Peek at you know some of the things that she's learning in that study guide occasionally, and I looked in today's Passage that I'm gonna be preaching on there was nothing so I just thought to myself well Maybe I should have just moved past this passage as well. I don't know so That's not the not not true I If you have been a Presbyterian in the South for any amount of time, you've been misunderstood. People think you're Catholic. They don't know what you are. I mean, you get pretty caricatures of being a Presbyterian often. Many of those we deserve, not all of them, but the one that gets underneath me, under my skin, probably more than any other, this is a little confessional time here, I absolutely do not like to hear that we are the frozen chosen. I don't like that. And maybe it's a caricature that we deserve. I mean, maybe we are very frozen, at least in our form of worship. There's a song that we sing in the youth group a lot, and we have some hand signals to it, and actually kind of a little bit of dancing and stuff at times. And I wonder if, I keep telling the kids when we get it, we're going to bring it down here, and we're going to have them actually lead it for you guys. Because I do think we need to be stretched a little bit at times. Our form of worship is sometimes, it's somber, and that's a good thing. Nothing wrong with that. But I do think that sometimes our physical expression can be an expression of our inward heart. And that's a bad thing. If there's anything about my life that I don't want it to be, it's frozen. I feel very strongly about my faith. I may not roll around on the floor, but I deeply feel the faith that I have. And it is not something that I want to ever be caricatured as being frozen. And I hope you don't either. And I hope that today's message actually speaks to that very issue. So, that being said, let me just lift up a word of prayer and then we'll jump right in. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three in one, you are the glorious triune God of the universe. And I love you. I love you because you have first loved me. You loved me when I had no love for you. And I pray that from this message and from the worship that we give, you might be honored and glorified. I pray that you might speak to our hearts. That you might illumine our minds. that the truths of your word would not just kind of bounce off our shoulders or rest in some cerebral corner of our minds, but they would confront our whole being. And I pray that you would fulfill all of your promises in us. For you are our God, and in you we delight. Amen. There is no one in this world that I would rather have a conversation with than Robin. And I don't say that just because I have to say that. It is true. Much of what has made our relationship good over the years has been our ability to talk with one another. on various subjects, theology, to the weather, to sports, to whatever. And she does talk with me sometimes about sports. I've got a little visitor here. But don't get the impression that communication comes easily. I mean, we've had the date where we sit down and we look at each other and we say, you know, what do we have to talk about today? So those are there. But I can honestly say that there's no one that I would rather be with and have conversations with than my wife. Good relationships require communication. No communication, no relationship. Bad communication, bad relationship. Fathers, you can hear that. Husbands, hear that. Communication is two-way. It is reciprocal. I think of the times that, you know, you ever been in that conversation where you say something and then the person says something back to you that is like totally disconnected from what you just said? You ever had that experience? And you're just like, are we having the same conversation here? Or, you know, it just doesn't feel good. The way that good communication is, is one person makes a statement The other person processes that statement, internalizes it, and then brings back another statement that maybe responds to it or adds to it and furthers the conversation. That's good communication. I actually was a communication major, so I studied communication for four years. Jesus has had meaningful communication with his disciples. Right? He has walked with them. He has talked with them. He's talked about every subject that they could possibly think about. And we only have a glimpse of those conversations. He has been their master, but he has also been their friend. And the question that you have today, as he is nearing his departure, this very night, he will be betrayed and arrested. Will these conversations end? Would the disciples continue to learn from Jesus? Would they still have a personal interaction with their Savior? Or would this type of relationship end? Jesus is returning to His throne in heaven. Will it continue? And so I want to ask us the question today. I don't think that any of us have sat down with the physical resurrected Jesus and had a cup of coffee with Him. But I do want you to ask this question. Does the living, resurrected Jesus speak to you? The truth of the matter is that if we believe in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, then we are in a personal relationship with Him. And as I've said, relationship requires communication. And it must be two-way. If you're gonna actually have a warm and meaningful and personal relationship with God, He has to speak to you. Has to happen. So look to John 16, verses 12 through 15. John 16, verses 12 through 15. Jesus says to His disciples, I still have many things to say to you. But you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth. For He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears, He will speak and He will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take what is Mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is Mine, therefore I said that He will take what is Mine and declare it to you." Several weeks ago, Joel Beeky explained an experience where he had been kidnapped. He was afraid that he was going to die. He was worried about his family and being separated from them. But as he considered this thought, What sort of things would I tell them that I have not already told them?" He said he had said everything. And that gave him great peace. It's a really precious story and says a lot to the fact of how much time he takes to spend with his children. Because I can't, I wonder if I could say the same thing. But in this passage today, we see that when Jesus got to the end of his earthly life, he had still not told his disciples everything that he wanted to say. And it wasn't that he just ran out of time, right? You know, the professor that gets to the end of the class and he hasn't gotten through his syllabus, right? That's not what was going on with Christ. He purposely had left certain things unsaid. that he would have to speak later. Now, what is wonderful is that he was not going to leave these things unsaid. Jesus would continue to speak to his people after he went to glory. The text says, when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears, He will speak. And He will declare to you the things that are to come. You see, this is the idea. Through the Spirit, Jesus continues to declare things to His people. And I just want to kind of stress that. Before Jesus came into this world in the Incarnation, there were about 400 years of silence where God largely did not speak to His people. They had the Old Testament revelation, but there was a time where God just basically quit talking to His people. Years of darkness, years of silence. But I want to tell you and I want to declare to you today that we are not in that sort of period. We are not in the period that God no longer speaks to his people. Very important for you to get. God is in the business of developing a personal and meaningful relationship with each of his children. Now very often we have this dichotomy where we say that Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship. And that's one of my pet peeves. I don't like that dichotomy. Christianity is a religion. We do many religious things. The fact that we gather here to sing songs and worship and pray is religious. That's religion. We have truths that we believe Christianity is religion. It just so happens that it is much more than religion. It goes deeper than just the external things that we do. It is a true and meaningful personal relationship, yes. And if you don't have the personal relationship with God where you speak to Him and He speaks to you, and I'll clarify this in a moment, but if you don't have that kind of relationship, then your religion becomes cold and hollow and empty. And God forbid that we would ever be satisfied with that. As a Presbyterian, we do not believe that God continues to impart new revelation. What we have on the pages of the Bible are the final revelation of God. We're not looking to add more books to it. We actually believe a doctrine called cessationism. That sounds so Presbyterian, right? Cessationism. Where we actually believe that God's revealing of new revelation has ended. It has ceased. Not because God couldn't say more things, but because He said what He wants to say in His Word. And this is in stark contrast with our brothers and sisters in the Pentecostal and Charismatic churches. We differ with them on this. So while I would argue with them that their position that God can bring new revelation is actually wrong, I would actually applaud their hunger that they possess to have Jesus speak with them. See, that's what I'm trying to do here. I don't want to just polarize and say, oh yeah, let's beat them up and let's stay here, we're over here. I don't want us to be satisfied to be the frozen chosen. See, one of the things that I notice a lot in my Pentecostal or Charismatic brothers is a lot of times they have a fire, a warmth, an enthusiasm in their love for Christ that often I don't see among Presbyterians. And that's wrong. That's something that we should never want to have happen. So listen to me when I say this. Jesus continues to speak with His people. And you, fundamentally, at the very core of who you are in a relationship with Christ, ought to want Jesus to speak to you. Now let me explain how this works as I understand it. In the context of John 16, Jesus is speaking to his disciples. And I believe those few verses that we just read actually do apply to the disciples learning and receiving new revelation. Did you hear that? I actually believe that the first application of this text is that it refers to the apostles and it does refer to new revelation. 2 Timothy 3.16 says all Scripture is breathed out by God. But Ephesians 2.19-20. Please turn to Ephesians 2. It's worth our looking at just for a moment here. Ephesians 2.19-20. This is the Apostle Paul. He says to them in 19 and 20, so then you, Gentile believers, are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone. You see, the apostles were the very foundation of the church. The only reason why the church could exist is because the apostles had received absolute truth from their Savior, and they could authoritatively present that gospel to the people, and that's the foundation of the church. As time went on, as the apostles began to die out, they began to say, we need to take that authoritative revelation and we need to write it down. And that's why we have a New Testament. Without this authoritative speaking of Jesus to the apostles, we don't have a New Testament. So this passage where Jesus is saying that he will speak things to his apostles and they will then in turn deliver them to the church is the foundation for our New Testament. We don't have a New Testament without this. You ever think about that? So the you in this passage primarily refers to the apostles. But I would tell you that it does not mean that it doesn't have any application to us. I find it very difficult to take this passage and say, oh, Jesus is going to guide his disciples into all the truth, but then he's going to let his church just go wherever. I think it certainly has application to every one of us as believers. But how exactly are we to hear Jesus speaking today? Well, it cannot be in exactly, precisely the same way that Jesus spoke to the apostles. It cannot be. Because if Jesus spoke to Connor in the same way that he spoke to Peter, then Connor could write new revelation. And we don't have that. Okay? But although we do not recognize continuing new revelation from God, we most certainly have a Savior who continues to speak through the revelation already given. Theologians call this illumination. The Spirit of God working in the souls of His people illumines the Scriptures to our hearts personally and experientially. This is where you get passages like Hebrews 4. The Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, of discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from His sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. So this Bible is a living Word. It's unlike any other book that you've ever read. It is alive. The Spirit of God is working, and Jesus actually speaks to you in this Word. Okay? Alive and active. Let me give you an illustration of this. If you knew me in high school, and you asked me, Mike, what is your favorite verse? I would have immediately said 1 John 4.10. Okay, for years. What's your favorite verse? 1 John 4, 10. You, today, if you ask me what my favorite verse is, you say, well, it could be Ezekiel 36, it could be this, it could be that. I've got like a lot of favorite verses, right? But at that time, that was my favorite verse, and I'll tell you why. Let me read it to you first. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. So why does this verse mean so much for me? Early in my life, in my upbringing, I thought of myself as a good person. I didn't think of myself as evil. I didn't think of myself as a slave to sin. I knew I was not perfect and did wrong things at times, but basically I thought that I loved God naturally. But when I was brought, at the end of my freshman year, face to face with the fact of my own selfishness and my own sinfulness, that I loved myself far more than I loved God, I was brought to utter despair. Now I began to ask this question, how could God love me? How could God love anyone so very corrupt? There were days, and I'm not exaggerating, I wanted God to hate me. You ever think about that? I thought, man, he should send me to hell. I never thought about suicide, but I honestly thought, hey, at least if I were condemned to hell, then that would be just, that would be right, that would be where I should be. It was like that was the only place I could feel freedom from my shame. I would be getting what I deserved. It's not that I wanted to go to hell, but that's what was going through my head. I just knew that that's all that mattered. But with a friend of mine, Steve Perry, he began to take me to Bible studies and church services, and I began to hear more about the cleansing power of Jesus Christ. And somewhere along the line, I came across 1 John 4.10. And this is love, not that we loved God. but that he loved us. And I can tell you, as I say this, I still get warm feelings in my heart. As I read those words, Jesus spoke to my soul. Do you understand what I'm saying? I don't know who John was writing to 2,000 years ago, but Jesus was speaking to me in those words. It wasn't that I was just sitting back going, you know, that's kind of a neat thought, you know, yeah, God loves me, that's cool. It wasn't that. I don't know how to describe this, and it was no audible voice, it was just that the words, the truth of the text was penetrating into my soul and it was Jesus speaking to my soul. And I knew that There was no change in the thought that I had not loved God. It was just, oh, yeah, I don't love you, but you love me. Until that time, I believed that Jesus loved me because of how good I was. From that moment on, I knew that any love that I would ever have towards God would be founded by his first loving me when I had no love for him. totally changed my life. It's funny because at that time, I could not even tell you what propitiation meant, or in the NIV, I think it says atonement. I had no idea what that meant. But somehow I knew that Jesus had dealt with my sins, and that was enough. Now, there have been plenty of seasons in my life where there have been dryness. There have been times where my heart feels cold or faint to that voice. There have been times where I feel like I'm not hearing it and God is just out there and he's not that personal God to me. Times when I sit down to have the conversation and you look at each other across the way and don't know what to say. That has happened in my relationship with God. but that experience of Him actually speaking to me has defined my life. I am never satisfied with those cold times because I need God to speak to my soul. 1 Thessalonians 2.13 says this, and we also thank God constantly for this, that when you receive the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you. That's what's going on. So here's what I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you a list of things here of how God speaks to his people, okay? Jesus continues to speak to His people through the reading of God's Word. Do you know what that means? That means you never, ever go to a passage of Scripture and just assume that you're just you looking at a dead page of Scripture. God speaks to His people through the Word. Two, God speaks to His people through the diligent study of the Word. It drives me crazy when people think that God will just speak to us as we don't have to put any effort into it, we don't have to really work hard at it. He's just going to speak to us. No, you diligently study the Word. There are two young people that I'm working with right now on just how do you go about studying this text of Scripture. It's that important. That's how God speaks to us. Three, God speaks to us through the preached Word. You pay me a lot of money, so I can give a lot of time to spending in the Word, studying it, so that I can prepare a good meal for you. But as long as you think it's just Mike speaking, it's not going to do you a hill of beans good. And fourthly, I think that God speaks to us through the meditation upon God's Word. When you hear the Word of God, when you read the Word of God, do you take time enough to go and reflect upon it? Or are we so busy and hit with so many things that as soon as we hear the Word, we just like a news program, go from like a hurricane issue to the sports. And we just move on from one thing to the next, and we never meditate upon the Word of God. Now, those I think are the four primary ways in which God speaks to us through his word. But I'm going to give you four other ways that I also think he speaks that are connected to the word, but slightly different. I also believe that God continues to speak to us through the sacraments. They are the visible word of God to your soul. I also think that God speaks to you through providence. I think he does work in life and he communicates things to you through his providential workings. I think that God speaks to us through other Christians. That's why we have fellowship. And I also think that God speaks to us through the inner conviction of our conscience. That's why you can sear your conscience. God's working on your conscience to do something and you ignore it. That's searing your conscience. But all of these other means are utterly reliant upon the Word of God. Without the Word, those other means die. But I would also say that without the Spirit, the Word doesn't have any power either. You need the powerful working of the Holy Spirit in your heart in order for there to be true and meaningful communication. is my desire that you would diligently study the Word, that you would meditate on it, that you would look for God to speak to you in these ways. But in all of this, don't just do the actions. In all of it, there must be this inner prayer of saying, God, speak to me. Because if there's not that, you're not in a relationship with God. For years, and I can honestly say this, all I can say is this is, It's not a typical experience of most people, but for years, almost every time I opened my Bible, I was flooded with the personal presence of my Savior. And I know that I've talked with enough of you guys to know that that's not your normal experience. I used to think it was. I thought, man, if you believe in Christ, that's the way everybody feels. And it's just not the case. I understand that. But I want to tell you another little episode of my life that is very important. When I first came to Morganton in 1992, newly married with my wife, we were married in 1990, I was enjoying my time here in Morganton, becoming a member of Faith Presbyterian Church, involved with the youth group, interacting with godly members. There was no sin in my life that I can think about. But I can tell you that during that season, the Bible all of a sudden became dry. It was like, you know, all this warmth was gone. And here I am thinking, whoa, what went on? I know the Bible is where I meet with God, but he's silent. And by God's grace, I remember thinking this, there is nowhere else I can go. Nowhere else I can go to get what I'm really seeking. So what did I do? I said, I'm going to get up and I'm going to spend time in God's word every day, seeking him in his word. And if he doesn't come to me for however long, I don't care. I'm going to keep doing it because he's the place where I will find life. 10 months, 10 months, not feeling God at all. You people in this church probably never even knew. Still love God, still seeking Him. Then, slowly, almost imperceptibly, little by little, I began to feel more of that warmth, that intimacy, that closeness as I was reading and studying the Word. And I came to realize that God simply tests His people. Hey, He's got a weenus, right? Every mother has to wean their child off the breast milk or the milk, right? You have to help them to get to solid food. And there was a portion of my life that He did that for me. Jesus has many things to say to you. If you walk out of here and you don't hear anything else, hear that statement. He wants to talk to you. And we can learn from the Charismatics We don't want to go down the road that they go down, but we can learn from them. We can learn from them. We want to stay warm in our love for God. Now, let's go back into the text a little bit. It's a long way to get to a one point that I wanted to hammer down to you guys. In the disciples, Jesus was prevented from saying certain things because they could not bear them. Do you see that? They were not able to bear them. It wasn't that they were dumb, it wasn't that they somehow weren't committed enough, that they were just lazy. I know we live in this dumbed down culture that we think that nobody can handle difficult things. That wasn't it at all. He told them many things that they just couldn't grasp, but there were certain things that they just could not bear. And this tells me something about Jesus, your Jesus. He understands you. He understands you. He's a good communicator. And He knows when and how to talk to His people. And you should understand that from Him. He is not someone who's indifferent to your weaknesses or to where you are in life. He understands where you are and He speaks to you. That's a good Savior. So I want you to understand that about him. Now, but this, as I was wrestling with this, I began to think, what truths is he talking about? Or what truths is he gonna reveal later? And I don't, there's nowhere we have this complete list of that. I think it's the New Testament. But I'm going to give you four things that I think were truths that they just could not get at that moment and had to wait until afterwards. The first is this. They could not grasp the place of the Gentiles in God's plan of redemption. They couldn't get it. I'm going to ask you to turn back to Ephesians 2 again. This is very helpful in understanding this whole what's going on with the disciples. Ephesians chapter 2 verses 11 through 13. Paul is speaking to largely Gentile believers and he says, therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision which is made in the flesh by hands Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now, in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ." And skip down to chapter 3, verse 1 through 6. This is going to be very insightful. How did Paul get this mystery? He says, for this reason I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles, assuming that you have heard the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation. Paul was hearing revelation from Jesus. He says, as I have written briefly, when you heard this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations, as it has now been revealed. To who? To his holy apostles and the prophets by the Spirit. This is the exact application of what Jesus is saying in John 16. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Here's the deal, guys. Jews could not conceive that Gentiles could be saved unless they became full Jews. And to a Jew to say, no, they don't need to come to the temple, they don't need to offer sacrifices, all they need to do is believe in Jesus, they couldn't get it. And so it waited until after the resurrection for Jesus to fully give that explanation to them. Another truth is that our lowly bodies would be transformed. Now you just need to understand that they did have an understanding of the afterlife in the Old Testament, but it was exponentially magnified after the resurrected Christ. So when Paul says in Philippians 3, our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body by the power that enables Him to subject all things to Himself. And these guys understood that the fulfillment of all the covenant promises would not just be here in this world, but would await in eternal realm. That was somewhat new to them. Not completely new, but somewhat new. Thirdly, that the church, including the Old Testament saints, is the bride of Christ. Paul says, this mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ in the church. The idea that the believing Jews and true believing Gentiles together form one body, and that body is the bride of Christ, they didn't get all that. Not saying it wasn't there in hidden form in the Old Testament, but they didn't get all that. And that all of this is accomplished through union with Jesus Christ. Colossians 1.27, To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Just a few things right there. Look at verse 13 in John 16. When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. Now, I want you to hear this very clear. People will forever try to divorce the Spirit from truth. And this text tells you that the Spirit is the Spirit of truth. Okay? People will, in one way or another, try to pit God's powerful inner working, this warm, powerful working of the Spirit, and separate it from the truth. Do not accept that dichotomy. It is wrong. Here's ways it comes out like this. You know, if you care too much about truth, then you will quench the Spirit. Right? You know, in order to be spiritual, you must not get too bogged down with making statements of absolute truth. You know, seminary is called cemetery. Right? Because we think that the study of truth leads to deadness. When you hear that in your heart, you go right back to John 16, and you understand that the Spirit who gives life is the Spirit of truth. The only path to spirituality comes through truth. The only path to spirituality comes through truth. Now I'm gonna flip it around. You don't know truth unless it is making you spiritual. Do you catch that? It cuts both ways. You cannot sacrifice one for the other. Truth is personal. Truth is spiritual. God is truth. God is spiritual. When you consider a fact about anything, you don't understand that fact in all of its fullness until you see that it comes to you as an expression of the personal God of the universe. I've talked to you before about a sunset, right? A non-Christian can look at a sunset and say, man, that's really kind of cool. But a Christian can look at that sunset and say, the Lord of the universe is communicating to me, his child, love and affection. If someone comes to you and waxes eloquently for 30 minutes on the Trinity, but is never humbled before that Trinity and brought to true adoration, then they don't know the Trinity. Do you get that? This is why we can never be satisfied with just understanding the facts. Yes, you have to know the facts. Yes, you have to study. You have to diligently discern different types of truth. All that is work and difficult, but it all has to lead you to your God, and if it doesn't, it's meaningless. Also, godliness. You know, how many times have you heard somebody say to you, man, I know all the facts about Christ. I know Jesus died on the cross. It's just not making a difference in my life. You know what I want to scream to them? You don't know the truth. Because if you knew the truth, it would set you free from your ungodliness. Now, let me finish with just one other truth in this. If you look in verses 13, 14, and 15, you will see a word repeated. The word declare, declare, declare. We live in a day where nobody wants to hear an authoritative declaration of truth. All they want to hear is somebody sharing about truth. Let me just kind of share this with you. When the spirit of truth comes, He doesn't give you a good idea that you can mull over and decide if you like it or not. He declares it to you. And shame on us for preachers who no longer declare truth. We have the truth of God. Should you take and study to make sure that what I'm declaring comes from the text of Scripture? Yes. Right? You should be a Berean. But if what I am saying comes from the text of God, it is not something that you can just walk away with and leave. It is Jesus Christ speaking to your soul and you will either accept it or you will reject it to your own peril. That's the declarative preaching of the Word of God. And that's what we need in our churches today. So, are you communicating with your Savior? Developing a healthy conversation with your Savior will cost you. Just like if I want to have time with Robin, It's going to cost me other things. Now, not every time I'm with Robin are we having this like intense, deep conversation. Yesterday, we spent a lot of time working on a pantry and enjoyed that very much together. It was a part of that fellowship. We have that kind of fellowship with Christ in lots of things that we do. But it will cost you. The price that I pay to have intimate devotion and conversation with Robin is absolute loyalty to her. Same thing with Christ. You can't be walking off, going and loving other things, inordinately sinful things, and think that you're going to have intimate relationship with Christ. It doesn't work that way. And it will cost you in terms of your time. But I want to finish with this, because any cost that you have is way worth it. Psalm 8410, for a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. Amen.