this room here, and Jordan, as you walked in,
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  I looked over, and your feet were coming in. and they sat down in front of the
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  chair, and then your body came in, and then your head came in.
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  I had to lift it up and put it on top of your torso.
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  That's not how it happened. I hope not. Yeah, that's right. We're a little past
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  Halloween. I don't think that would happen.
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  You came in in all your glory, right? It was just you because you're a human being, right? Yeah.
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  So when the Holy Spirit comes in, all of him comes in.
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  All of the Holy Spirit that you will ever have, all of Christ that you will
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  ever have, all of God that you will ever have, has come to live inside of you.
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  Amen. Isn't that beautiful? That's awesome.
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  So here's a guy who says, man, my wife has really hurt me and I can't love her.
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  Well, the answer to that is probably, yeah, you're right. You can't.
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  But guess who lives inside of you?
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  The Holy Spirit. Yes. And the Holy Spirit is love. Right.
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  And the love of God can be shed abroad in your hearts by the Holy Spirit.
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  Romans 5 says, the fruit of the Spirit is love.
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  Love one another for love is from God and God lives in me.
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  So I can say, Father, right now, I don't have the capacity to love that person. Right.
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  But you live in me. Here's my body. Yeah. Would you fill me with your love?
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  Yeah. And his love can flow through me. That's why Jesus said we can even love our enemies.
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  Yeah. Wow. So if he's in you, he's completely in you.
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  And secondly, and finally, if he's completely in you, you can do greater works.
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  Now, he said, you're going to do greater work. So I think he knew what he was talking about.
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  And it meant not greater in significance, but really greater in scope.
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  In other words, now it's not going to be one Jesus that we have to all go to.
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  It's going to be Jesus in millions of Christians all over the world.
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  And so God was building a race,
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  a nation of people that are in his kingdom that were filled with him,
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  his power, his ability, his wisdom,
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  his strength to continue his work in this age and to rule and reign with him in the next.
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  And I'm telling you, this is, to me, just the greatest news in the world.
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  I'll tell you one final thing.
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  I was talking to a guy today, and he said, my dad was in this church that never
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  really talked about the role of the Holy Spirit, didn't understand.
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  And he was kind of living at this level, you know, right?
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  And he said, then he became a part of this church, and they're just teaching
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  not in a wild way, just a biblical way, that the Holy Spirit is real,
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  that he lives in us, that what he can do and how we must rely.
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  And he's beginning to be filled with and rely upon the Holy Spirit.
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  We'll talk about how to do that.
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  He said to his son, he said, son, I'm like a whole different person.
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  I've never experienced this in my life.
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  And he's just untapping what has been in him all along.
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  And that's what we want to do in these podcasts. We want to help people just
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  come to know the Spirit of God that can come to live in them if they're not
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  a believer. Right. That can happen.
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  Or if they are a believer that's been living in them all along and they maybe didn't know it.
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  Yeah. It's so vital, Bill, and what a testament of that pastor and a truth for
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  probably, I mean, a large majority of believers of the reality that the Holy
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  Spirit is fully there, but we're not aware.
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  And since they're not aware of that reality, they're not letting him live the way through him.
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  And it changes us. Yeah, absolutely. As we become aware of the role of the Holy Spirit in us every day.
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  And just in the words you shared, Bill, I'm thinking about someone that's listening
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  to this and they're thinking, yeah, I'm struggling loving my spouse.
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  I'm struggling raising my children. How do I take care of my kids?
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  I'm struggling stepping into that pulpit on Sunday. I don't have the words.
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  And the best thing they can do is find, you know, you don't and you can't.
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  But he who is in you is able.
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  And so we submit, we surrender, we listen, and we let the Holy Spirit,
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  who is by the means by which we get to do the greater works that Jesus promised,
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  when we allow him to do that.
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  So because of these truths, marriages can be stronger.
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  Families can have a healthy home.
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  Churches can be revived and awakened around them, those that have never known
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  the truth. And guess who gets the glory for all that?
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  It's God. It's him. Yeah, Holy Spirit. Because we realize, there's a little
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  poem I learned years ago that said, I can't. He never said I could.
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  Yeah. But he can, and he always said he would.
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  Isn't that beautiful? It's so good. I can't live a Christian life. No.
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  He never said I could. Right. But he can, and he always said he would, and he lives in me. Yeah.
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  So for you. Well, let's take a minute and pray this in.
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  So we always love to, this is a title of this podcast is One Cry, One Prayer.
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  And so we always want to pray and model prayer and help you pray.
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  And so for just a moment, Jordan, why don't you just voice a prayer for us?
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  And we're going to pray with you. Yes. That these podcasts would be helpful
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  to people to come to know and believe in and trust in and experience the Holy
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  Spirit in their life. Yes.
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  Why don't you pray for us and you join us as we pray.
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  Lord we we just right now every listener and bill and i we come before you together.
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  To recognize uh your goodness and your grace and and holy spirit that you fully indwell us,
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  and we we thank you for these truths and we want to collectively say we cannot
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  live the way we know we want to live for you.
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  And so we ask, Holy Spirit, that we would find deep surrender and allow you
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  to live out the ways of Christ in us.
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  You do the work of sanctifying us.
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  You do the work of allowing us to step into every place and know exactly what you want to say.
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  You do the work in And every marriage, every family, every home that is right now listening to this.
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  And so, Lord, we thank you and we ask you to do this work in us.
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  And Holy Spirit, we recognize you and acknowledge your role.
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  And we ask you to just move in power in the churches around this world in such
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  a way that all would see that you are real, Lord.
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  And bring glory to your name and trust in you, Christ, as our Lord and Savior.
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  And so we thank you and we seek you and we submit to you.
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  We ask you to keep teaching us through the next series of this podcast.
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  We want to know who you are.
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  Music.