WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.000 Now we're three weeks into our short series called Communion with God. 00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:11.000 And two weeks ago we looked at Communion with God the Father. 00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:19.000 Last week we looked at Communion with God the Son and so tonight we're going to look at Communion with God the Holy Spirit. 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:28.000 And we're going to try and begin to answer this question, how do I have Communion with the Holy Spirit? 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:34.000 Now if I were a betting man, I would bet that none of you woke up this morning asking that question, right? 00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:40.000 The burning question on your minds probably isn't, in what way do I have Communion with God the Holy Spirit? 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:47.000 But we do ask these questions, how do I really know I'm saved? 00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:53.000 Why does God feel so distant and uninterested? 00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:57.000 Why does God seem so silent? 00:00:57.000 --> 00:01:06.000 If Christianity is true and I think it is, why does it feel so unreal to me, so disconnected from my reality? 00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:12.000 Could I ever feel really alive to God? 00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:21.000 What lies below all of those questions that I think if we're honest as Christians most of us are asking some of those. 00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:29.000 What lies below those questions is a longing for Communion with the Holy Spirit. 00:01:29.000 --> 00:01:38.000 Now after Jesus rose from the dead, His disciples, His closest friends, asked the same sorts of questions internally. 00:01:38.000 --> 00:01:42.000 So Jesus said, all right, I've got to go back to the Father now. 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:46.000 I'm going to, you know, it's the Ascension, I'm going to leave and go to the Father. 00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:54.000 The disciples knew that having the resurrected Christ here in person was like having a feast in front of you. 00:01:54.000 --> 00:01:59.000 And they were afraid that if He left, they would starve. 00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:03.000 But Jesus said, hey, it's actually to your advantage that I go. 00:02:03.000 --> 00:02:08.000 And they were like, come on Jesus, why would it be better for you to not be here? 00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:12.000 And He said, because if I go, I'll send to you my Holy Spirit. 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:15.000 I will send my Spirit to you. 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:19.000 You see, God is Trinity, right? He's three persons in one God. 00:02:19.000 --> 00:02:23.000 I'm not going to explain that. I'm just telling you what I know from the Bible, right? 00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:26.000 That's just what we believe. God is Trinity. 00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:34.000 So when Jesus, God the Son, was with them in the flesh, He made known to them God the Father. 00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:37.000 So when they had the Son, they had the Father. 00:02:37.000 --> 00:02:46.000 And when He sends His Spirit, God the Holy Spirit, to live in us, the Spirit makes the Father and the Son known to us. 00:02:46.000 --> 00:02:53.000 So if we have the Spirit, we have the Father and the Son as well. 00:02:53.000 --> 00:02:59.000 That's why it's to our advantage that Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father, 00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:02.000 so that we could have the Spirit dwell in us. 00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:08.000 That's why communion with the Holy Spirit is so important. 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:15.000 So with that in mind, we're going to look at what Paul has to say about communion with the Spirit in Ephesians chapter 1, 00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:20.000 particularly in verses 13 and 14, which will come up on the slide now. 00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:27.000 And as we read this again, I just want you to focus on two words that we're going to pull apart a little bit. 00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:33.000 The first is the word were, and the second is the word is. 00:03:33.000 --> 00:03:36.000 Okay? Were and is. 00:03:36.000 --> 00:03:43.000 So in Him, that's Jesus, in Jesus, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, 00:03:43.000 --> 00:03:49.000 and when you believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 00:03:49.000 --> 00:03:57.000 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of His glory. 00:03:57.000 --> 00:04:04.000 Do you see the were and the is? The were is about halfway through verse 13, is, is right at the beginning of verse 14. 00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:09.000 So were is past tense, right? Is is present tense. 00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:16.000 So we're going to focus on that and ask what the Spirit did for us, past tense as Christians, 00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:22.000 and what the Spirit is doing for us, present tense. 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:28.000 And here's, I want to give you kind of a theme sentence for the sermon so that you know where we're going. 00:04:28.000 --> 00:04:33.000 The feast of heaven's delights are yours in Christ, 00:04:33.000 --> 00:04:40.000 and the Holy Spirit will be a foretaste of that feast now, if you'll have Him. 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:47.000 So number one, what the Spirit did for us past tense. 00:04:47.000 --> 00:04:56.000 So it says that when we heard and when we believed, we were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. 00:04:56.000 --> 00:04:59.000 That's how it all starts, for every Christian. 00:04:59.000 --> 00:05:05.000 We hear the gospel and we believe in Jesus. 00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:15.000 That's it. And Paul is saying that as we hear and as we believe, God is at work at a deeper level. 00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:18.000 From our perspective, we hear and believe. 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:23.000 From God's perspective, He seals us with the Holy Spirit. 00:05:23.000 --> 00:05:30.000 In other words, when God seals us with His Spirit, He sends His Spirit personally, because He is a person, to us, 00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:38.000 and says, this person belongs to me. I will see them through to the end. 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:48.000 As we hear the gospel, the Holy Spirit is the one who opens our ears to see and opens our ears to hear. 00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:49.000 You don't see with ears. 00:05:49.000 --> 00:05:56.000 Opens our ears to hear the truth, to really hear the truth, because we would never really hear it otherwise. 00:05:56.000 --> 00:06:00.000 How many people do you know who have come to Christ, who grew up in the church, 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:06.000 come to Christ later in life and said, I just wish someone had just told me the gospel? 00:06:06.000 --> 00:06:13.000 They probably heard it a thousand times, but it takes the Holy Spirit to make you hear. 00:06:13.000 --> 00:06:20.000 And as we believe in Jesus, the Holy Spirit is the one, so believe is just another form of the word faith, right? 00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:21.000 Or trust. 00:06:21.000 --> 00:06:30.000 The Holy Spirit is the one that gives us a living faith, so that we can completely against our fallen sinful tendencies, 00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:35.000 so that we can put all of our trust and hope in Jesus alone. 00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:39.000 We would never believe in Jesus otherwise. 00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:45.000 In other words, without the Holy Spirit, we would be just like the ones who crucified Jesus. 00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:52.000 We wouldn't see Him for who He is, and we just wouldn't want what He has to offer. 00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:57.000 So when we heard the gospel and put our trust in Jesus, this is the theological language we put on this, 00:06:57.000 --> 00:07:04.000 God the Holy Spirit unites us to Christ. 00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:06.000 So what did the Spirit do for us? 00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:08.000 Well, He made us Christians. 00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:09.000 He did it. 00:07:09.000 --> 00:07:16.000 He united us to Christ through our hearing and through our believing. 00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:22.000 You know, Jesus died for your sins, if I did my math right, something like 1,988 years ago. 00:07:22.000 --> 00:07:26.000 It's an historical event, right? 00:07:26.000 --> 00:07:33.000 So in verse 7, Paul says that Jesus purchased your redemption and forgiveness. 00:07:33.000 --> 00:07:37.000 Redemption and forgiveness is what you get from Jesus. 00:07:37.000 --> 00:07:40.000 And let's not rush past those words. 00:07:40.000 --> 00:07:45.000 And those two words is all your freedom and all your joy. 00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:49.000 Because of redemption, you belong to God. 00:07:49.000 --> 00:07:53.000 You're freed from slavery to sin. 00:07:53.000 --> 00:07:59.000 And because of forgiveness, you can now receive His pleasure instead of His wrath. 00:07:59.000 --> 00:08:05.000 And Jesus purchased all that for you 1,988-ish years ago. 00:08:05.000 --> 00:08:10.000 But when you heard the gospel and when you believed in Jesus, if you're a Christian, 00:08:10.000 --> 00:08:16.000 in that moment the Holy Spirit applied that purchase to you. 00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:21.000 He made you come alive to Christ. 00:08:21.000 --> 00:08:30.000 That's why we can say, going back to that theme sentence, that the Feast of Heaven's Delights are yours in Christ. 00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:41.000 It's because the Spirit of God unites us to Jesus and applies to us all His benefits. 00:08:41.000 --> 00:08:46.000 Last week, in his excellent and encouraging sermon, Thomas said, 00:08:46.000 --> 00:08:56.000 if Jesus could shout one word about you to the whole world, he would cry out, mine. 00:08:56.000 --> 00:09:00.000 That's what it means that the Spirit is our seal. 00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:03.000 A seal has to do with ownership. 00:09:03.000 --> 00:09:08.000 The seal is a mark of ownership and authority on something in Paul's day. 00:09:08.000 --> 00:09:16.000 The Spirit is sent to live in us as a living seal so that God is like laying His hand on us and saying, 00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:25.000 you're mine, you're in Christ, I will see you through to the end. 00:09:25.000 --> 00:09:30.000 The Feast of Heaven's Delights are yours in Christ, 00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:38.000 and it's the Holy Spirit who seats you at that banquet table, as it were. 00:09:38.000 --> 00:09:43.000 So that's what the Spirit did for us when we became Christians. 00:09:43.000 --> 00:09:48.000 So what the Spirit is doing for us is our next point. 00:09:48.000 --> 00:09:54.000 We've dealt with that word, were, and now we're going to deal with the word is in verse 14. 00:09:54.000 --> 00:09:57.000 Back up there, you'll see the verse. 00:09:57.000 --> 00:10:02.000 So the Holy Spirit, verse 14, is the guarantee of our inheritance 00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:08.000 until we acquire possession of it to the praise of His glory. 00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:18.000 The Holy Spirit is, right now, present tense, the guarantee of our inheritance. 00:10:18.000 --> 00:10:23.000 He doesn't give us guarantees about our inheritance, he is the guarantee. 00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:26.000 But before we get to guarantee, we need to deal with inheritance 00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:30.000 because it's not very meaningful to know that you have a guarantee of something 00:10:30.000 --> 00:10:32.000 unless you know what that something is. 00:10:32.000 --> 00:10:36.000 So let's just talk about that for a minute. 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:45.000 When we are united to Christ, our name gets written on this document, if you will. 00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:53.000 We get connected to the cosmic inheritance. 00:10:53.000 --> 00:11:00.000 The way that Paul uses this word, inheritance, it reaches deep, deep way back into the Old Testament. 00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:06.000 It's got rich roots and it brings to mind, and would have brought to mind probably for its first readers, 00:11:06.000 --> 00:11:09.000 passages like this in Psalm 33, 00:11:09.000 --> 00:11:17.000 a blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage or inheritance. 00:11:17.000 --> 00:11:19.000 Deuteronomy 420, 00:11:19.000 --> 00:11:23.000 but the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, 00:11:23.000 --> 00:11:28.000 to be a people of his own inheritance as you are this day. 00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:36.000 Okay, the point is this, when we belong to God, God belongs to us. 00:11:36.000 --> 00:11:46.000 If we are God's inheritance, and God is our inheritance, we get God. 00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:51.000 Thomas showed us last Sunday that this inheritance, this glorious blessing, 00:11:51.000 --> 00:11:57.000 this rich lavish language that Ephesians is full of, it's all centered on Jesus Christ. 00:11:57.000 --> 00:12:00.000 All of it comes down to Christ. 00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:08.000 For instance, earlier in Ephesians 1, Paul says that God has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. 00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:16.000 Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places is centered in Christ, the person of Jesus. 00:12:16.000 --> 00:12:18.000 That is our inheritance. 00:12:18.000 --> 00:12:20.000 It's Christ. 00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:23.000 We get God. 00:12:23.000 --> 00:12:30.000 We belong to him, and he belongs to us, we are his, and he is his ours. 00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:41.000 And when all things in heaven and on earth are united in Christ, at the end of time, we will have all of Christ. 00:12:41.000 --> 00:12:44.000 He is our blessing, and he is our inheritance. 00:12:44.000 --> 00:12:55.000 And that happens when heaven and earth meet, when we come into our inheritance, sin and suffering will be gone, completely done away with. 00:12:55.000 --> 00:13:01.000 We will have pure, perfect, unbroken companionship with God. 00:13:01.000 --> 00:13:11.000 The rays of God's eternal love will beam down on you forever, completely undisturbed by the clouds of sin and doubt. 00:13:11.000 --> 00:13:13.000 Can you even imagine that? 00:13:13.000 --> 00:13:20.000 It would be like getting married in that honeymoon phase, never going away, only intensifying forever. 00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:29.000 We will never feel alone again, never feel isolated, never feel unloved, never feel unnoticed. 00:13:29.000 --> 00:13:41.000 When we have Christ, fully and finally, we'll have love, freedom and intimacy, unbroken, unfettered and unfading. 00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:49.000 That is the feast of heaven's delights, and that's what it means to have Christ as our inheritance. 00:13:49.000 --> 00:13:53.000 It's everything that our hearts actually long for. 00:13:53.000 --> 00:13:57.000 It's the desires below all of our desires. 00:13:57.000 --> 00:14:04.000 We can sum it up with the phrase, perfect union with Christ. 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:07.000 Perfect union. 00:14:07.000 --> 00:14:17.000 Now, all of those amazing truths should make our hearts sing, but they don't always, do they? 00:14:17.000 --> 00:14:25.000 It's easy to know that you're in Christ, if you're a Christian, but to feel disconnected from that reality. 00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:29.000 Because the Christian life doesn't always feel like a victory lap, right? 00:14:29.000 --> 00:14:38.000 Sometimes it feels more like wading through a bog or trekking through a long, dry desert. 00:14:38.000 --> 00:14:42.000 God can feel distant and remote. 00:14:42.000 --> 00:14:46.000 Many of us will know that we're forgiven in Jesus, but we don't feel forgiven. 00:14:46.000 --> 00:14:49.000 We know we're forgiven, but we feel dirty. 00:14:49.000 --> 00:14:50.000 We feel ashamed. 00:14:50.000 --> 00:14:53.000 We feel guilty. 00:14:53.000 --> 00:14:56.000 You might agree with all the truths of the Bible. 00:14:56.000 --> 00:15:01.000 Yes, God loves me, yes, he's done great things, but if we're really honest, we might say, 00:15:01.000 --> 00:15:07.000 but I don't feel affection for God, or at least not very often, or not very warmly. 00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:13.000 That's more like the normal Christian experience. 00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:21.000 If you're united to Christ, if you're saved, it just doesn't follow that you will always feel that to be true. 00:15:21.000 --> 00:15:25.000 That's why the word guarantee is so important. 00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:27.000 So we've talked about the inheritance. 00:15:27.000 --> 00:15:34.000 Now let's go back to the fact that the Holy Spirit is Himself the guarantee of our inheritance. 00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:37.000 Right now, that's who He is. 00:15:37.000 --> 00:15:39.000 That's what He's doing this very... 00:15:39.000 --> 00:15:41.000 What is the Holy Spirit doing right now? 00:15:41.000 --> 00:15:46.000 He's being your guarantee of that glorious future. 00:15:46.000 --> 00:15:48.000 And what does that mean? 00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:53.000 Now, if you visit any pawnbroker in Edinburgh, 00:15:53.000 --> 00:15:57.000 I don't know if you call them pawnshops, we call them pawnshops in the state. 00:15:57.000 --> 00:16:00.000 If you go to a pawnshop, there's one item that you will find. 00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:04.000 I just guarantee it, in every pawnshop that you visit. 00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:07.000 And that's engagement rings. 00:16:07.000 --> 00:16:09.000 Right? Engagement rings. 00:16:09.000 --> 00:16:11.000 Engagements are broken. 00:16:11.000 --> 00:16:14.000 It's sad, but it's true. 00:16:14.000 --> 00:16:20.000 When a man gives a woman an engagement ring, it's just a token. 00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:23.000 It's not a guarantee, it's a token. 00:16:23.000 --> 00:16:27.000 It says, I plan to marry you, but it's not the marriage. 00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:32.000 It's not even a part of the marriage, it's just a token. 00:16:32.000 --> 00:16:39.000 And the word that Paul uses for the word guarantee, the Greek word, is nothing like an engagement ring. 00:16:39.000 --> 00:16:42.000 Actually, the word guarantee means something way cooler. 00:16:42.000 --> 00:16:45.000 It's a down payment. 00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:46.000 A down payment. 00:16:46.000 --> 00:16:51.000 If you want to buy a house, you can't just go to the seller of the house and say, 00:16:51.000 --> 00:16:54.000 I'll definitely pay you the money for this house. 00:16:54.000 --> 00:16:56.000 And then you get the house keys. 00:16:56.000 --> 00:16:57.000 That's not how that works. 00:16:57.000 --> 00:17:01.000 You have to give him a down payment. 00:17:01.000 --> 00:17:06.000 You have to take some of the portion of the actual price of the house 00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:15.000 and give it to that person early, right, before they receive the fullness of that portion. 00:17:15.000 --> 00:17:20.000 It's more than just a promise, it's what used to be called an earnest. 00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:23.000 Here's why this matters so much. 00:17:23.000 --> 00:17:29.000 God will bring heaven down to earth so that we can have perfect union with Christ. 00:17:29.000 --> 00:17:33.000 Love, freedom, companionship, unbroken, unfettered, unfading. 00:17:33.000 --> 00:17:40.000 And the Holy Spirit is himself a down payment of that inheritance. 00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:44.000 Not a verbal token like, yes, one day this will happen. 00:17:44.000 --> 00:17:49.000 He's a portion of the full price right now, present tense. 00:17:49.000 --> 00:17:53.000 The Spirit is the first installment. 00:17:53.000 --> 00:18:01.000 He brings heaven into your reality, your experience, here and now. 00:18:01.000 --> 00:18:04.000 And when I'm cooking a nice dinner, I enjoy to cook. 00:18:04.000 --> 00:18:11.000 My kids enjoy helping, but they also enjoy kind of, you know, getting bits of food as we prepare. 00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:17.000 And so often when I'm cooking, you know, one of the kids like William will come in and ask for a taste. 00:18:17.000 --> 00:18:28.000 And when I give him a morsel of that simmering meat, he can enjoy it as a first installment of the meal to come. 00:18:28.000 --> 00:18:34.000 Our Father is preparing an eternal feast for us. 00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:41.000 And we can actually go to him in the name of Jesus and ask for a taste. 00:18:41.000 --> 00:18:50.000 Can ask him for a morsel, and the Holy Spirit himself is the foretaste of that feast. 00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:56.000 When we get the Spirit, we have the Father and the Son as well. 00:18:56.000 --> 00:18:59.000 The Feast of Heaven's Delights are yours in Christ. 00:18:59.000 --> 00:19:05.000 And the Holy Spirit will be a foretaste of that feast now, if you'll have him. 00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:10.000 So how, how is the Spirit a foretaste of this perfect union? 00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:23.000 Well, here's just a smorgasbord, a sampling of seven foretastes of our inheritance that we have, all Christians can have now in this life by the Spirit. 00:19:23.000 --> 00:19:26.000 Okay? Seven, they'll be fast. 00:19:26.000 --> 00:19:35.000 One, every time we have victory over a temptation, any temptation, we say no, we turn to Jesus, it's the Holy Spirit. 00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:47.000 It's the Holy Spirit in you, opening the eyes of our heart to behold the far greater value of Christ over the thing that we wanted instead, over that sin. 00:19:47.000 --> 00:19:55.000 Two, every time we have the slightest inclination toward the things of God, just the slightest. 00:19:55.000 --> 00:20:00.000 While we live on this side of the resurrection, it's like we're always trying to overcome an allergy to God. 00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:04.000 You get near to him and you look, you know, oh, I don't feel great, you need to back up, right? 00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:07.000 We have this, this flesh as Paul calls it. 00:20:07.000 --> 00:20:19.000 But when we're actually inclined toward him, even a little, when we want God, that's a small taste of that glorious day when we'll be completely rid of sin and perfectly united to Christ. 00:20:19.000 --> 00:20:30.000 Number three, every time we get the gospel, like really get the gospel at the heart level, you're listening to a sermon, you're reading the Bible, you're praying, you're listening to a song, whatever. 00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:33.000 And something about it just clicks. 00:20:33.000 --> 00:20:37.000 And a little part of you just feels like you come alive a little bit more. 00:20:37.000 --> 00:20:45.000 That is the Holy Spirit, opening the eyes of your heart to a small glimpse of the beauty that you'll be gazing at for all of eternity. 00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:50.000 Four, every time we have any desire for God. 00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:58.000 Any desire, even when we just have the desire for desire, you know what I mean? 00:20:58.000 --> 00:21:03.000 Like, if I'm honest, I don't want God, but I want to want God. 00:21:03.000 --> 00:21:06.000 Even that is from the Holy Spirit. 00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:14.000 Number five, every time we put into action the nearest faith, just the smallest faith. 00:21:14.000 --> 00:21:18.000 It's not that the Spirit only delivers big faith to you. 00:21:18.000 --> 00:21:24.000 You know, if you can step out and your, this generation's George Mueller and you just step out in faith and do radical things. 00:21:24.000 --> 00:21:29.000 That person doesn't have more of the Holy Spirit than you do. 00:21:29.000 --> 00:21:34.000 Even the nearest faith is from the Spirit. 00:21:34.000 --> 00:21:43.000 Number six, every time we take any comfort in the promises of God, there are a lot of promises in Christ that are yours in the Bible. 00:21:43.000 --> 00:21:46.000 Tons of them. 00:21:46.000 --> 00:21:53.000 And if you're ever reading the Bible and one of them just grips your heart, just a little, and you feel a little relieved, 00:21:53.000 --> 00:21:59.000 you might feel incredibly relieved, like a weight has been taken off your shoulders. 00:21:59.000 --> 00:22:02.000 That is the Holy Spirit. 00:22:02.000 --> 00:22:09.000 Every time we feel any joy, this is number seven, any joy in Christ, that's the Holy Spirit too. 00:22:09.000 --> 00:22:19.000 When we delight in Jesus, that's the Spirit communing with you, showing you God. 00:22:19.000 --> 00:22:24.000 Remember when, so you know, John the Baptist and Jesus were cousins, right? 00:22:24.000 --> 00:22:30.000 And so when Elizabeth, John the Baptist's mother, was pregnant with John, and Mary, Jesus' mother was pregnant with Jesus, 00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:37.000 and Mary came near Elizabeth, the Holy Spirit made John the Baptist leap for joy in the womb of Elizabeth. 00:22:37.000 --> 00:22:40.000 That's what he does. 00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:47.000 When Jesus draws near, he makes our hearts come alive, and we leap for joy. 00:22:47.000 --> 00:22:54.000 The truth is, if you are in Christ, you, it's not like you need to get communion with the Holy Spirit. 00:22:54.000 --> 00:22:57.000 This isn't 12 steps on how to commune with the Holy Spirit. 00:22:57.000 --> 00:23:03.000 The truth is, if you're a Christian, you have communion with the Holy Spirit right now. 00:23:03.000 --> 00:23:13.000 In every spiritual impulse, every inclination toward God, and knowing that can change everything. 00:23:13.000 --> 00:23:16.000 I don't mean all of your circumstances, right? 00:23:16.000 --> 00:23:22.000 Knowledge doesn't change circumstances, but knowledge changes our experience of a circumstance. 00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:28.000 So knowing the truth that we have communion with the Holy Spirit, and every spiritual impulse and inclination toward God, 00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:33.000 it won't shake the ground we kneel on, but it can make your heart erupt. 00:23:33.000 --> 00:23:38.000 A daily quiet time, just reading your Bible a little bit every day, 00:23:38.000 --> 00:23:47.000 and the light of that communion with the Spirit becomes a sermon preached to you from the eternal Word of God. 00:23:47.000 --> 00:23:50.000 A simple prayer said in your bedroom, 00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:58.000 in light of that communion of the Holy Spirit becomes a word spoken by you in the ear of the King of the universe. 00:23:58.000 --> 00:24:03.000 Your bedroom's like the throne room, and he listens to you. 00:24:03.000 --> 00:24:11.000 When you just acknowledge a temptation to sin, and you just say, nope, I'd rather have Jesus, 00:24:11.000 --> 00:24:14.000 it's an earth-shattering miracle. 00:24:14.000 --> 00:24:24.000 The same power that raised Jesus from the dead in that moment is coursing through you by the power of the Holy Spirit. 00:24:24.000 --> 00:24:26.000 Wow. 00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:31.000 That's just reading your Bible, praying, and trying not to sin. 00:24:31.000 --> 00:24:38.000 In other words, the ordinary Christian life is a miracle of the presence of God. 00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:42.000 It's a miracle of communion. 00:24:42.000 --> 00:24:52.000 If that seems like romantic or a little bit unreal to you, like, yeah, that's poetic, but that's not been my experience. 00:24:52.000 --> 00:24:54.000 I invite you to just try this. 00:24:54.000 --> 00:25:01.000 Next time you go to read your Bible, next time you go to pray, take like 15 seconds, 00:25:01.000 --> 00:25:06.000 and just reflect first on the presence of the Holy Spirit. 00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:14.000 Remind yourself the cost, like the price that Jesus paid for him to be with you. 00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:20.000 Remind yourself that this isn't just, you know, he's not just your friendly neighborhood Holy Spirit. 00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:28.000 This is like the spirit who hovered over the primordial waters in creation in Genesis 1 is with you right now, 00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:31.000 and he wants to show Christ to you. 00:25:31.000 --> 00:25:36.000 That 10 seconds of reflection on that, practice it. 00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:42.000 I think it'll change a lot of things for you. It has for me. 00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:52.000 In closing, no one is twisting the Holy Spirit's arm to bring you these four tastes of heaven. 00:25:52.000 --> 00:25:58.000 The Holy Spirit is not reluctant to glorify Jesus in your heart. 00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:04.000 Paul says in verse 17 of our chapter that he's the spirit of wisdom and revelation. 00:26:04.000 --> 00:26:13.000 The Holy Spirit loves to reveal Christ to us, and he loves to show us the riches of the love of God. 00:26:13.000 --> 00:26:16.000 It's just who he is. 00:26:16.000 --> 00:26:23.000 What I'm saying is that the Spirit is willing to make you come alive to Christ, even right now. 00:26:23.000 --> 00:26:25.000 Are you? 00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:29.000 Will you have him? 00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:37.000 We can't invite the Spirit to make us come alive to Christ while clinging to our sins instead of our Savior. 00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:46.000 We can't ask the Spirit to make us come alive to heaven's joys while choosing every time earth's joys instead. 00:26:46.000 --> 00:26:53.000 We can't ask the Spirit to minister to us and not listen when he does. 00:26:53.000 --> 00:26:57.000 Let me leave you with the words that we started with. 00:26:57.000 --> 00:27:09.000 The Feast of Heaven's Delights are yours in Christ, and the Holy Spirit will be a foretaste of that feast now if you'll have him. 00:27:09.000 --> 00:27:17.000 Let's pray. 00:27:17.000 --> 00:27:26.000 God the Father, we praise you as Creator and Sustainer of the universe. 00:27:26.000 --> 00:27:34.000 We thank you for being the source of our blessing, for loving us, for choosing us. 00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:40.000 Lord Jesus, we praise you as our Savior and as our King, 00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:48.000 and we acknowledge that you are the blessed one that we sung about when we sang Psalm 1 to you and we reflected on Psalm 1. 00:27:48.000 --> 00:27:57.000 You are the sphere of all that blessing, and we get to be united to you and become co-inheritors with you. 00:27:57.000 --> 00:28:01.000 That's amazing. 00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:13.000 Holy Spirit, we praise you and love you for your companionship and your nearness, for your comforts, for showing us Jesus the beloved. 00:28:13.000 --> 00:28:16.000 We ask for more. 00:28:16.000 --> 00:28:28.000 Help us to be open to you, to not grieve you, and we ask that you would show us Christ, more of Christ, for His glory and our joy. 00:28:28.000 --> 00:28:31.000 Amen.