Quick Answer
This teaching explores what it means to have a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit, moving beyond religious checklists into genuine intimacy with God. Guest speaker Josh Owens shares how spiritual disciplines, discernment, and a daily pursuit of God transformed his walk with the Trinity into an intimate relationship.
Key Takeaways
- The Holy Spirit is the God of the present, not just the God of the past (Jesus’s finished work) or the future (the new heaven and earth).
- Spiritual disciplines should flow from love and relationship with God rather than being treated as a checklist to prove being a good Christian.
- Discerning whether a prompting is from the Holy Spirit requires humility, alignment with God’s word and character, and communal discernment from others.
- The Holy Spirit is a person, not a mystical force or formula, and Scripture shows he can even be grieved by our actions because he has drawn so close to us.
- God himself, not heaven or any other blessing, is the true promised land we are pursuing.
- Salvation is like a wedding invitation into relationship with God, not a fire insurance policy against judgment.
What is the ‘Final Words’ series about and why talk about the Holy Spirit?
We’ve been in a series called Final Words, looking at the last words Jesus spoke to his disciples before he died, in the book of John, part of the farewell discourse. Last week we talked about the advocate, the Holy Spirit, who intercedes for us on behalf of the Father, leads us into all truth, and gives us a deep, unshakable peace.
This morning I thought it would be an awesome opportunity to hear more on the Holy Spirit from someone the Holy Spirit has just been coming alive in. Josh Owens is currently a professor at Lipscomb in the biology department and part of our formation group, and it’s been a joy to have a front-row seat to the transformation God has been doing in his life. He’s actually working on publishing a book about the Holy Spirit, and I got to read a draft of it, so I knew we had to have him talk about this a little.
What was it like growing up without much teaching on the Holy Spirit?
Like many of you, I grew up Church of Christ, specifically in Alabama, and whether you grew up Church of Christ or Southern Baptist or any of these more conservative streams of the church, the easy answer is we didn’t talk about the Holy Spirit. There’s an expression that says for every mile of road there’s two miles of ditches, and I think we were on one side of the road, having seen the ditch of harm that came from some of the Pentecostal movement — formulaic prayers for healing, and the assumption that if someone didn’t receive healing there must be some secret sin in their life.
We saw some of that, we saw the speaking in tongues, and we drifted to the other side of the road, and a consequence was that we just didn’t talk about the Spirit at all. We had a huge emphasis on Jesus, rightfully so, on his life, death, and resurrection, but what that subconsciously did was make me think about what God did in the past through Jesus’s death, and about the age to come in the new heavens and new earth — a God of the past and a God of the future, but not a God of the now. In my daily walk it was hard to focus on the Spirit and what God is doing right now.
How did pursuing his wife shape Josh Owens’ understanding of pursuing God?
I’ll start with a story. It’s the story of how me and my wife started dating, and it was a bit complicated because she was actually dating someone else at the time, a semi-friend of mine. I felt guilty, so I prayed, ‘Lord, just remove these feelings if it’s not right, but deepen them if it’s supposed to take place,’ and I felt like I was falling in love with her.
Her favorite movie was The Notebook, where the main character writes a letter every day for a year to his love interest, so I started doing that too — sticking a letter in her locker or backpack or on her door. It took about three weeks, but I got a yes, and I kept writing a letter every single day for the whole first year we dated.
As I got older and went to college and grad school, I became an achiever who measured my identity by my achievements, and every time there was an issue in my life I just worked myself out of that hole by my own power. Around age 25 or 26, due to the demands of family and work and life, I felt like there wasn’t a higher gear for me to shift into anymore, and I had to recognize how much of my identity and pursuit had been wrong and that I needed God to get me out of that hole.
One of the things that got me out of it was recognizing that if God is supposed to be our heavenly spouse, I wasn’t pursuing him with the same intentionality I pursued my wife with. That was a big mental shift for me, and through it I started to pursue spiritual disciplines and read some of the mystics, trying to pursue God in a very intentional and personal way.
How did God wake Josh Owens up at 4 a.m. for a week straight?
We joined formation group and started working with Kyle and the other guys, doing spiritual disciplines and really just resting in God. Through that, the Lord was gracious enough that one morning about two years ago, he woke me up about 4 in the morning, and I felt very clear that he wanted to say something to me.
I went into our living room, opened my Bible, and was met by God in that moment. Then every morning for the next six mornings, seven in total, he would wake me up about 4 to 5 a.m., and we would just have a beautiful moment together in my living room. From that moment forth, it’s been about learning more about the Spirit of God, the Trinity, and this God of the now.
How can spiritual disciplines become a relationship instead of a checklist?
The word discipline can often sound antithetical to the idea of relationship. I don’t think about spending time with my wife as a discipline — it’s an opportunity for relationship, an opportunity for creating space for God to do what we can’t do for ourselves. It’s a really good practice when it’s done in the spirit of relationship, reframing things as a true relationship with God, like it would be with your spouse.
Growing up Church of Christ, I had done spiritual disciplines before, but they were kind of a checklist or a thing to master to show how much of a good Christian I was, instead of thinking of them as love letters to our God.
How can you discern whether a prompting is from the Holy Spirit?
To be honest, it’s really difficult, and I think the enemy has a lot of really strong tactics to make us feel like it’s a prompting from the Holy Spirit. As a college professor, I’ve seen couples having a breakup talk where one will say, ‘I think the Spirit is leading me to break up with you,’ and it becomes a way of speaking that dilutes what the Spirit’s actually trying to do.
There’s always a posture of humility needed with promptings of the Spirit, and whatever is being shared is never going to break with the character of God or with God’s word. I think of Nehemiah rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem — a prophet comes to him suggesting he go do something else, and Nehemiah says no, this is not from God, because God wants him to complete the wall.
I think there needs to be communal discernment too — that’s why we have the church and formation groups, to go to the men and women in our lives and ask if what we’re sensing resonates with them. This morning, I prayed and asked the Spirit if there was anything specific he wanted me to share, then talked to my wife and some spiritual mentors about whether I should share it before deciding to.
The Lord is screaming your name. He is chasing after you with an intent and an intensity that you would not believe. So don’t give up. He will come to you.
Josh Owens
What makes relationship with the Holy Spirit challenging?
A lot of the language to describe the Spirit makes it feel like a mystical force, like we’re a crappy version of Jedi using the force, or like there are formulas to pray where if we do this, God will do that. He’s not a formula to master or something to barter with — he’s a person, the third person of the Trinity, and it’s easier to pursue that relationship when we focus on his personhood.
In Acts 13, at the commissioning of Paul and Barnabas for their missionary trip, the Holy Spirit speaks and says, ‘Set apart for me Paul and Barnabas for the mission in which I have called them.’ There are personal pronouns and speaking there that show the Spirit as a person, not an ‘it.’
There’s also a verse in Ephesians 4 that says by our actions we can grieve the Holy Spirit, that he can feel emotion from us. I don’t want you to think of that in a toxic way, but in the positive sense that this God who is beyond comprehension has come so close in proximity to us that our actions affect him. It goes back to the relationship idea — if a stranger’s truck honks at me, I’m not upset, but if something happened to my wife or kids, I would feel that because I’m in relationship with them.
Set apart for me Paul and Barnabas for the mission in which I have called them.
Acts 13
What are practical takeaways for walking with the Holy Spirit?
I’ll share another biblical story, from the end of Deuteronomy chapter 34, the death of Moses. God calls Moses up the mountain to see the promised land, knowing Moses isn’t going to enter it, and I always felt that was kind of mean. But it comes from a Ruth Haley Barton book, where she describes Moses being okay with that because that physical land was not his promised land — God was his promised land, and the presence of God was what he cared about.
How much in my life has the next job, a better family dynamic, or more money been my promised land? Is even heaven my promised land? But heaven is not the goal — God is the goal. Salvation is not a fire insurance policy, not about a fear of burning. Salvation is a wedding invitation that we get to be invited into this trinitarian dance.
A more practical thing I’d leave you with is on the ride home today, just think about one discipline you could implement in your life as a choosing of God. Frame it this way: ‘I love you, God, and because I love you, I’m going to try to rest in you this week,’ or ‘I love you, God, and because I love you, I’m going to pray three times a day.’ It’s not about how many prayers we do, just like it’s not about how many dates I go on with my wife — it’s about the intentionality and the pursuit.
How did the service close in prayer about the Holy Spirit?
I was reminded of Jesus’s words that it is better for him to go to heaven, meaning it’s better that the Holy Spirit be here with us today than Jesus himself, so that the advocate could come. We thanked God for his manifold wisdom in seeing before the foundations of the world that it would be better to send God the Holy Spirit to be our advocate, our counselor, our helper.
We prayed that as individuals we want to be people who are guided and led and counseled by the Spirit, and that we want to be a church sensitive to how God speaks and moves — believing we already are that, but desiring to be more of it. We repented of the times we pursue God as a religion and not as a person, and prayed that the church would hear God speak their name, whether that feels awkward or like embracing an old friend.
Frequently Asked Questions
What series is this teaching part of?
It’s part of a series called ‘Final Words,’ looking at the last words Jesus spoke to his disciples before he died in the book of John, part of the farewell discourse.
Why didn’t Josh Owens’ church tradition talk much about the Holy Spirit growing up?
Growing up Church of Christ in Alabama, his tradition avoided talking about the Holy Spirit partly in reaction to harm seen from formulaic healing prayers and an overemphasis on speaking in tongues in the Pentecostal movement, which caused an overcorrection toward silence on the Spirit.
How did Josh Owens learn to pursue God more intentionally?
He realized that if God is meant to be like a spouse, he wasn’t pursuing God with the same intentionality he had pursued his wife, which led him into spiritual disciplines, a formation group, and resting in God rather than working himself out of every hole.
How can you tell if a prompting is from the Holy Spirit?
Approach it with humility, test whether it aligns with God’s word and character as in the example of Nehemiah refusing a prophet’s suggestion that contradicted his God-given task, and seek communal discernment from trusted people in your life rather than trusting every impression on your own.
Why is relationship with the Holy Spirit sometimes hard to grasp?
Language about the Spirit can make him feel like a mystical force or a formula to master rather than a person, but passages like Acts 13 and Ephesians 4 show he speaks, can be grieved, and has personal qualities that reveal how close he has come to us.
What is meant by ‘God is the promised land’?
Drawing from Moses in Deuteronomy 34, the point is that the true promised land isn’t a job, family situation, more money, or even heaven itself, but God’s own presence, which is what we should ultimately be pursuing.
What practical step is suggested for growing in relationship with the Holy Spirit?
Choose one discipline this week out of love for God, framed as ‘I love you, God, and because I love you, I’m going to rest in you’ or ‘pray three times a day,’ making it about intentional pursuit rather than a checklist.
Watch the full service to hear Josh Owens’ whole testimony and this conversation on walking with the Holy Spirit.
Read the full transcript
is forever [singing] more. [music] What is your name, [singing] Jesus? You [music] deserve the praise. [singing] Worthy is your name. Worthy is your [singing and music] name. Jesus, you deserve the praise. Worthy is worthy. Worthy [music and singing] is your name, Jesus. [singing and music] You deserve the praise. [music and singing] Worthy is your name. Worthy is your name. [music] Jesus. You deserve the praise. Worthy [music and singing] is your name. How worthy are you, Jesus? [music] How worthy are you, Lord be exalted, [music] be exalted now in [singing] the heavens as your glory [music] fills this place. [singing] You alone deserve our praise. You’re the [singing] name above all names. [music] Be exalted now in the heavens. [singing and music] As your glory fills this place, you alone deserve [singing and music] our praise. You’re the name above all names. Be exalted [singing and music] now in the heavens. As your glory [singing and music] fills his place, you alone deserve our [music and singing] praise. You’re the name above all exalted now in the heavens as your glory [music] fills this place. You alone deserve our praise. You’re the name [music] above all. Oh, who is like you [music and singing] Jesus? Who is like you Jesus worthy is your name? Jes. Come on. You deserve my praise. [music] Worthy is your name. Worthy is your name. [music] Jesus. [singing] You deserve the praise. [music] Worthy [singing] is. Let’s sing that again. Worthy. [music] Worthy is your name, Jes. [music] You deserve [singing] my praise. Worthy is your name. One more time. [music] Worthy is your name, Jesus. You deserve the praise. [music] word [singing] is your name. Amen. Jesus, for all that you [music] have done for us, we give you honor and glory and praise. Our hearts are set on [music] you and fixed on you this morning. Come and have your way. Amen. Amen.
Prayer and announcements 4 min mark
We’re going to stay in this posture of prayer and worship here. And um as Aaron mentioned, there is a big contingency of our [music] church this morning at camp. And I’ve heard really good things so far from people’s experience and hearts [music] being opened up um to the Lord. So we want to continue to join in praying for [music] that to to keep happening for the students to really um catch fire [music] to have a heart for the Lord and want to keep following in his way and same for all the people who are helping staff the camp. And um so we want to be praying for that together. be praying for open hearts for um our church to receive a message um from from his [music] word and and from talking about the Holy Spirit this morning. And um also want to [music] remind you guys this is a a wonderful opportunity to fill out a blue prayer card in the pew in front of you. And if you fill that out and drop it in [music] the bins in the front and back of this room, we will be praying over whatever it is that you would like prayers for. and we believe in the power of prayer and [music] um we want to be interceding on your behalf for whatever is going on in your life. So let’s take the next few moments, [music] next few minutes together to pray together and lift up our hearts to the Lord.
Oh my god. So Lord, uh we lift up our our prayers to you this morning. We pray blessing over the youth camp and all the students there. May they come to know you in more beautiful ways. And I pray that you be with our church and um help our hearts and our minds be attuned to how you might be speaking to us this morning. We lift all this up in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Introduction to the speaker 8 min mark
Well, um I’m so grateful that y’all have all chosen to be here with us this morning. you guys are in for a treat because um you’re going to have the privilege of hearing from a good friend and somebody who the Lord has just been um moving and uh working in his life super powerfully. So we’ve we’ve been in a series recently called final words looking at the last words that Jesus has said to his disciples before he died in the book of John. It’s part of the farewell discourse. And we just talked last week about the advocate, the Holy Spirit, who is somebody who is our our pariclete, somebody who um intercedes for us on behalf of the father, leads us into all truth, gives us a deep unshakable peace. And I thought this morning it would be an awesome opportunity to hear more on the Holy Spirit from someone who the Holy Spirit has just been um coming alive in.
I mean it it’s been awesome. Josh Owens is uh the person sitting here if you do not know him. Um he’s currently a professor at Lipkcom in the biology department and um he is a part of our formation group that we meet um normally summers we get to sleep in a little bit till 6 but we normally meet at 5:30 uh every week and it has been such a joy to walk in step with um this group of men and it’s been awesome to have a front row seat to see the absolute transformation that God has been doing in Josh’s life and um to the extent that he has been wanting to document a lot of this journey that he’s been on with God, with the Trinity, with the Holy Spirit to the point where he is um ongoing actively trying to publish about to publish a book on the Holy Spirit. So, he has um I I got the opportunity to read a draft of his book and it was it was very good and insightful and I was like, “All right, we got to we got to get you to talk about this a little bit.”
Growing up and understanding the Holy Spirit 10 min mark
So, um first question to kind of kick off where we’re going with this. If you could describe your understanding of the Holy Spirit, your experience of God from your in your growing up years, how how would you describe that?
Yeah. Um, it’s a good question. So, like many of you, um, I grew up Church of Christ. Um, specifically, I grew up in Alabama. And whether you grew up Church of Christ or Southern Baptist, any kind of more of these conservative streams of the church, the easy answer is we didn’t we didn’t talk about the Holy Spirit. Um, and to defend that tradition, um, there’s an expression that says for every one mile of road, there’s two miles of ditches. Okay. So, for every mile road, there’s two miles of ditches. And I think we were on one side of the road and we saw one ditch of some of the harm that come that came from the Pentecostal movement, the kind of formulaic prayers for healing. And that if someone didn’t receive healing, they were some kind of secret sin in their life. And I think we saw some of that. We saw the speaking in tongues and we kind of drifted to one side of the road. And a consequence of that was that we just didn’t talk about it. Um, and at least for me growing up, we had this huge emphasis on Jesus and rightfully so and on his life and his death and resurrection. But what that subconsciously did in my life was we thought about what God did in the past through Jesus’s death. And we thought about this age to come and of the new heavens and new earth of this future look. And so I saw God of a past and God of the future, but I didn’t see a God of the now. And in my daily walk, it was hard for me just to focus on this past and future and not to focus on the spirit and what God is doing right now.
Yeah, that’s really good. I’ I haven’t really thought about it in terms like that before, but um in talking about like what we did last week, the Holy Spirit is um very much so the God of the present. I mean, indwelling us now, helping us live like Jesus now and uh transforming us and all that. That that’s that’s a good insight. Um so that that was some of your experience of the Holy Spirit in the past. what what contributed to this spiritual awakening that you’ve had in the last year and a half, two years, and um maybe share a little bit of what your relationship with God or relationship with the Holy Spirit looks like now.
Story of a spiritual awakening 13 min mark
Yeah. Um I’ll start with a story. Kyle likes this story. Um it’s the story of how me and my wife started dating. Um and it was a bit of a complicated story. Um my wife is also from Alabama. We actually went to the same high school, so we’re high school sweethearts. Um, I started getting feelings for her first and there was an issue. She was actually dating another person at the time. Um, so it’s a little bit of an issue. Don’t judge me. Um, and it makes it a little worse. A little worse. Uh, he was a semi friend, you know, semi semi friend. Um, so I felt guilty. I did. I really did feel guilty about it. And so I started praying and just said, “Lord, just remove these feelings if it’s not right, but deepen them if it’s supposed to take place.” And I just felt like I was falling in love with Aaron. Um, and this is junior year, so we were able to go to prom. Prom season’s coming up. And her boyfriend at the time was not going to go to prom. So I saw an opportunity because I knew Aaron wanted to go to prom. Uh, so I asked him, I asked him to be clear and I said, “Hey friend, how would you care if I took your girlfriend to prom?” And for some reason he said yes. He said, “You can take her, have a good time as friends.”
Um, so went to Aaron, asked her, and she said yes. That did not go over well with the boyfriend. I think he thought she was going to let me down and just show how much better he was. Uh, that didn’t happen. So, needless to say, that relationship ended. Saw my opportunity here to swoop in, you know. Um, but Aaron was a little resistant at first. She kind of was coming out of that relationship. Didn’t want to jump straight into a new relationship. And once again, we’re like 16 years old at the time, so don’t judge us. But her favorite movie was The Notebook. Okay? And if you’re not familiar with that movie, uh there is a moment where the main kind protagonist uh and his love interest, he writes a letter every day for a year to the love interest. And I was like, “Ah, I can start doing that. I’ll start writing her a letter every day.” Um and so I started it. And I would stick in her locker or stick in her backpack or stick it on her door at her house. Um and it took about three weeks, but I got a yes. And so we became officially boyfriend and girlfriend at that moment. Um, but then I was like, “Hey, I’m already 20 notes into this. What’s another 345, right?” Um, and I’m not going to let some fictional character beat me. Um, so I wrote a whole letter every day for the first year that we dated.
Finding identity beyond achievement 16 min mark
Um, and so that’s a little background for me as far as like my intentionality and my pursuit of my wife. Um, and as I became older and went to college and grad school, um, I’m an achiever. I kind of measure my identity by my achievements and my that’s my where I get my lot of my self-worth from. Um, and every time there was an issue in my life, I just worked myself out of that hole by my own power. And I always give this example of like a car, I just feel like I could like shift into a higher gear and like push myself more. And around the age of 25 26 um due to the demands of family and work and life I just felt like there wasn’t a higher gear for me to shift into. I just couldn’t work myself out of it anymore. And I had to kind of go into this hole and recognize how much of that was wrong uh of doing my identity and what I was pursuing. And I needed God to get out of that hole. And one of the things that kind of got me out of that was recognizing if God is supposed to be our spouse, if he’s our heavenly spouse, I’m not pursuing him with the same intentionality that I pursued my wife with. And so that was a big kind of mental shift in my mind.
Pursuing spiritual disciplines intentionally 17 min mark
Um and through that I started to pursue spiritual disciplines and reading some of the mystics and different things trying to pursue God in a very intentional and personal way for me which is going to look different for everyone. Um, and so we joined formation group and started working with Kyle and the other guys in our group. Started doing spiritual disciplines. Um, and really just resting in God and and through that um, the Lord was gracious enough to me to one morning about two years ago. He woke me up about 4 in the morning and I just felt very clear. He just wanted to say something to me. And so I went into our living room and opened up my Bible to read and and was was met by God in that moment. Um and then every morning for the next six mornings, seven in total, he would wake me up about 4 to 5:00. Um and we would just have a beautiful moment together in my living room. Um and from that moment forth, it’s just been trying to learn more um about the spirit of God and about the Trinity and this God of the now.
Yeah, that’s that’s beautiful. It was so cool to hearing him come to formation group and say things like, “Yeah, I keep getting woken up at like 4:00 a.m. and spending like I I feel this strong prompting to spend this time with God. It’s like I don’t know what’s happening.” Like he it was a it was a a shocking kind of uh thing in the moment, but it just kept happening and and the Lord was just like really um gripping his heart and it was awesome awesome to see. Um, and thinking about what you just said, thinking about uh spiritual disciplines, I think the word discipline can often times like sound antithetical to the idea of relationship. Like I don’t think about spending time with my wife as a discipline. Like it’s not a, you know, I’m I’m spending a relational discipline by going out on a date with Abby. It’s not something like that. It’s an opportunity for relationship. It’s an opportunity. It’s creating the space for God to do what we can’t do for ourselves. Um, so it’s a it’s a really good practice when it’s done in the spirit of relationship. And I think you’re refraraming things as a relationship with God, like truly a relationship like it would be with your spouse is is a really good and beautiful thing.
Yeah. And just to go off of that idea, like growing up Church of Christ, I had done the spiritual disciplines before, but they were kind of a checklist or like a thing to do or a thing to master to show how much of a good Christian I was. Um, as instead of these love letters to our God.
Yeah, that’s good. Um, so in receiving some of the prompting that you you have from the Holy Spirit, I think it’s important to have a a understanding or a grid of discernment about because not not every voice we hear in our head, not every prompting we receive is something from God. They’re competing like the mind or the the flesh and the spirit are at war with one another. And so is there any word of advice that you might give to somebody in helping discern whether like a prompting they feel um something they receive is from the Holy Spirit or not?
Discerning the Holy Spirit’s prompting 20 min mark
Um to be honest, it’s really difficult. Um I think the enemy has a lot of really strong tactics to make us feel like it’s a prompting from the Holy Spirit. I’ll give a maybe funny example. You know, I’m I’m a college professor and so we have all these college relationships going on and stuff and it might be common that you see a couple having that breakup talk, you know, and one of them who’s initiating the talk will say, “I think the spirit is leading me to say or the spirit’s telling me to break up with you.” It’s like really I don’t maybe maybe um but I don’t know if the spirit is wanting you to break up with this person or not. Um and so it becomes in our vernacular just a way of like saying things and I think it kind of dilutes down the meaning of what the spirit’s trying to do. Um so it is difficult at least in in my experience there’s always going to be a posture of humility um with prompting of the spirit and whatever is being shared or spoken over is never going to break with the character of God or with God’s word. And so there’s many examples. I’m thinking of one right now from Nehemiah and Nehemiah is trying to rebuild the wall of um Jerusalem and this prophet comes to him and like oh you need to go to this house and worship and do these things here and Nehemiah’s like no this is not from God. God wants me to complete the wall and I’m not going to stop doing that. And so I think even when sometimes with best intentions, we have to be make be really careful of when we say I think the spirit is telling me this. Um and additionally with that, I think there needs to be communal discernment. Um and I think that’s why we have the church and formation groups to kind of go to the men and women in our lives and say, “Hey, I I feel the spirit’s telling me. Does this like resonate with you? Do you think I’m on track or off base?”
Seeking confirmation and sharing God’s calling 22 min mark
Um, and I I’ll I’ll lead by example. Um, in thinking about today, I I was praying with the spirit and asking him was there anything specifically he wanted me to share. And I got kind of snippets over time and then I kind of talked to Aaron about it. I talked to some spiritual mentors about it on whether or not I should share. And basically they said, “Well, if you feel in the moment it’s right to share, share it.” And in the first song that Aaron led us in today, um, in that Josh Baldwin song, it says, “I have called you by name.” And there’s someone in this room right now and and I don’t know who you are, but you are earnestly seeking after God. You really are, but there’s this small seed of doubt in your mind. And you start to ask yourself these questions of, “Does God see me? Does he hear me? Does he even know my name?” The Lord is screaming your name. He is chasing after you with an intent and an intensity that you would not believe. So don’t give up. He will come to you. And I share that not because it’s unique and maybe it resonates with multiple people in this room. And whether I’m a fool for sharing that or not, it doesn’t matter because my intent is that God’s name is known.
Yeah. Amen. Amen to that. Um and the significance that the Lord sees in in each and every one of us. I whenever you were talking, it made me think of the uh parable of the lost sheep. the shepherd that is just in relentless pursuit of um of the sheep. And that’s the character and nature of our God. Um in in your experience in walking with the
The personhood of the Holy Spirit 24 min mark
Lord and you can answer this however you want, whether it’s um the Trinity, whether you want to specifically talk about the Holy Spirit, but what what makes relationship with God and the Holy Spirit challenging? What makes it hard? at at least for me and specifically talking about the spirit. Um, a lot of the language to describe the spirit makes it feel like a mystical force, you know? It’s like we’re like a crappy version of Jedi and we can like use the force or something. Um, and and and even sometimes there’s like these formulas to pray or like we feel like, oh, if I do this then God will do this like tick for tack and and he’s not a formula to master. He’s not something to barter with. He’s a person. He’s the third person of the Trinity. And I think when we make it more about the personhood of the spirit, um it’s easier to pursue that relationship.
And and I know that’s tough to understand, at least it was tough to understand for me. And I I’ll give two examples from the Bible. Um one is in Acts 13, and it’s the commissioning of Paul and Barnabas to go off on their missionary trips. And in that moment it says the Holy Spirit speaks and then he says set apart for me Paul and Barnabas for the mission in which I have called him. And there’s all these kind of personal pronouns and the speaking and we start to start to see the spirit not as an it but as a person.
And another one, and me me and Kyle talked about this and whether or not I should share it, and I’ll be very careful with my language here. There’s a verse in Ephesians 4 um that says that sometimes by our actions that we can grieve the Holy Spirit, that he can feel this emotion from us. And I don’t want you to think about that in like a toxic way of like, does he still feel the nails? like all my actions just perpetually causing harm to the spirit. I’d like to frame it in the positive that this God that’s beyond comprehension, beyond knowing has come so close in proximity to us that our actions affect him. And that’s hard for me to digest that the finite self that I am, that the infinite cares about me that much.
And it goes back to this relationship idea like if we leave church today and I’m in the crosswalk and some random truck honks at me, I’m not upset by that. It’s a stranger. But if something happened to Aaron or to my kids or to Kyle, I would feel that because I’m in relationship with them. And so to me, the fact that we can grieve the spirit and he has these like personal qualities shows how much the spirit has come close to us.
Reframing as daily relationship 27 min mark
Yeah, it that’s really good. I I think a lot of what I’m hearing you say, actually, I don’t want to steal your thunder cuz I I think I know you want to expand on this in a second, but um so much of what I’m hearing you say today is is about just reframing this as a relationship. It’s it’s not just a academic study. It’s not just, you know, Bible bull knowledge. It is daytoday, momentto moment walking in step with God and and the Holy Spirit is the one who really enables that for us in our present.
Um well if if you gave us like two two things one or two things that are practical takeaways what what you would hope that we would walk away with be challenged by encouraged by regarding relationship with the Holy Spirit. What would that be?
God as the promised land 28 min mark
Um, I’ll share another biblical story. Um, it’s the end of Deuteronomy. It’s Deuteronomy chapter 34. And this is the death of Moses. And God calls Moses up the mountain to see the promised land. And I always felt that was kind of mean personally. Moses knows he’s not going to go into the promised land. And God takes him up on the mountain. He’s like, “See this beautiful land that I’m going to give your descendants and and give the Israelites, but you’re not going to partake of it.”
And I struggle with that of why God would do that. And and it comes from a Ruth Haley Barden book, but she describes it as Moses was okay with that moment because that promised land, that physical land was not his promised land. God was his promised land. And the presence of God was what he cared about. And and for me, how much in my life has like the next job or a better family dynamic or more money has that been my promised land? Or even and I and I know I might step on toes here. Is heaven my promised land? But heaven is not the goal. God is the goal.
Practical takeaways 29 min mark
Oh, sorry. I got carried away there. Got a little I get melod I’m a professor. I get a little melodramatic sometimes. Um so that was one. And that it’s just the idea that God is our spouse and and it’s a relationship with God and that he’s the goal and it’s not this checklist or things to do right or worry about salvation. Salvation is not a fire insurance policy. Okay? It’s not about a fear of burning. Salvation is a wedding invitation that we get to be invited into this trinitarian dance.
Um and that’s a little kind of abstract kind of switching of the motivation. Uh, a more practical thing I would leave you with is just on the ride home today with your spouse or by yourself or with your family, um, just think about one discipline that you could implement in your life as a choosing of God. And and frame it this way. I love you, God, and because I love you, I’m going to try to rest in you this week. I love you, God, and because I love you, I’m going to pray three times a day this week to you. It’s not about how many prayers that we do and it’s like a relationship. It’s not how many about how many dates I go on my wife with, but it’s about the intentionality and the pursuit.
God versus the gift 30 min mark
That’s that’s uh really good. And I think one of my biggest takeaways from what you’re sharing today is is the um God is a mystery, but demystifying the relational piece of um just walking with with the Lord. Thinking about it in terms of um a spouse idea or just an intentional relationship that you want to pursue, it it just reframes like discipline. and it reframes um different things that we be doing.
And I I also, you know, I know there might be some who hear some of what he said about it’s not about heaven, it’s about God. God is the promised land. And I think one of the questions that I was challenged by whenever I was younger was, would you be okay with heaven if God wasn’t there? like if you got all the good of the new heaven and earth you got I mean it was a utopian beautiful whatever but God wasn’t present assuming those things would even be possible but would you be okay with that and and I think a lot of us care more about the gift than we care about the giver and it’s important for us to really see relationship with God is the promised land relationship with God being caught up in fellowship with God.
And yes, the new heaven and new earth that is coming, praise God, that’s that’s coming. And we want to be a part of that. But we want to be there cuz God’s there. And and I think that reframing of of relationship is is um really important.
Closing prayer 32 min mark
So, um Josh, thank you for sharing your thoughts this morning. And um I’m going to ask if you’d go ahead and close us out in prayer as um we transition back into worship. Yahweh, we repent of the times that we pursue you as a religion and not as a person. And we are just in awe of you and grateful that this unknowable God, this God that is beyond comprehension, this infinite who knows no beginning or end, chooses to make his dwelling amongst us, chooses to pursue us and to know us despite all of our shortcomings, despite of all the times we turn away that you still chase after us.
Help us to rest in you and to change our minds and our hearts to come to you as a father, to come to you as the son and as the spirit that we may just fall before your throne in gratitude and by grace that you lift us up again, Lord. Lord, I don’t know what this congregation needed to hear, but I pray that they hear your name and in this moment right now that the spirit would descend and in their mind they would hear you say their name.
And whether that’s awkward for some of us or it feels like embracing an old friend, wherever we are on that spectrum, God give us grace. In Jesus name I pray. I just invite us to stay in a posture of prayer for a moment. If you want to close your eyes or open your hands in front of you, whatever whatever you’d like. We just uh during during the last part there, I was just reminded of Jesus’s words. He said it is better for him to go to heaven. Meaning that it’s better that the Holy Spirit be here with us today than Jesus himself. He said so that the advocate could come.
And so Lord, we just thank you for your manifold wisdom that you saw before the foundations of the world were set us in this moment that it would be better that you would send God the Holy Spirit to be our advocate, our counselor, our helper. And we just pray this morning, Lord, as individuals, we want to be people who are guided and led and counseledled by your spirit. We want to be a church
that’s sensitive to how you speak and move. And I believe we already are that, but we desire to be more of that. So, we just pray that for you, for ourselves.
We pray that for this church and for your mission in this city. We can’t do it without you. Amen. Would you guys stand with us?
Invitation to prayer team 36 min mark
I do want to say to our our prayer team members, if if you’d like to move around the room, um I just revisit what what Josh mentioned, you know the word of knowledge that he shared. If if there is someone in the room diligently seeking the Lord and you feel unseen, um feel free to go pray with one of our prayer members, uh reach out to any of us, staff. We’d love to pray with you this morning. Let’s sing together.
Worship song 37 min mark
and show me how to walk with you. Guide my steps, slow my pace. And every day your mercies new. Oh, show me how to walk with you. Lead me. Oh, lead me down the narrow road. I like the path as we go. Through every high and every low. Won’t you lead me down the narrow road? Oh, lead us.
There’s nothing there’s nothing greater than knowing you, Jesus. So, there’s nothing better than going your way. I’ll lay my life down. guidance of yours. Now I’ll follow all my days. The narrow way. Oh, the narrow way.
Teach me how to truly live. Teach me how to truly live. Bear my cross and die to self. For this is where life begins. Oh, teach me how to truly. The truth force a buried seed will rise again. For death in Christ is not here. Oh, it’s not great knowing you, Jesus. There’s nothing better going your way.
I down yours now. I’ll follow all my days, the narrow way, and keep me till that final day. is for the dawn of all that is to come. There I’ll see you face to face. Lord, keep me till that final day. All I’m lost will then begin. How sweet to follow Jesus. Oh, how sweet knowing you, Jesus. There’s nothing better going your way. My name God is your voice now our father all my days going your I lay right down. God is now. I’ll follow all my days. I’ll follow. Yes, I’ll follow all my days. The narrow way. Amen.
Closing prayer 40 min mark
We pray the ancient prayer. Holy Spirit, come. Come into the hearts of our church. And um I pray that today is a catalyst moment where there may be callous hearts that spirit. You help there be a heart of flesh, not a heart of stone. That you help us to have fertile soil for what you want to do in our lives. And um may you ignite something in our relationship with you. Help us to pursue you like we would a spouse, like we would a close friend. And may we feel your warm embrace today. Amen.
Visitor welcome and announcements 42 min mark
Um, if you are visiting with us today, we are absolutely delighted that you chose to be here with us and and I hope you felt a big warm welcome. We we love seeing new faces. And um make sure you say hi to someone on your way out cuz if well if you try to get out too quickly, you’re probably going to be out of luck cuz people are going to want to tell you hi. We have um a church that really wants to get to know you.
But if you look at the white um card sticking up in the pew in front of you. If you scan that QR code, it’ll take you to a whole bunch of links that will help you learn more about Fourth. But in that is a visitor form. And if you filled that out, we would love to have the opportunity to follow back up with you and just say thank you for being here because we are so happy that you’re here. And uh you can find all other kinds of information that you’d want there.
Upcoming events 43 min mark
A couple things. Um the deadline to register for calf camp, which is the camp for our kindergarten through 4th graders, is next Sunday, July 5th. So, make sure that you have that um filled out and completed if you want your kiddo to be there.
And uh we do have classes today. Men’s class will be in here again and women’s class will be upstairs in the connection classroom. But next week, we will not have classes. Instead, in the Fourth of July weekend, we’re going to have it be a time of community. So, in the lobby after service, we’re going to have coffee and donuts and a and a beautiful time of fellowship. So, we hope you stick around for that. And that is all.
Closing blessing 44 min mark
Um, so as you go this week in in the name and the power and the authority and the love of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, may we continue to be a church who loves God, serves others, and shares
