Charlie Loften: Hello, and welcome to The Grove Church podcast. I'm Charlie Lofton, the lead pastor there, and we are so glad that you're joining us. Whether you are a member and you're just catching up on a sermon that you missed or you're someone who's brand new, we are really glad that you are joining us. And if you are new in some way, and I know that a lot of people will do that, we'll listen to sermons first before they visit. I want you to know that we would love to meet you at any point.
You can join us live in our services on Sunday, nine and 10:30 or our streaming service at 10:30. Either way, we would love to be able to get to know you. And regardless of why you are here listening to this sermon today, thank you so much for joining us. Hey, good morning. If you're new, I'm Charlie.
I'm the lead pastor here. I'm really glad you're worshiping with us. Glad all of you are here, especially if you're new. And if you are new, I'd love to meet you after the service. I'll be standing there in the back.
We have a gift that we can give you. We would just love to know any way that we can help you. If you wanna talk about making this your next shirt, your new church, we would just love to, I would just love to meet you, find out about you, so right after the service I'll be back there. And if you are new, there's something you need to know, it's just kind of official Grove lure around here. I'm a huge Razorback basketball fan, it's kind of my primary hobby, my primary sport above all else, and anytime they're doing really well, something really cool happens in the week, I'll dress accordingly, it's just kind of how I roll, And we have a saying for it actually around here, and people will text me during the week when something's happening, and they'll say, is today gonna be a red pants Sunday?
Because I have these red pants that I wear in honor of whatever happened during the week. And so normally this would be a Red Pants Sunday, but allow me to catch you up on something you're not interested in at all. 2017 is the first time I wore the red pants, and we had made it to the conference tournament finals that week for the first time in a really long time, and it was really exciting. We seemed to have a whole lot of momentum going into that. We were gonna play that afternoon.
I wore the red pants for the Sunday, and we got blown out of the gym. We did not play well at all, and so we are inverting it today, and we're going black pants, red everything else, just to see maybe if that works a little bit better. And I'm not saying this because I'm superstitious, but I am a little 'sticious. Anyways, go hogs, that gang tips off at noon, right? And so all of you guys that are coming to Connections, I promise you will have my full attention.
Something a little more serious, you got Easter coming up here in a few weeks, like Lauren said, I just want to be mindful of a few things. If you are a member here, get really connected, man, just really encourage you on those service times, 08:30, ten, 11:30, to kind of move to the ends, the 08:30 or the 11:30. We'll have full kids ministry from babies all the way through seniors in high school and roots in the 08:30 and the ten. So if that is important to you, I encourage you to come to the 08:30. We have kids ministry through fourth grade in the 11:30, so if you move there as well.
The 10:00 is where almost all new people are going to come, people who are visiting, people we don't see very often. It's also all the people who are serving in the eight thirty and 11:30 will go, and we just want to make sure that in all of these services that we've got plenty of space for everybody, and so that 10:00 can be the one that seems to really fill up really quickly, and so encourage people to kind of move to the outside there. And also, like Lauren said, we just really encourage you to kind of consider your Easter worship a two service experience. Find one service where you can come and worship, and one where you can serve. It's a really an all hands on deck day to take care of our kids, to greet people well, and so I would encourage you, you can go to thegrovechurch.org/connect and fill out a form there.
You come to, there's a sign up right at the connect desk, it might be the simplest and easiest. You just sign up and just let us know when and where you can help. It's really going to take a lot of us, and so even if you forget to sign up today, you're going to hear from somebody at some point and just encourage you to just kind of consider that for Easter. I know it can be a really busy day, but just encourage you to carve out some time to not only worship and celebrate Easter, but to to give of yourself so that other people can do the same. So that is coming up here in a few weeks, and we are in the middle of our Easter series, and Jesus is preparing His disciples for Him leaving.
And it's going to culminate on Easter Sunday with this powerful, declarative statement that Jesus makes to His disciples, really of what is about to happen, and the importance and the theological and personal significance of His death and resurrection, and that'll be a really great Sunday, and leading up to that, He's kind of modeled for them service by washing their feet. He's kind of explaining to them what's going to happen to them as a group. He is trying to encourage them by pointing them to following Him as the way, and the truth, and the life, and really kind of helping them view this differently. I mean, they're grieving, and they're kind of unnerved by the idea of Jesus leaving. That's not what they thought.
It's not what they want. And so they're in a way, and what he is about to communicate to them over the next, for us, chapters or weeks is trying to communicate to them that it is actually to their advantage that he leave, which they can't conceive of, which reminded me of this season of life for me, and some of you are too young to even know what I'm talking about, some of you are too young, you live through it, but you don't remember, But for me is what I believed was the absolute pinnacle of human technology and advancement. There was, in my mind, technology could never get better than any of this, and the year was approximately 2005, and it was glorious. And let me tell you a little bit about it. There was this thing that came out, and it was called TiVo, and it could record, not like a VCR on a tape, but it could record all these all the shows that you want.
All you had to do was tell it. I want you to get this show, and it would get every time it was on anywhere, it would just it would just grab it and put it on there. All you had to do was just tell it, and if you were watching live TV, you could just hit this little button, beep, and it would pause it. You could go to the bathroom and come back. Or if you're like, well, I don't understand what they said, or if we were watching sports, what just happened?
Beep, boop, boop, it would rewind it. You could watch it and then come back, and I'm like, this is it. It will never be better than this. I mean, was like, when we first hooked up the TiVo, I was just like, well, we've arrived. I mean, are we billionaires now?
I mean, like, it couldn't get any better. And not only that, I had a phone, and this phone was also a PalmPilot and would keep your schedule. It had a full keyboard on it, the screen was in color, and it had this little stylus where you could kind of tap on it, where you could play games, and you could make notes and appointments and anything, and then I carried it around with me. You think, that's not enough. No, but listen, there's more.
There was this company, you may have heard of this, called Netflix, and they would mail you any DVD that you could even think of. And if you got on the two DVD plan, you could watch one, and the next one is coming and they give you the little envelope thing. You put it in there. You could send it back and by the time you're sending that one back, the next one you want to watch and you're just watching these things on loop as many DVDs as really as you could keep up with, they would deliver to your home. I mean, for someone who likes media and watching movies, it was never going to be any better than this ever.
And if you'd come to, I guess, 34, 35 year old Charlie and say, there's going to come a time actually really soon when all of this is going to go away, man, I would have been devastated, heartbroken. What is the world? Apocalypse? Armageddon already? Like, what what on earth has happened to the world that these great technologies would be going?
It could not I could not even conceive that there could be anything better than this. And what Jesus is about to start here, and he's gonna try to communicate over the next, for us, few weeks, a couple of chapters here for them over the next few minutes, I guess, is that I know that you guys are are really torn up about this, but it's actually to your advantage, something they can't conceive of. There's something better behind this. Let me try and he's going to try to explain it to them. John 14, starting in verse 15.
If you love Me, keep My commands, and I will ask the Father, and He will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever, the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him because it neither sees him nor knows him, but you know him for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.
On that day, you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them. What he's saying here more implicitly, but he's actually gonna say more explicitly in John sixteen seven. In John sixteen seven, he says as straightforwardly as possible, hey listen, it is actually to your advantage that I leave, because if I leave, the Advocate, the Holy Spirit will come.
And so what He's trying to tell them is like, hey listen, you don't understand. If I leave, I'm going to talk to the Father, and the Father says, I'm going to send you another advocate. The word here is a Greek word. It's really only used by John here several times, but then also in one of his letters as well, and it is kind of, the word there is kind of one who comes alongside you, like a teacher, mentor, guide, partner. He's like, I'm gonna send you another one of these.
I've been one of these for you, and if I leave, I'm gonna go, and I'm gonna send you one. And then he describes it again in John sixteen:seven. He says, in fact, it is going to be a better one. I have been alongside you. I've been someone who's been a support to you, a teacher, a leader, a guide, a mentor, a paracletos, an advocate.
I've been your guy, but I will send you a better one if I leave. And I cannot even begin, I mean, have two thousand years of history to try to process this, and I'm still not sure that we do. But essentially, what He is telling them and what He is then, by extension now, telling us is this very simple idea that's simple to say, but really kind of mind blowing, is that the Holy Spirit is better. Now, I'm going to tell you, just even my own, as I was thinking about what I wanted to put for this slide, initially I kind of had a longer sentence. Having the Holy Spirit is better than having Jesus.
And I could not put it out there. It just felt wrong to say, so I just shortened it. The Holy Spirit is better, but Jesus, by Jesus' own words, he says, from your perspective, it's better. It's better that I leave, because when I leave, the better advocate, the different advocate, the Holy Spirit, He will come. How can that possibly be?
Am I just sitting there thinking like, I've got Jesus here, man. Like, you're teaching me. You've shown me so much. I've never known as much about God. I've never known as much how to live.
I've never felt so much peace. I've never been so encouraged. I've never been a better version of myself than I have been in these three years being with you, and they can only be down there can only be disadvantages if you were to leave, because now I won't have you here, but what Jesus says is this, is that He will come, this other advocate, He will help you, and He will be with you forever. This is He will live with you, and he will be in you. So something that they could never conceive of, something better than having Jesus next to them is having the Holy Spirit in them.
Jesus is a great advocate. Again, to use the Greek word, a parakletos. He's a great one. He's a great one to point the way, to help, to show, to point, and to learn from. And I learn, and I learn from him, and I get better.
He said, but this next one is not only going to be with you, but will be in you. And with him being in you, there's a different work that he's going to be able to do. This is not someone who is just going to simply give you advice. This is not someone who is just going to try to encourage you and help you be better, but this is someone who is working on the inside. Up until this point, it's been like, you know, Jesus talks to them, They're in the scriptures, and they try to do things better and kind of hope that their heart will follow, but when the Holy Spirit comes inside them, there's a transforming work that happens.
There is working on the inside out, giving you a new heart, a new mind, growing you from the inside, from then which you can do the things you've been called to do. And having the power of God inside you is better than having the present Son of God standing next to you. And as difficult as that might be for us to believe, and it was it would not even have come close for them, for them to be able to put their mind around this at all. But when He comes, you'll understand. And He goes on to explain it a little bit better here as He continues on in verse chapter still in chapter 14 verse 25.
All this I have spoken while still with you, but the advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will mind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid.
And so one of the disciples essentially asked him asked him this question, and he's like, why are you telling us all this, but you're not telling everybody else? And Jesus kind of ducks it a little bit and just kind of comes back to this idea of like, if you love me, you're gonna obey me. And he explains that a little bit, and it starts here in verse 25. He's like, listen, I'm saying all of this while I'm with you. I've told you things.
I've told you these things over the course of these three years. This is what I've told you. But when the Holy Spirit comes, again, a level up. When the Holy Spirit comes, the one that is going to be with you and in you, He's going to teach you Jesus' word everything. He's going to teach you all things and remind you of everything.
And we'll just say it this way, that the Holy Spirit, what He will do is He will remind you and teach you everything that you need to know. Everything. Just like, I had three years with you, and I was able to communicate a certain amount of information to you. When the Holy Spirit comes, He is going to teach you everything that you need to know. In addition to reminding you of everything that I've taught you so far, He's gonna teach you all things.
Again, know what he's not doing here. He's not talking about omniscience, like you're gonna somehow just be able to win every trivia contest because the Holy Spirit's with you, right? Not meaningless facts, not the things that I was thinking about this, even just thinking about this, what do you mean to know all things? And I was just, remember all these really inconsequential things that I feel like people my age, like every teacher kind of drove into us. Like, what's the Native American word for corn?
Maize. Like, Okay, which is weird that that would be the one word that I would know, and in hindsight, it's kind of weird that we would talk about Native American as if there was just the one language, but anyway, we knew that, and we knew the three ships that Christopher Columbus came over on, Enipen and Santa Maria, right? Anyway, the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. I mean, know that phrase, but honestly, I don't know what it means, but I do know the phrase. I think there's lots of useless information out there.
That's not what he's talking about. What he's saying here is essentially the things that you need to know to be who God's called you to be, to do the things that God has called you to do, he will remind you of the things that I've taught you, and He will teach you everything that you need to know. You will never find yourself in a circumstance where I don't know what to do. I don't know what the right thing is. I don't understand.
If it is essential for you to know it to be the person that God has called you to be, the Holy Spirit will provide the opportunity to do that. And think what happens is sometimes we can get stuck or caught up in the mechanism of this. Like, I certainly don't feel like I know everything that I need to know, and it seems like this is a promise. This is a promise Holy what Spirit is going to do. Jesus said it, and sometimes I don't feel like that, and so is the mechanism broken?
Am I broken? What's the problem here? And I do think that there is an implied if then here, because at least three times now so far in this passage, Jesus has connected the sending of the Holy Spirit with obedience. And so I believe that there is an implied if then, if we are actively seeking, if we are actively listening, if we are doing what we're supposed to do, the Holy Spirit will always respond. How does He do that?
I remember having this conversation with my oldest daughter when she was just a kid, And we would use this phrase at church. People use it all the time. Hey, when God told me this, or God's speaking to me, God will tell you. And you talk about God speaking, and you don't think about that phrase in church world until you're trying to explain to a seven or eight year old who's like, I've never heard God say anything. Right?
Because she only knows one idea of speak, which is audible voice, and I've never heard God's audible voice. Is there something wrong with me? Is something broken? And so we asked this question, and she asked it as a kid, and I think a lot of us do. It's like, if He's going to teach me, if He's going to remind me, how does that happen?
I mean, the simplest thing I can say is if you want the Holy Spirit to remind you of things that Jesus taught, you're going to have to have read them, right? I mean, He can't remind you of something that you haven't already heard. That's important. And so one of the I forget who said it first. First person I remember hearing say it was my wife, is that when we are in God's word, we are giving the Holy Spirit more tools to use for us.
Like, hey, do you remember this? You remember this? You remember this? You remember this? You remember this?
And and and giving God's word back to us because it's in there somewhere. I think that's important. I also think it's important to take advantage of times when someone is talking to you about God's word, and I am not suggesting that when I am speaking, the Holy Spirit is teaching you. I am not the Holy Spirit, not even close. But here's the thing that I am 100% confident of, is that if our hearts and minds are in the right place, when someone is speaking about God's word, I am a 100% confident that the Holy Spirit is attempting to communicate to you.
Hey. Hey. Pay attention to that. Hey. This is kinda like that thing we I was trying to talk to you about the other day.
This is actually gonna be really helpful for you in this situation, that the Holy Spirit is is is moving. He's he's he's he's an inner voice. And I've heard it said that not everybody has an inner dialogue. I find it a little bit difficult to believe or kind of conceptualize of what that means, because in my mind, like, everybody, when you're trying to make a decision, it feels like there's conflicting ideas going on in your head. Whether it works as an inner dialogue or not, I don't know.
Plus, you got these different ideas, these different things pulling you in different directions. And Jesus said, the better advocate, the Holy Spirit, when he comes, he's gonna be on the inside doing a transformative work on you, and then being able to bring all of these things to your mind. And I think one of the best pieces of advice I've ever been given was just some really good tips on how to hear, how to distinguish amongst what feels like a lot of different voices. There's outside voices and inside voices. There's culture noise and peer pressure and media and all of these different things telling us all these different things.
And we have this kind of jumbled idea in our head, and we just we struggle with what to do, what is right, how do I hear God's voice. Here's a couple quick encourages. One, God's voice will never be the one that is telling you to do something that you know is sinful. Well, feel like I know this is technically sinful, but I really feel like God dah, dah, dah, dah. And you think, I would never do that.
Like, people do this all the time. We justify something we know to be wrong based on some mystical idea, but that's not God's voice. Also, God's voice is not going to motivate you to do the right thing by shaming you. Well, if you were a good person, you would already know. You would already be doing this, so obviously there's something wrong with you.
Why are you even asking this question? You know the right thing to do. You just can't do it. Even if it is, quote, theoretically encouraging you to go the right direction, God's voice is not full of shame. God's voice is also very often the quietest one.
It is learning to settle down all of those others and quiet and rid yourself of all those other ones where God's powerful whisper becomes loud. And in the moment in which you need him, I'm learning to listen. I'm learning to distinguish his voice. I'm I'm I'm drowning out the noise, and there is so much noise both externally in the world and internally in your heart, and I'm learning to drown it out and let God have his moment when it is time for you to make a decision, when it is time for you to do what is right, when God puts you in a situation with someone who doesn't know Jesus, and they're asking deep spiritual questions, and they're asking you, and you and you feel like, I don't know the answer. God will give you the answer.
He will let you know what to say. He will be with you in that moment. When you find yourself at some sort of moral crossroads where doing what you're supposed to do seems uncertain to you, or you know what to do, but you don't know how if you have the courage to do it. God's the advocate, the Holy Spirit will be there inside you to give you both the knowledge and the courage to do and be who God has called you to be and what he has called you to do. And at the very end of this passage, he says this, peace I leave with you, my peace I give you.
I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid. The end result of all of this is peace. I'm gonna send you this different advocate that is going to give you a new life, work on you from the inside, be be a strong voice inside you. And when this happens, you'll be at peace.
I know you're in turmoil right now. I'm leaving, and you're scared. But when when the spirit comes and he does this better work in you, you'll have peace. Now before we just kinda jump to that, I just wanna make sure we understand the connection that Jesus is making all throughout here. He is connecting all of this to obedience.
It starts with, if you love me, you're gonna keep my commandments. He says it again in verse 21, whoever has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me. In the couple of verses we move past, asking Him, hey, what about this? And He says this again. At four or five times in this passage, Jesus is communicating that connection with me, and by extension, connection with the advocate, is going to come through obedience.
The Holy Spirit comes in. He's shaping your heart. He's speaking to you. He's teaching to you, teaching you, and the appropriate response is going to be obedience. And when we have the Holy Spirit, and when we obey, then peace comes.
I think there are many of us that are striving and looking for peace and skipping the step of obedience. We're struggling with what to do. We're struggling with what's right. We're struggling with having peace in a chaotic circumstance. But let's go to the passage that Colby was talking about in Daniel.
Those three guys, they're getting thrown in a fire. And God shows up and is a strong presence for them. And with that comes peace even in a fire. Remember, we're getting thrown into fires all the time. And here, Jesus is promising peace, but is birthed out of obedience.
There were plenty of people who would have been devout followers of God when the King Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel told them all to bow down and worship this idol. There are plenty of people who've felt a lot of anxiety in that moment and went ahead and bowed down and probably were praying, god, I I please don't plea just just get me through this, and feeling an overwhelming amount of anxiety. Because the metaphorical fire they got thrown into, they chose the wrong path, and now there's anxiety. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they they chose a different path. They chose obedience.
They chose to do what is right even when it was difficult, and they got moved from a metaphorical fire to a literal fire. And God's presence was with them all the time. We struggle with our finances. We struggle in our relationships. We struggle sometimes with integrity in difficult situations.
And we feel a lot of anxiety. And God is offering us peace, but it is peace that is built and flows out of obedience. And that obedience is drawn out by the advocate that lives inside of us. And so the world is constantly throwing us into fires, overwhelming us, putting us in what feels like no win situations. And sometimes we think, man, I wish Jesus were here.
He could tell me what to do. Or maybe I could borrow His strength and courage to do what is right, even when it is hard. And when you find yourselves in those situations, you need to know and realize you have a better advocate with you already than Jesus. Because you do not have one that is outside you. You have the Holy Spirit in you who, when you need it, will tell you and remind you of everything that you need to know and give you the courage and the knowledge and the ability to be obedient even when in the fire.
And no matter what this world throws at you, you'll have peace. Let me pray. God, I thank you so much. I thank you for your son, and what an incredible advocate he was for his disciples. And God, I thank you for his words, and I thank you that he left so that your spirit could come and to God that even a greater work could be done in us, one that is made possible by his death and his resurrection.
And God, I pray that we would really learn what it means, the power of what it means to have your spirit in us, that we would learn to listen. We would let him do his work inside of us, shaping our heart, God helping us to choose right. And then confident in your word, confident in our obedience, God, that you would give us peace in what is an increasingly more and more chaotic world. And again, we're so thankful for your Spirit and for your Son and it's in His name we pray. Amen.
Thanks again for joining us on our sermon podcast and you can learn more about us at grovechurch.org. If you go to the grovechurch.org/connect, there's a form you could fill out. Just let us know that you've been listening. And if you wanna dig deeper on some of these topics that we cover in our sermon podcast or just another issues of dealing with culture or theology, those kinds things, you can check out our cultivate podcast. It's on the same feed, however you found this particular podcast.
So again, this is Charlie, the lead pastor at The Grove, and thank you so much for joining us.