Blessings to you. I am Eric Newcomer, and I want to welcome you to a service of Whites Run Baptist Church Online. And I hope your day finds you very well. I welcome you to be with me today. I appreciate your attending. And I'd like you to take a look at John Chapter 16 in your Bibles. John Chapter 16. What we're taking a look at is the last hours of Jesus with his disciples before he was betrayed and arrested. And this is a profoundly interesting piece of scripture because with scarce few hours left before he's going to be taken and crucified, Jesus is putting forth all that they need in order to be able to get through this. Jesus' public ministry at this point is essentially over. He had an intimate Passover meal with his disciples alone at the end of this difficult week that they had. And all this discourse that takes place in John chapters 13 through 16, all takes place this very night. And so the buildup to this, we have to ask this question, what must the disciples have been thinking? Now we can be dangerous with this line of thought when we try to figure out what people are thinking, but the clues are there in the text, and we have to be thinking that the disciples may have been thinking something along these lines. Look, we're convinced of Jesus' identity, We saw the great works and miracles that he did. We also did miracles by our own hands. We did proclamation of his message, our very own selves, by our own lips. And however, the leaders have opposed us by and large. There's one among us, apparently he's told us this night, that will betray us. Jesus is leaving. We can't follow him where he's going. Even Peter himself will deny him. We know that this Jesus, he had the power, he had the wisdom. We were convinced that he was the Christ, the Son of God. And even before in the ministry, there was a time when his teaching got very difficult for some and they left him, but we stayed there. And Peter voiced our opinion in saying that, you know, where else we're gonna go? You are the one with the words of life. And so we've been through a great deal with us, but now he's telling us that when he's gone, the world, is going to hate us as it hated Him, rejecting us and persecuting us, even killing us, and yet we are to carry on, and we're to carry on even with more power than He says, than He Himself exhibited. How are we going to do this? How is it that we're going to make it without the physical presence of Jesus here? What is the secret to this? Well, I think it's safe to say from the clues in the scripture that we don't know exactly how they were feeling, but it could have been very similar to that. These disciples were in a situation that is well described, and we can extrapolate from there how they must have been feeling. But we don't really know. But we do know that Jesus knew. and that they were feeling these things is evident by their reactions and by the questions that they ask, by what it is that Jesus teaches them in these chapters, we can tell some of the things that they must have been bothered by. So Jesus is answering how they're going to get along without his physical presence to continue with them. What we're gonna learn today is that we're gonna learn that through the church, it's the Holy Spirit and his word that will testify to the world about its sin, about Jesus' righteousness, and about God's judgment. So in these scriptures in John chapter 16, we're gonna read starting in verse one. Here's what Jesus says there. He says, I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. and they will do these things because they have not known the Father nor me. But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you. I did not say these things to you from the beginning because I was with you, but now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you are asking me, where are you going?" But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. Concerning sin, because they do not believe in me. Concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you will see me no longer. concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. 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 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. Let's begin with a word of prayer. Father God, we understand these truths to be spiritually discerned. And so we request the power of your spirit to work past our weaknesses and our preferences to give us the truth of God that we may be equipped for the work of your ministry. Lord, we thank you for these things, and we ask you, Lord, to reveal these things to us. You have told us plainly that it is to our advantage that Jesus would go to you and that then you would send the Holy Spirit. Lord, we wish to partake in that advantage this day, and we wish to understand that more so that we may partake more fully of your Holy Spirit. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, an interesting situation that Jesus is in and some fascinating teaching that he gives here. And we want to look here primarily at the work of the Spirit. Verses 8 through 10 talk about this work of the Spirit. And this work of the Spirit can be looked at in a set of three threes. And so I've worked this outline out into three threes, and three is a good number, so this ought to be a really tremendous sermon. So hang on for this. The work of the Spirit. The Spirit convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. And we're going to take a look at what that means. The first question that comes up in this is, is he speaking of convicting the world in a general way, as in, In other words, the entire world is in the defense's side there. Or is he speaking about this specifically person by person? Well, I'm going to say yes to both of those, because generally, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, through the power of the word, the power of the church, does witness to the world that Jesus' crucifixion was unjust, that it was a sin that we had put him on the cross. It convicts the world that indeed Jesus is righteous, that he was undeserving of that, and also that judgment rests upon the world for this great deed But specifically, I believe it applies individually to people in the following three ways. And we're going to see this as Jesus describes it here. He says, first of all, it convicts of sin because they do not believe in me. We know that the law, that is the Old Testament, the Ten Commandments, all the laws of the Jews, those kind of things, we can read those and we can be convicted of sin. We also know that God has written the law in the hearts of people that our conscience bears witness to what is right and wrong. And so our conscience convicts us of our sins. But what Jesus is speaking of here is he's speaking of a specific sin He says, it's because they did not believe in me. And this specific sin is the new Jesus standard introduced here in the New Testament. In John chapter three, one of our favorite verses, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him will not perish but will have everlasting life. Jesus goes on to say, the world stands condemned already because they don't believe in Jesus. And so Jesus is the very standard of this judgment. And indeed, in the Book of Acts, we have some examples of the church revealing to the world that, hey, Jesus is the standard now of judgment, and faith in him is the one way to heaven, and unbelief in him is the one sure way to destruction. He can also convicts concerning righteousness. He says, because I go to the Father and you will see me no longer. When Jesus came in his resurrection and then ascended into heaven, This was evidence of his righteousness. The New Testament puts forth the fact that the fact that Jesus was raised from the dead and the fact that he ascended to the Father, both those things prove that he was righteous because if he had not been perfectly righteous, the crucifixion would have been just from God's point of view and Jesus certainly couldn't be in the presence of God, the Father, without being perfectly righteous. And this is an important point, especially in the near term for the disciples when they were going to go out and preach Jesus at the first. When Jesus was here, he was accused of blasphemy. He was accused of being an insurrectionist, stirring up trouble, deceiving the people. He was accused even of being demon possessed. So this is an important truth that the Holy Spirit would convict the world of the fact that Jesus indeed was innocent. Prior to that, and without the ministry of the Holy Spirit to do that, the world would look at the cross and say, well, look at this man. He was obviously a criminal. He obviously deserved this kind of treatment because there he is on the cross. And so it's important for us to understand that the Spirit testifies to his righteousness. standard of righteousness, therefore, is Jesus Christ himself. And because he is no longer visible here, it's important for the Spirit to pick up in convincing the world that indeed he is that standard of righteousness. And interestingly, even the Church bears witness of the righteousness of God the righteousness of Jesus Christ, because the church is itself the body of Jesus Christ. And Jesus told his disciples, let your light shine before men so that they'll see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in heaven. He also said that the way that people will know that we are his disciples is by our love for one another. And so the righteousness of love, a fruit of the Spirit, And the righteousness of good deeds and those things would be testimony to the body of Christ that indeed they had this righteousness of Christ. So these are very important points that the Spirit convicts of sin and of righteousness, but it also convicts of judgment. And Jesus says judgment because the ruler of this world is judged. This testimony of the Spirit is simply this, that the world is judged. and without excuse. The world is completely condemned and guilty. There's no excuse that can be made, there's no way avoiding it, and the judgment has been given. In John chapter 12, Jesus said in this last week to his disciples that Satan, the prince of this world, or the god of this world, is defeated. The victory of Jesus has been made clear, and at his return then, the sentence will be carried out Satan and all who followed him will have a part in the lake of fire forever and ever." And so what we see here is the Holy Spirit being essentially the prosecutor. If we look at this as putting the world into the courtroom, putting the world, individuals of the world, any individual on trial, here we have the Holy Spirit as the prosecuting attorney, bringing the arguments before the judge, of course, who is the father, And he is giving the list of wrongs that they had done, most of all that they did not believe Jesus, and also that Jesus was perfectly righteous yet crucified by the world, and also that they stand condemned. And our place in that courtroom scene is that we are the witnesses, as we'll see momentarily. And so what we see here is by the work of the Spirit, a sinner that truly comes under the conviction of the Spirit is going to see not just his sins, but his greatest sin that is the sin of unbelief in Jesus Christ. He's going to see then his foolish rebellion against God. He's going to see the perfect righteousness of Christ. He's going to see that this righteousness of Christ is an impossible standard that he cannot attain to without the work of God. And so the sinner confronted with this testimony of the Holy Spirit is then going to agree with God and see that they are deserving of the judgment of God and the lake of fire with Satan. My question for you this day is, have you felt this conviction? Do you agree with God about your sin without excuse? Have you looked at the impossibility of this righteous standard of Christ? One who came and every moment he was here, he did exactly what the Father wanted him to. He never sinned. Have you considered your fate? If you had to face God without the righteousness of Jesus Christ, this is the ministry of the Holy Spirit convicting. And this is why entry The entryway into salvation is belief in Jesus Christ and repentance of sins. And I tell you right now, if you haven't done so, if you haven't trusted Jesus Christ alone for your salvation, realizing you cannot do it on your own, realizing that you're guilty of sin and that you have the just judgment of God on you, stop the recording right now and repent before God and trust in Jesus Christ to save you. Admit your sins, admit your unbelief in Jesus Christ, and ask Him for help with your belief. I hope you do that. Well, that's the threefold work of the Spirit as revealed in this passage. We're going to go outside the passage a little bit, just for a moment, because I want to show you about the Word of the Spirit. And we're going to look at verses 13 through 15, chapter 16, but we're going to jump back to John 14 just for a moment, because the Spirit works primarily with the Word of God. And this is very important because the Word of God itself is a product of the Spirit of God, and when the Spirit works to convict or works to help His people, the Spirit of God uses primarily the Word of God. Look what Jesus said back in John 14 about the Holy Spirit. He says, the Helper, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you." So when we combine this with what we see in John 16, starting in verse 12 going through 15, we see that there is a past, a present, and a future aspect of what the Spirit is bringing with regard to the Word. The past aspect is simply this, that he would, as it said in 14.26 there, bring to your remembrance all that I've said to you. He's speaking to the disciples, and all that he said to them is recorded in the gospels because he brought it to their remembrance so they could record it. But there's also a present aspect of this, and that would be the fact that he is going to guide into all truth. Whatever he speaks, he'll declare to you. the things that are to come also, and there's the future aspect. And so we see, very interestingly here, that the Word of the Spirit has a past, a present, and a future aspect. And this parallels the way the New Testament's put together. He reminded the disciples of what they had, that what he had taught them, and that's the past aspect, that is the Gospels. And then as they began to put those things into practice, as we see in the Book of Acts, and as are interpreted and explained in the letters, that is Him revealing to them as He goes along and bringing them into all truth, even things He didn't teach at the time that He was here. And then there's a future aspect, and primarily we're thinking about the Book of Revelation. When he says in John 16.13 that the Holy Spirit will declare to you the things that are to come, we see that very clearly in the Book of Revelation. And we also see many other prophecies that are contained in the other letters written by the other apostles. And so this is a very helpful understanding of what the Spirit is doing. The Spirit is ministering the Word. Past, present, future. He's bringing it all together for the use of the disciples even to this day. For we have these books now written down. And this present ministry of the Spirit that He will guide us into all truth, as it said in verse 13, still goes on today. This is powerfully important because the things of Scripture are spiritually discerned. We are completely incapable of understanding these things without the Spirit. And so the Spirit indeed brings us, a fourth point there, into all understanding right now in the present. And so what I want to show you is I want to go over to 1 Corinthians chapter 2. Starting at verse 6, listen to Paul describe this wonderful truth. He says, yet among the mature we do impart wisdom. See, you just had a debate about the wisdom of God versus the wisdom of the world in chapter 1 of 1 Corinthians. And he says, actually among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it's not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him. These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thought except the Spirit of that person which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we who have received not, we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God. that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words, not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ." Do you see those incredibly powerful words, we have the mind of Christ? This is the Spirit of God in His people. Is the mind of Christ actually being in us? The things of scripture, therefore, are spiritually discerned. They cannot be understood without the Spirit of God. This is fascinating because this is what we see when we have some of the greatest biblical scholars in the history of the world have been unbelievers. They have studied the scriptures. They've studied the languages. They've analyzed it linguistically. and they become experts on the content of the scripture and yet themselves not be saved. How is that possible? Well, it's because those truths are only spiritually discerned. They're never truly understood until the Spirit of God is involved. This is powerfully important because the Holy Spirit of God is going to use as its raw material in the believer the Word of God. And so we cannot expect a whole lot of progress in the Christian life without a lot of progress in the Word of God, even with the great power of the Holy Spirit. I want to speak thirdly, then, about the witnesses of the Spirit. For that, we're going to back into chapter 15, just a couple verses, the last two verses of chapter 15. And we see Jesus say this, he says, when the helper comes, of course he's speaking of the Holy Spirit, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me, and you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning. So we see that there are witnesses here of the Spirit, and because the Bible likes threes, I like threes, and so I actually used here from the passage, three witnesses of the Spirit, and those would be the Spirit itself, the Church, that is the disciples of Jesus Christ, and the Word. Three witnesses here of the Spirit of God that brings people to faith in Jesus Christ, that does this work of conviction on the world. And so the Spirit bears witness, We also bear witness, as Jesus said in Acts 1.8, to His disciples. You will be my witnesses to Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. And we know that the disciples themselves, the apostles that were there that night, they didn't make it to the ends of the earth. Folks, that's us right there. And we have to understand that these witnesses of the Spirit are all necessary in the conversion of a human being, to go from death to life, to go from unbeliever to believer, all three of these witnesses have a role, and no one comes to faith without all three of these witnesses. The first being the Spirit of God. Jesus said in John 6.44, no one comes to me unless first the Father draws him. Jesus talks about in John chapter three, in answering Nicodemus' questions, he says, Don't be surprised, I'm telling you, you have to be born again. And this is something that is of the Spirit. What's born of flesh is flesh. What's born of Spirit is Spirit. In other words, it would be a work of the Spirit to be born again. We call that regeneration. It is the Spirit that gives us that new birth. In Peter's great confession, when Jesus is walking along, he's asking the disciples in Matthew 16, who do people say that I am? and they're giving him various answers. He says, who do you say that I am? Peter's the one who speaks up. He says, you are the Christ, the son of the living God, okay? And Jesus says, great job, you're so smart, you figured this out. No, it's not what Jesus says. As you know, Jesus says, blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal this to you. But my father, who is in heaven, And so even the great Peter who walked with Jesus and everything else, he could not make that confession of his own. He could not come to that conclusion without the Spirit of God showing him and guiding him and leading him into this. It was the Father who revealed it. He revealed it through the Spirit of God. The Spirit at work in Jesus Christ and the works that Jesus did and the Spirit at work perhaps in conviction of Peter's heart as well. The spirit convicts, the spirit converts, the spirit regenerates the believer, the non-believer into a believer. No one is saved without the work of the spirit. But it's also true that no one's saved without the work of the church. Because Jesus said, you will be my witnesses. So the church and the spirit work together. There also in Matthew chapter 16, in verses 15 through 20 there, that conversation with Peter where he says, you're the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus says, blessed are you. These things were revealed by the Father. And then he tells you, you are Peter on this rock. I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Whatsoever you bind on earth shall have been bound on heaven. whatsoever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven." And so he tells us about this binding and loosing, in other words, these spiritual transactions. People coming to faith or people coming under condemnation. This is all happening through the church that Jesus Christ is building. And read the New Testament carefully. There's never salvation without the church and the Spirit both working. We see this very profoundly in the Book of Acts. We have three great accounts right in a row in Acts chapters 8, 9, and 10. And so in those chapters, we get to a story of the Ethiopian eunuch. This guy's going along the road. He's reading a scroll of Isaiah, and the Holy Spirit transports Philip all the way there to where this man was to meet him there. And Philip's like, hey, what you doing? This guy's like, well, I'm reading a scroll, but who can understand these things unless someone explains it to me. So Philip explained it to him. The man believed was baptized immediately. You know, even though this man was searching the scriptures on his own, it was only when the church came along and only when the word of God, the spirit of God and the church got together that this man believed. In Acts chapter nine, we have a man named Saul, who later became known as Paul, and this Saul was persecuting the church. He was even traveling out of town to persecute them. At the time, Jesus meets him visibly on the road and blinds him. And we like to look at that as an exception. Oh, look, Jesus intervened with this guy in an exceptional way. His salvation's different from everyone else's. No, what happens immediately there is he is taken to the city of Damascus. He's told to wait there, blind, for someone to come. And Jesus sends a man named Ananias, a believer in Jesus Christ. He is the one that restores the sight to Saul and gets him started and baptizes him. And so it is the work of the church that Jesus uses, even in that case of Saul. And then Saul begins to minister with the people in Damascus. He goes to Jerusalem to meet folks there. They weren't quite ready for him in Jerusalem, but a man named Barnabas came alongside him to help him. So Paul was never alone in his ministry. In Acts chapter 10, the very next chapter after that, there's a man named Cornelius who the Bible describes as a devout man who feared God. And here's the thing, can God judge whether someone's truly devout, whether someone really fears him? Could he not just take that person and just save him? Like he did Enoch in the Old Testament, it says Enoch walked with God and he wasn't because God took him. Couldn't he just do that with Cornelius? Well, maybe he could, but he doesn't. What he does is Cornelius gets this vision of Peter, and he's told, hey, there's this guy you've got to know. Send someone to him. So he sends servants to go talk to Peter. And Peter, interestingly, Peter also is given a vision, and he gets a vision of this man who is calling out for someone to come help him. And about that time, someone knocks on the door. And so it was God, he connected this faithful man with Peter. And it was only then when Peter went into this man's house and preached the gospel to them and told them the good news, some of which they may have already known, it was only then that the Spirit came upon him. And as Peter proclaimed the word of truth, that all those three elements came together and that whole household was saved. It is the Spirit, the church, and the word that work together. In Romans chapter 10, We hear Paul saying, how will they hear unless someone is sent with this message in order for people to believe that's us, that's the church, and that's what God has chosen. He has chosen the foolishness of preaching. He has chosen this foolishness of preaching in order to spread his word. So the spirit, the church, and the word work together to work faith in Jesus Christ. So the question becomes, okay, I understand the Spirit does this convicting work of sin, righteousness, and judgment. I understand that the Spirit is the one who inspired the Holy Word and illuminates us to it. Without the Spirit, we don't understand it. And I understand that the church is always there with the Spirit, with the Word, to bring people to faith in Jesus Christ. What do I do with all that information? Because up to this point, that's fairly academic. Well, the first encouragement I would give you is, as I spoke before, consider these things, repent of your sins, and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you've already done so, then my encouragement to you is simply this, to abide in Jesus Christ. That is the work of the ministry. So we come back to the middle of John chapter 15, and we keep coming back to John chapter 15 as long as we're in these chapters all the way from 13 through 17 here in the book of John, because this is central and these are the imperatives. The passage we looked at today in chapter 16, there are no commands in that passage, but the commands are back here centrally located in this concept of abiding in Jesus, that is making him our living and dwelling He says, Abide in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine and you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers, and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and earned. By this, my Father is glorified. Oh, sorry, verse seven. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. By this, my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples as the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. That is the invitation today. Abide in the love of Christ. Well, the logical question is, how? How do I abide in the love of Jesus Christ? What does He mean? What is the actual work of that? Well, it takes place primarily through the ministry of His Word. That avails us to more of the ministry of the Holy Spirit of God. You've heard some places in Scripture where it says to be filled with the Spirit. Well, how am I to be filled with the Spirit? Through the Word of God. because that's inspired by the Spirit of God. That is where the Spirit works with us. This is primarily a function of the ministry of the Word, but it's also in the context of His gathered people, because just like people don't come to faith without the ministry of the Church, we cannot grow in our faith outside the ministry of the Church. And so we understand that this takes place primarily through the working of His Word, through the context of His gathered people. Let's be honest. We want a shortcut. We want to know what the trick is to this Christian life. We want a catch. We want a method. Because we are by nature superstitious and lazy. We want magic words to say. We want special rituals we can perform to make us right with God so we don't have to worry about it. We all want something tangible we can do. We'll try to learn how to pray and we'll heap up fancy catchphrases and words hoping to be heard by our great technique and our very pious speaking. And we indeed should pray, but we should pray rightly. Sometimes we'll be tempted just to heap up theology books and find the perfect doctrines and all the right doctrines that accord with scripture. And we'll pile all these things up and we'll find the perfect confession of faith or maybe even make our own And indeed, we should. Confessions can be very helpful, but they have to be based, of course, solely on the Word of God. But those things in and of themselves are not abiding. Those can help us abide, but those are not abiding. We also gather in worship but very often gathering in worship becomes putting on a show for us because we like the externals and we like the approval of people and we also like to see things happen so sometimes in our churches we'll emotionally manipulate people hoping that the tears and the cheers and the raised hands will bring about something new and real for the church and move us on to the next spiritual level. Folks, worship and doctrine, and prayers, all those things are critically important parts of the life of a Christian, but all those parts should lead us to the ministry of the Spirit in His Word into abiding. Those things in and of themselves, any one of them is not truly abiding, but they're all tools in the toolbox of those who would abide. The work is in the Word of God. And this is why Satan tries so hard to get us to do anything but minister in his Word. The trick, if you want one, the shortcut, the catch, is to abide in the love of Christ. and abiding in the love of Christ, we will be filled with the Spirit and with His Word, and we will be empowered to share the Gospels, and we will collide with the lost and dying world. The Holy Spirit will convict them of their sin, of the righteousness of Christ, of the judgment that they stand under, and many will believe. This must be the first work of every believer and every church. is this abiding in Jesus Christ. And if you want to know more about how to do this, come to me or another one of our leaders here in the church and just tell us, look, I really want to lay hold of this. I really want to learn how to abide in Christ. And we won't just tell you how to do it. We'll walk with you through it. Study the word together with the people of God who can guide you by the Spirit into all truth. So my invitation for you this day is get help with abiding in the love of Christ. Let's close with a word of prayer. Father God, we thank you and praise you for your wonderful ministry of the Word and the Holy Spirit in your church. And we are fascinated by how you use all three of these elements to come together to lead people to salvation in Jesus Christ. Lord, we endeavor this day to worship you for your wonderful ministry to us. For Lord, we would not have sought these things had you not intervened in our lives. We would not understand these things were you not here to help us. Lord, we partake of all good things because you have given it by the hand of your mighty grace. And so we praise you for it. We ask you to help us this day to follow you, to know you more, to abide in the love of Christ. We praise you and thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, I invite you to learn more by contacting us. You can see our contact information here. You can find us at whitesrun.org, whitesrun.org. There you'll find notes to go along with this sermon, which has many cross references and will point you actually to even some other resources that can help you learn more about the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Also, I invite you to email us at whitesrunbaptist at gmail.com. We will respond personally to every email that comes there. We will not sign you up for any kind of list. We will answer your question that you have toward the very best of our ability and will help point you to resources or even a church in your area that you can trust to give you the truth of God. So thank you for joining us this day. I pray that God blesses your day mightily and I pray that God will be with you every step of the way.