The Holy Spirit

Sermon Transcript

Bible Reading

John 3:1-15

The bible reading this morning is from the Gospel of John, chapter 3, verses 1 through to 15.

Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.

Jesus replied, Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.

How can someone be born when they are old? Nicodemus asked. Surely they cannot enter the second time into their mother's womb to be born.

Jesus answered, Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, you must be born again. The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.

How can this be? Nicodemus asked.

You are Israel's teacher, said Jesus, and you do not understand these things? Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen. But still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe. How then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the One that came from heaven, the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in Him.

This is the word of the Lord.

Opening Prayer

Thanks Glen, well read. Good morning everyone. Those red Bibles, if you can get to 1650, that's the page number, it's going to be useful to have that open. How about we pray?

Father thank you so much for your goodness to us. We've seen it displayed before our eyes in so many ways this morning. We've got so many reasons to celebrate and be thankful and things to look forward to and hope to lay hold of. Even in the midst of a season of change, Lord, we're seeing you at work in us and in our midst and then through us into the life of the community. That's about as good as it gets, so we just thank you Lord.

I'd ask now as we begin this series, interacting with, engaging with the Holy Spirit and the way the scripture describes Him and encourages us to engage with Him. Lord, I pray that there would be a word for each one of us, that somewhere along the way, a song, something read from the Bible, a conversation after church, a testimony, something would reach us and that being touched and awakened, our engagement with you through your Spirit would be enlivened and our lives would be changed.

Thank you Lord for the hope, for the promise that we have in you and we ask Lord that as we engage with this material, that that would be brought to bear on us again. So we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.

A Lively Experience of the Holy Spirit

One of my little tackers has started prep this year and it was grandparents day so they wheeled out the grandparents and I was standing there while the kids were, you know, doing something, engaging on a playground, talking to one of the teacher's aides, a Christian school, a Christian lady and we got talking and she started to tell me, she was talking away and I asked her a question which is what I'm best at, I said, so what's the most important thing about, and I can't remember if I said it was, you know, her teaching, you know, being a teacher's aide or being a Christian or whatever it was, anyway, she answered and that was good.

And then she said, so you've been pastoring churches for, you know, forever and a day, what's the most important thing you think? And I thought, oh no, she's got me with my own question. And I thought, you know, gee, it's bad if you don't know what to say, right?

And then I thought, no, I do know what to say, because I have said it. And so this is how I'm going to start this series on the Holy Spirit with you. I'm going to tell you my most important thing.

Okay, I'm getting somewhere, right? Can you remember their thinking yet?

So this is how I pray for my children. So that's important, isn't it? Like that's priority.

So my prevailing prayer for my children is that they would have a lively experience of the Holy Spirit. There you are. That my kids would have a lively experience of the Holy Spirit.

And if that's been your experience, you will know why I pray that that might be their experience. So I just want to talk with you about that.

We've got two months. What does it mean to have a lively experience of the Holy Spirit?

The Best Thing of All Is to Know Him

It's one thing to know about God. Knowing about God is really important. Anglicans are great at that. We have this kind of structure and form about the way we worship.

And it's a bit like banging a steak into the ground. If you say this thing often enough, you'll remember it. Sometimes we even set it to music, which helps it stick even more. Okay, we're going to embed something in you. That's good.

It's good to know about God. And it's even good to know people who know God. That's a good thing too.

But the best thing of all is to know Him. That's the best thing.

And because of our worldview, kind of a technological Western society, we think we've understood something when we've dissected it.

So you want to learn how to be a doctor, then they kind of go, here's all the details, 300 years worth of study, and then you're supposed to be a good doctor. I don't know if it works that way.

And we think maybe if we analyze God, and you can do philosophy or you can do a theological course, I've done one of those. You know, you can study. You can learn all about Him when you've learned about Him. And that's all.

Before I came here, I provided you with a bio and there's a picture I think of me and my wife and our little girl who's now 22, so she's not little. And so you knew something about me, didn't you, before I even came here, but you've had me for three months or so now. That's a bit different, isn't it? From reading a bio. Have you met the one you worship? Have you met Him?

That's what makes this opportunity to focus on the person and work of the Holy Spirit so exciting, because once you've met Him, you will never be the same. And having met Him, you'll have the opportunity to keep in step with the Spirit, right? You know that language, keep in step with the Spirit, learning and growing as He guides you day by day. This is the Christian life, friends. The Christian life is not trying harder to get it right tomorrow.

Having the Holy Spirit Inside You Is Even Better Than That

But if you can know the Holy Spirit, and if you can keep in step with the Spirit, then that makes sense of another encouragement that we have in the Scriptures, which is not to grieve the Holy Spirit, because it's possible having met Him and knowing Him and having Him live inside you to hurt Him by ignoring or willfully disobeying Him.

Now we know that too, right? We said a confession already this morning. And if you have a conscience, and I hope you do, you'll know how it feels to offend your conscience.

That's like being covered in shame, isn't it? Great picture language, covered in shame. Oh no, I've done it again. And you know that feeling. And that's just the conscience.

So the Holy Spirit's kind of on the same wavelength, okay, but we're going deeper now. It's like hurting your best friend. Disappointing your best friend. Ratting on your best friend.

And thanks, Rachel, for leading us so well this morning. Wouldn't it have been wonderful, just close your eyes and imagine, wouldn't it have been wonderful to be with Jesus? Hanging out with the Twelve?

Watching Him, you know, heal the man by the pool, the Bethsaida? Watching Him turn, you know, a couple of loaves of bread and some fish into a meal for 5,000 people? Raising the dead?

You know, the man comes through the roof on the mat, the paralytic, and he gets up, picks that thing up and walks out the door. Wouldn't that have just, wouldn't that have been fabulous? Going fishing? It's a nostalgic thought.

And we often think, I think, that it would be so much easier for us, you know, to live out our Christian faith day by day if we'd had that, you know, cheek-by-jowl close experience with Jesus.

Well, as we've been reminded already this morning, Jesus says, having the Holy Spirit inside you is even better than that. John 16 and verse 7. I think I've got a slide for this.

John 16:7

But I tell you the truth. It is for your good that I'm going away. Unless I go away, the counsellor will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.

And verse 12.

John 16:12-15

I've much more to say to you, more than you can now bear, or more than you can now hear. But when he, the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own. He will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.

He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.

This is the ministry of the Holy Spirit. He feels like he brings Jesus not just beside us, but within.

As we make our way through the next eight weeks, we will see how the Holy Spirit is God's down payment on the promise of an eternity spent with Him, and so much more as we look at the titles of the Holy Spirit used in the Scriptures.

Not Everything Spiritual Is Helpful

Today, Holy Spirit. So before I introduce you to Nicodemus, because that's what the Bible passage is about, I'd like just to talk about that idea of the Spirit being holy.

We could just say the Spirit of God. That would work quite well. But Scripture uses the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of Holiness is the third person of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

And He is called holy or pure or clean. You know, in the Scriptures there are unclean spirits. Well, this is the clean one.

Because as we do read the Scriptures, we see that there are impure or unholy or unclean spirits as well. And I think that's, you know, the starting point. We live in a spiritual world. That's the starting point.

And so we live in a world where there are not just people, but spiritual beings. And some of them are good, and some of them are bad. Some of them are holy, some of them are unholy. This is the world we live in.

Mostly in the West, we forget that or try to suppress that. So if you're sitting anywhere near an Iranian, okay, you want to talk to them afterwards because they know this. This is their culture. But from a Western perspective, no, it's not our culture.

I think the warning, the thing to notice, the kind of danger sign for us in the West, people like me, is to kind of take into ourselves this learning, not everything spiritual is helpful. Not everything spiritual is helpful.

I think our culture's got so lost in this. We just think all spirituality is good because, you know, hey, we have a spiritual side.

And you can see it right across our culture, particularly in our interaction with the Indigenous people at the moment. We kind of praise their spirituality because it's, hey, we don't have one, apparently, in the West. We've forgotten it or something.

And when we're, you know, holidaying and travelling to different cultures, there's no filter at all. It's spiritual, it must be good. Uh-uh. No. Not everything spiritual is helpful.

1 Peter chapter 5 and verse 8. Again, you're familiar with these things. I'm just trying to put them in line for you so you can remember it. Where are we? 1 Peter 5, 8. I think there's a slide for this too. There we are.

1 Peter 5:8

Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

Did you think of that when you walked out your front door this morning? Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a lion looking for somebody to devour. Friends, this is the world we live in.

James 4 verse 7.

James 4:7

Resist him and he will flee from you.

Fail and he will eat you. That's true too. That is why we're told to test the spirits. For your enemy disguises himself as an angel of light.

But don't worry. I'm not trying to scare you. God's Holy Spirit within is more than a match for those impostors who would control you if they could. And you wander into their territory and you give them permission. Awareness is so important.

So Begins the Process of Learning to Hear God

God gives the Holy Spirit to us as a gift when we put our trust in him. He lives within us. And so begins the process of learning to hear God or to hear the Spirit's voice. So begins the process of learning to hear God or to hear the Spirit's voice.

Has this ever happened to you? You're out and about somewhere. Think of a big shopping centre where I live. It's Chadstone. It might be Ringwood for you. Eastland.

And you're getting milk or socks or a key card. So you've got a job to do. You know how blokes shop at Seek and Destroy. None of this looking in windows for me. I'm in there and I'm getting out as fast as I can.

So I'm like, yeah, that's how you do it. So I'm bulldozing my way through the crowds at Eastland. Okay. Yeah, that one. Oh yeah, Doncaster. Yeah. It's a small shopping centre.

And you hear a voice. Does this ever happen to you? You know, music and then there's a voice. And you go, wow, that's Fred or that's Mary or that's Joan. And there they are.

You're not looking for them. They're not looking for you. But they're on the phone or they're talking to somebody and your ear picks that up and you go, where are they? Has this ever happened to you? Look, it's incredible.

A travel story. I'm in Barcelona. We're meeting a friend from St. Jude's who's teaching over there. She was in Valencia. And we're going to meet. We've come from Rome on a train and we're going to meet at a railway station.

And the dear old Euroguide got me into the wrong terminus in Barcelona. So I'm supposed to be at Barcelona West and I'm at Barcelona East or something. And I don't know anything about Barcelona. So I'm feeling pretty stuffed at that stage.

And standing at the top of an escalator and who comes up the escalator? My friend from Valencia. Okay. Like, yeah, there is a God. So even in the midst of mayhem, you can still track somebody if you know their voice.

Right. So my wife, Rosanne, you know, she's clever at all sorts of things. English is probably not a strong suit. And God will put words into her mind that she doesn't know what they mean.

So she's just doing her thing. And suddenly she's thinking, you know, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. What on earth is that? And she'll look it up. Okay. So she's faithful enough to go, that's weird. And look it up.

And lo and behold, so often it connects with something that she's working on or praying about or, can you hear me? Right. And that's like the next step for her in resolving that issue or, you know, he does that to her all the time.

Words she doesn't know that connect with something that she's kind of working on, that helps her make some progress. That's not her.

I was praying with a woman the other day, and this is how it works for her. Maybe somebody comes up for prayer, you know, like after the service, and she, you know, she'll go, okay, God, what have you got? And she will see something, right, like in her mind's eye.

But it will be like a piece of something, like maybe, you know, a brick or, you know, a piece of the body, maybe an elbow or a nose or something. Or maybe, you know, like a view, look out the window, you can see some trees and the wind's moving.

And she goes, Lord, what is it? And then just like the camera pans back and she gets the picture. You know, and then maybe she'll ask the person, you know, does a cruise ship mean anything to you? Okay, whatever the picture is.

And that's how God helps her move through or pray for people. Weird, right? But that's how it works. Old Testament talks about people like that as seers. It's not just another word for prophet.

For me, it works like this. I've got a slide for this one too. In 2010, I was in Islamabad. We had people from our church working over there in a theological college. So I did a pastoral visit.

I know it's a long way to go for a cup of tea, but it was worth it. So good, I went back in 2014. And while I was there, they got me to do some things. I'm presenting a certificate to one of the Bible students. She'd done a short course and I got to give out the certificates.

So because I'd worked so hard in Islamabad, yeah, good. My treat was they were going to take me to Gloria Jeans. Remember Gloria Jeans? So in 2010, Gloria Jeans had set up shop in Islamabad. And this is kind of my homecoming moment, you know, in a foreign culture.

And there was a little kind of paved courtyard thing out the front of the shop, you know, with the cars going past. And we sat down there at the tables and we got to order. So we went in to see what they had.

Just like Gloria Jeans in Australia, you know, with the refrigerator cabinet with the curved glass window and it all looked great. And we all had, you know, three rolls from the cabinet and went and sat down while they brought us our drinks.

And the rolls came and I opened my roll from the glad wrap it was in and it was warm. It was warm. And I thought, wow, weird. Why would you warm up a chicken roll? And I heard a voice say, don't eat it.

Not funny. Because Kevin is a donkey. Okay. And he says, well, all the other people are eating theirs. And why wouldn't I eat it? So salmonella poisoning, right?

Came back and I was in, what is it when they don't know what you've got in hospital? Infectious disease. What's it called? My diagnosis was travelling with virus. So they didn't know what it was. I knew what it was. God knew what it was.

And in my experience, it is depressingly easy to ignore or to rationalise or to kind of look the other way when God is trying to tell you something. Could this possibly be you? Hebrews warns us not to miss the grace of God. Implication is you can. Implication is you can.

One of the reasons why we're so hot on reading the Bible, okay, is that it teaches you God's autograph. It's like he has a way of thinking or a way of speaking. And if you soak in this, when God speaks to you, you'll recognise it.

Like that voice in the shopping centre, right? I'm busy. I'm doing my thing. I'm not thinking about God. I'm going to get a key cut. And there's a voice. I'm sitting down to have a chicken roll. I'm an Islamabad. I'm hungry. Why wouldn't I eat it, okay?

This Is a Discipleship Issue

Friends, this is not a salvation issue. I'm not standing here saying, if you don't speak in tongues, you're not saved, right? Some people will do that for you, that's not my job.

This is not a salvation issue. This is written for people who already believe. This is a discipleship issue. This is not a sanctification issue. Christian maturity and Christian ministry and mission are in view here.

Do you want to be useful to God? We're doing an outreach program tomorrow. Do you want to hear God about that? We worship a speaking God. He's trying to talk to us. We just need to listen.

And so whether it's a picture or a word that you don't understand, you gotta look up in the dictionary, or whether it's God banging on the side of your head with a hammock, don't eat it, all right? Listen, listen.

Don't Tell Him What You Know

Now, I haven't forgotten Nicodemus, and here he is. We meet him for the first time here in John chapter three. He comes to inquire of Jesus at night. Why he comes at night, I'm not sure.

Maybe he's a member of the Sanhedrin, okay, he's an authority figure. Maybe he didn't want to be seen, noticed coming to Jesus, maybe that's it. Maybe he knew that Jesus was surrounded by crowds all the time, and he just wanted to get a quiet patch. Perhaps that was why he came at night. Don't know why he came at night.

But we see him here. We see him in chapter seven, verse 50 in John's gospel, where he is defending Jesus before his colleagues. Interesting thing for Nicodemus to do.

And then we see him at the end of John's gospel when he's there with Joseph of Arimathea, taking Jesus' body down from the cross, okay? So you got to imagine that when we're in John chapter three, this is the start of a journey for Nicodemus, okay? And it's going to lead to faith. That's the way it seems to roll.

If you've got your Bible open, I just want to take you through the conversation. It moves pretty quickly as John records it, but it moves in a straight line.

One of the things with John's gospel is that I reckon it's like a circular staircase, okay? He says something, he says something about that, and then he goes on to something apparently disconnected, but just keep going.

He goes around and around over the same ground. But each time he does, he kind of goes deeper and deeper.

So there's a little bit of that here, but I'm going to make it easy for you today. I'm going to take you in a straight line.

So Nicodemus begins, trap for young players, okay? When you get to stand face to face with Jesus, don't tell him what you know. That's a big mistake.

So Nicodemus starts his conversation with Jesus by telling him what he knows. Teacher, we know, okay? You're a teacher who's come from God.

Oh, and I think, you know, kind of marks for Nicodemus. You know, that's pretty good. Not bad.

Jesus' reply in verse three, mate, you don't know anything. You can't see, you can't know anything about the kingdom of God unless you are born again.

Okay, so Nicodemus is now in a confrontation situation because he's brought everything he knows and he's put it on the table and Jesus says, you know nothing unless you are born again.

We're Talking About Rebirth, Spiritual Awakening

So the Greek word is on the screen. It is anothen. And it means two things. It means born again and it means born from above.

So it's one of these. It's a Y intersection. And Nicodemus goes for the human, fleshly, physical option. Okay, so the conversation goes, how can you be born again? You can't go into your mother's womb a second time. That's just crazy.

Okay, but he had a choice and he went for the physical birth. Can you see that in the conversation? That's not wrong. So Jesus redirects him in verse five. You won't be able to enter the kingdom of God unless you are born of water and the spirit.

Can you ever heard of a woman's waters breaking? Okay, and then again, verse six, flesh and spirit. So he just makes it quite clear to Nicodemus that you know that anothen word? You know, you went for the physical option? Uh-uh, we're talking about spiritual things here.

We're talking about regeneration. We're talking about rebirth, spiritual awakening. That's what we're talking about.

And then Jesus develops this born from above idea. Okay, born of the spirit idea and hinges off another double meaning.

So here's my next word. It's pneuma. Now, if you drove here today, you know all about this word because your tires are pneumatic tires. Did you know that? Some of the tech people know that. Yeah, that means they have air in them.

What's another thing we know about air? There's a lot of it. What are you gonna do after church today? You're gonna help Vanessa to blow up balloons by putting air in them. And friends, if you're not in, you're dead. You don't have air in you, you're dead, right?

So your breath, same word, pneuma. Or your spirit, same word, pneuma. So Jesus hinges off another double meaning. The wind blows, I mean, look, open the window. The wind blows wherever it will. You can see it, right? It's shaking the trees.

You don't know where it's come from. You don't know where it's going. This wind, this spirit, you can see its effect, perhaps in someone's life. You don't know where it's come from. You don't know where it's going. So it is with everybody born of the spirit, verse eight.

Jesus, we know you are a teacher who comes from God. Nobody could do these things unless God was with him.

That's what Nicodemus knows. Jesus says, mate, you don't know anything.

You can see the effect of something. You don't know where it comes from. You don't know where it's going. You don't know anything.

The Spirit Is at Work Before You Believe

So let's just step back because this conversation is here for you today on purpose. I want you to notice something. Jesus is talking to Nicodemus about believing.

Nicodemus started with telling him everything he knows. Jesus said, you don't know anything. Here's what you need to know. You need to believe. You need to come to faith. You need to be born from above. You need to have God's spirit in you.

And it works. Nicodemus comes to faith. I reckon that's true. Otherwise, why is he at the cross, right?

So somehow or other, between Nicodemus' inquiry or statement and his coming to faith in the Lord Jesus, hard though that would have been for a member of the Sanhedrin, the spirit has been at work, right?

I want you to notice that the spirit is at work now before Nicodemus is a believer. In Nicodemus. Otherwise, what's he doing having a conversation with Jesus? Why is he even there? The other members of the Sanhedrin are not there.

Nicodemus and everyone else who has ever put their faith and trust in Jesus, who's come to the point of commitment, has had the spirit work in them. Now, we know this is true because we don't save ourselves. God saves us, but that doesn't just mean that he did something 2,000 years ago.

That means that he moves us from unbelief to belief. He does that. He sends the spirit out into the world to search the hearts of men and women, stirring them to trust in the Lord Jesus.

This is the Holy Spirit's constant activity, sending the spirit out into the world to sift the hearts of men and women and children that they might come to trust in Jesus.

I was at a wedding yesterday. I had to leave a consecration early to go to a wedding. It's not easy being ordained, let me tell you, right?

And you know what comes before the wedding night? Yeah. The romance. No romance, no wedding night.

You wanna know what comes before a commitment to the Lord Jesus? Wooing. Romance. Nobody just says, oh, I'm gonna believe in Jesus today. No. They're brought there by the Holy Spirit. He's at work.

So if you've got someone in your life that you think would be better off if they knew the Lord Jesus and trusted in him for their salvation, you're in good company, because God thinks that too, and he's out there. And you can pray with him that they would learn to love him, as you have.

When we believe, it is testimony to the work, the effectiveness of the work of the Holy Spirit, to what he's already done in our lives. We do not save ourselves, he saves us.

And so my encouragement to you today is to pray for those you love and play and work with, that God would be at work by his spirit in their hearts, that they too might come to believe. We all need the same help from God. We all need the same help from God.

To Bring You to Me, Says Jesus

This is what Jesus goes on to talk about next. Verse 13, friends, I know what I'm talking about when I speak of heaven, because I came from there.

No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven, the son of man. In verse 11, I tell you the truth. We speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony.

I've spoken to you of earthly things, and you do not believe. How then, when you believe, if I speak of heavenly things?

Nicodemus, you can imagine him grabbing him by the lapels. And he links himself, here is the point. Jesus links himself to the salvation story.

The Holy Spirit is at work, yes, but to bring you to what? To bring you to me, says Jesus.

And he references a story in the Old Testament. If you know your Old Testament, you'll know this story. It's on the screen.

Numbers 21:4-9

They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea to go around Edom.

Right, so this is the people of Israel in the wilderness. It's easy to get the slave out of Egypt. It's not nearly so easy to get Egypt out of the slave.

But the people grew impatient on the way. They spoke against God and against Moses and said, Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die here in the desert? There is no bread. There is no water. And we detest this miserable food.

Sounds like Sunday afternoon roast at my place.

Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them, and they bit the people, and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us. So Moses prayed for the people.

The Lord said to Moses, Make a snake and put it on a pole. Anyone who is bitten can look at it and live. So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the pole, they lived.

Good story. Good story. Do you know the symbol for the medical core? What is it? Serpent on a pole.

Anyone, hang on, I've been told. This is the side, isn't it, Phil? Anyone who looks at the serpent on the pole will live. So God didn't take away the serpents. No, that was there to stay. But he provided a way out.

Jesus tells the story. Oops, back to John 3.

John 3:14-15

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

Just as all who looked up to the bronze serpent on the pole Moses made were saved. So all who look to Jesus, the Son of Man, lifted up on a pole or a cross will be saved. They will live. Nicodemus, this is what you need to know.

Look to Jesus and Live

So we come to the end of our passage, and I hope you found it instructive.

But being born from above is putting your faith, your trust, your hope in Jesus, the man on the cross for our sins. It says as much at the end of the chapter.

John 3:31-36

The one who comes from above is above all. The one who is from the earth belongs to the earth and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all.

He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. The one who has accepted it has proven that God is truthful.

For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the spirit without limit. The father loves the son and has placed everything in his hands.

Whoever believes in the son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on them.

And so you see the Holy Spirit is at work in us before we believe and when we believe, stirring us up to look to Jesus and live. How important it is, how important it is that we listen to him. Amen.