Shane Hughes 3-22-26

Great job, JB Good morning. My name is Shane Hughes. I'm one of the ministers here. It's a delight to have you with us. We're going through a series based on this early baptismal confession that the Church did, and we call it the Apostles Creed.

It was this confession and it gives, it gives a sense of the story of the Gospel. Everything, every line in the Apostles Creed is a reflection of the story of Scripture. It's the, it's the shape of the Gospel. But I imagine in this room, if you were to ask all of us, what does the Gospel look like to you, we would probably get just as many different answers. They would all probably have the same kind of constellation of idea, but everything would have a different contour.

And I know this is true because I think there's like just two types of people in the world. One who listens to like Wes Huff and reads NT Wright and wants to make this very rational argument from Scripture. And at the other end, another person who at the end of that well reasoned argument says, yes, but God spoke to me and he told me that. And then the whole argument just falls apart. The problem is is that more often than not those two people are married, right?

And so today we're going to be talking and thinking about the Holy Spirit, who only gets this short clause in the Creed, but deserves so much more. I think, I think this week as I was preparing for this, I, I think I realized we could spend a year, we could spend 50 sermons thinking about the Holy Spirit and the role in the church and in our lives and in the Trinity and the story. And so I want to, I want to try to do justice to, to a very large topic in a very short amount of time. But if you, if you want to read more, a really easy accessible book by Francis Chan called the Invisible God, Strange God, Forgotten God, Forgotten God is an excellent kind of entry into, into this topic. There's more to read, there's more to do, but that's a great place to start.

But this, what I want us to begin with is the idea that the Spirit is God. And there's no way I can do this in time. But just as Jesus is a person of God, the Spirit is a person of God. It's not God's spirit like your spirit. It's.

It's this unique person. And I love what we talked about at communion earlier that, you know, it's difficult to articulate. You know, Jesus has an image and God has an image. But even in Scripture, spirit, as Dean said, has you know, is a dove, a metaphor, is wind, is flame. But.

But it's still a unique person in the way that Jesus is a person. We use it a lot when we talk about the Spirit because we don't necessarily say that the Spirit has gender, although in this case in John, Jesus refers to the Spirit as he. It's probably neither male nor female, but. But it does not mean that the Spirit is the thing. And I think we fail when we try to describe the Spirit as a.

As a force, because the Spirit is a. As a person, as a personality. In fact, in Scripture. The Scripture tells us that in Ephesians, the Spirit is grieved, it has emotions. And in Hebrews, the Spirit is outraged, it feels offense.

And in Romans, it tells us that the Spirit loves. And so within the mystery of the Trinity, which we cannot solve, we want to acknowledge this kind of third person that often doesn't get the same experience. But go back to those. Those two people, the one who hears God's voice and acts in one way or the other, that studies God's Word and acts appropriately. And I think for most part, churches of Christ in our history has lived kind of in this side rather than that side.

And we don't always know what to do with the Spirit. But I do want to point out something that I think is fascinating. Tim Keller mentioned this. In the book of Ephesians, Paul talks to his audience and says, hey, you need to be filled with the Spirit. And then he describes what that looks like, and it'll have a certain shape to it.

And then over in Colossians, he says, you need to be filled by the Word, by Scripture. And he says, and that has a certain consequences. This is what it looks like when you live life by the Word. This is what it looks like when you live life by the Spirit. But check this out.

When you get home today, the consequences of living by the Word and living by the Spirit are almost identical. Which tells me that when we're living together in honesty and authenticity and we're trying to rationalize what it means to follow God in the best way, or we're just trying to listen to the Spirit and do what intuitively seems right, both of those projects lead us toward a life of discipleship. But the Spirit is incredibly important because we are filled by the Spirit. And if you think about that for any more than just a moment, it's going to knock you off your feet. God dwells in you.

I think if we really understood that, it would change everything. When I was in the fourth Grade, I had a friend in my class, and I'm pretty sure now that this friend would be diagnosed with adhd, right? My friend could not sit still. He could not stay silent. He couldn't complete a worksheet to save his life.

He was always up and bouncing around the room. And the teacher just kept getting more and more frustrated about it. And in fact, she began to notice that this one student that just could not contain themselves was affecting the other people around him. Maybe you've lived in that class. Maybe as a teacher, you've had that student.

You know exactly what I'm talking about. And she said on this one moment, I'll never forget this moment where she said, you know, this side of the class is doing kind of poorly, and this side of the class is actually doing okay. And I think I know why. And the student, she did the best she could. She wasn't equipped to handle this kind of situation.

And so she bumped it up to the assistant principal and then to the principal, and finally they bumped it up to the parent. And this mother knew exactly what to do. The next day after that phone call, she showed up and she stood beside her son. And the whole day she was there. She took it off work.

She sat and stood behind her son. And the entire time, her son was yes, ma', am, thank you, please. It was a totally different story, right? We all know the name of that student. That student was Jeff Nelson.

No, I'm just kidding. But okay. And now that's where I ended this story in first. And I wanted to tell you the point that if you believe that God was dwelling inside of you, it might change the way you lived.

And I think that's true. And I think it might. Like, if you believe that God was in you and a witness to everything you did, I think you might live differently. I think you might treat people differently. Now, the story is not longer factual, but it's still true.

There was another kid in my class who was sullen and disappointed and unconfident. And this teacher, it's no longer real. And this teacher, again, helped, helped, didn't know what to do. And that student's father was come in. And when that father came in, that father was beaming and joyful and laughing and confident.

And all of a sudden, that student that would never raise his hand to answer a question in his life, this. That student had confidence that student could face their fear because their father was right behind them. Again, this isn't factual, but it's true. There was a third parent that came into that classroom, right? Student that was scared, like if you said boo, they would jump and run away, never speak, student would never do anything.

And that parent just stood beside them and just whispered positive words, affirmation, whispered the truth the entire day. And by the end of that day, that student sees the power that already be within them. And that student was transformed. Not just in the classroom, but at recess, playing soccer with the other kids in every aspect of their life. If you have words to hear, let them hear.

But there's a gesture that the Spirit makes in Scripture, and I don't think we've paid enough attention to it. And so I want to spend a little time just thinking about the gesture of the spirit. The most common gesture of the Spirit. And the gesture is hovering. It's not arriving with fanfare, it's not descending with a press release, just hovering.

It's presence before action. It's brooding over the threshold of something that does not yet exist, but it's about to. And when you recognize this gesture in Scripture, you find in places you don't expect. But when you do find it, it feels less like a theological discovery and more like learning to read the weather. Because you can tell something big is about to happen.

And you begin to sense before the thing happens that something is coming. And the first time we see it is at the very beginning of everything. It's in Genesis 1, verse 2. It's the second verse of the Bible. And the earth is formless and empty, and there's darkness over the surface of the deep.

And then before God speaks a single word, before light is created in the cosmos, before the water is. Water is gathered and land appears, the Spirit of God hovers over the waters and. And the Hebrew word there is the same word that is used elsewhere for an eagle that is hovering over its nest, hovering over its eggs, wings spread, watching over what is not yet ready to fly. And it is a word of expectant presence, of living attention held over something that is not yet ready but will not remain so for long. And the spirit doesn't create by force.

The spirit hovers. And then God speaks. And then everything begins. I want you to hang on to image. Because centuries pass and generations of longing and of prophecy and people waiting for something they could feel coming but could not quite name.

And then there's a young woman in Galilee and she receives a visitor with an impossible message. And she asks the only honest question available to her. How can this be? And the angel says to Mary, in Luke's careful Greek, the Holy Spirit will come upon you will overshadow you. The word that Luke uses carries the same freight as the ancient Hebrew hovering.

It's a covering, it's a brooding presence. It's a divine attention held tenderly over the threshold of something the world has never seen before. And the Spirit hovers over Mary, the way it hovered over the water. And into that hovering word is made flesh. And all of a sudden, creation is happening again.

It's a new creation. It's the beginning of the same way the first one did. It's with the Spirit present, patient, holding space before the miracle. And then there's Acts, chapter two. And the disciples are gathered, and they're waiting.

Jesus told them to wait, which is perhaps the most difficult instruction that he gives them ever. And he gave to a group of people who just watched everything they'd hoped for die and then bewilderingly walk out of the tomb. And they're waiting in the Jerusalem, and they're waiting in an upper room. And then a sound comes, like a rushing wind. And what appears over them, each one of them, are tongues of flame.

And they're distributed, they're particular. There's one for each person. Resting, hovering. Before speaking begins. Before the Church speaks the first word into the world, the Spirit hovers.

Can you see the pattern? Right. It's easy. Formless, deep, hovering spirit, then creation, ordinary woman, overshadowing spirit, then incarnation, frightened disciples, hovering flame, then Pentecost. And the Spirit does not rush, the Spirit does not force.

The Spirit arrives first, waits, holds the moment, takes a breath, as if to say, something is about to happen here that cannot happen without me. I am here. I am ready to begin.

And I think this is a part of what it means about how God works before every act of making, before the world, before word made flesh, before the Church breathed its first breath, before there was this hovering, a presence that preceded the event, a divine patience held over chaos, or the ordinary, or the frightened, or the waiting for the fullness of time. And this is where I think it intersects our lives. This is what I think it means for us. And this is why I wanted you to kind of hold onto this image of hovering through everything we're going to talk about today, because it always starts with the presence of the Holy Spirit.

And this shows up in John. If you look at this section of John, John, chapter 14, it's in the middle of a really long speech by Jesus. If you have that red letter Bible and you flip your pages, Jesus is just talking and talking and talking. And at the end of what we got to today, Jesus says, okay, it's time to go. And they get up and leave.

And the next thing that happens is the crucifixion. It's the passion. And there's this word in Greek that the translators have never quite known what to do with. And so they pass it around like a dish that nobody ordered. There's comforter, there's counselor, there's helper, and there's advocate.

And the Greek word. Each of those words is true, but none of them are quite right. The Greek word is paraclete. And in its bones it means something embarrassingly simple. It's very easy to translate, it's very difficult to capture.

It's not comforter because the spirit's not a blanket, it's not a quilt. It's not a counselor like you might have a camp counselor that just makes sure you get to archery on time. It is a helper, but it's not the person that holds the tool for you. It is so much more. But what it means is embarrassingly simple.

The one who is called come stand beside you. Not above you, not ahead of you, not like the nurse at the doctor's office with the clipboard calling you forward beside you.

Which means, if you think about it, that God looked at the human situation, really examined it, and he's. And God saw the loneliness of it and saw the way that the world has this way of getting inside your head and rearranging the furniture until you can't find anything anymore and decided that what we needed was not more information. It wasn't a louder voice from the sky to speak to us. What we needed was a presence close enough to feel. If God had wanted to communicate to the world in a bold and bright way, he would have put words on the moon, I am here.

But instead, God chose to send God's self to live inside of each of us.

And I think this is pretty effective because I think the world, I want to categorize it as like the cosmos around us. That's not good for us. The world will tell you who you are. And I think the world is very good at this. It will tell you in the morning when you look in the mirror how many more wrinkles you have.

And at noon when the email comes, just how behind you are in your day. And at 2 o' clock in the morning when you're staring at the ceiling, running the numbers again, it speaks in a voice of every person who has ever left you behind, who has ever closed the door in your face, every verdict that came back Unfavorable. And the terrible thing about the world is, is that the world doesn't lie. The terrible thing is that it just tells us enough truth to be convincing. And in that moment, in that space, if you've ever been in that place, that is precisely when the Paraclete shows up, the one that's going to stand beside us.

And it's not to tell you that the world is wrong about everything, because there's some fact there, but it's to stand close enough to you that. That you can hear a different voice, a quieter, a steadier, a more ancient than noise, saying that this is not the whole story. This is not the most important part. The Spirit will never shout down your accusers. The Spirit leans in and the Spirit says, I know what was said, and I know who said it.

But I also know something that they don't know.

Frederick Buechner was a preacher. He once wrote that the place God calls you is a place where your deep gladness meets the world's deep hunger. And what he didn't say, and I think this probably goes without saying, is there are about a hundred voices between you and that place. And all of them have opinions, and all of them have evidence. And all of them are willing to make the case that you are too much or too loud or not enough or.

Or simply too late. And the Paraclete is the one who walks that gauntlet with you. Not removing the voices, walking with you through them. And I think if you think about it, that's a strange kind of comfort. It's not the comfort of resolution, it's the comfort of company.

It's discovering that the most honest thing you can say is, I don't know how this is going to end. And having someone close beside you, close enough to be heard replying with, I do, and I'm not leaving. And that's what the word Paraclete means. It's not a title. It's not a function, It's a posture.

It's someone called close. Someone who has heard the situation, really heard all of it, including all the parts that you haven't said out loud yet and decides to show up and stay anyway. And I think there are a lot of worse things that you can build your life on.

Let me say that in a positive way. I don't think you can make it through life without that. With you, that's still not positive, is it? Figure it out.

But the Spirit is not our only advocate. Paraclete. That word is used six times in the New Testament. And five times it's here in John, and it's talking about the Holy Spirit. Right?

But there's one time it's in First John, and it's not talking about the Holy Spirit, it's talking about Jesus. We have an advocate, and this advocate exists in heaven. Right? And it's not pleading. It's our public defender, it's our defense attorney, and we're standing before justice with a capital J.

The justice. And our defense attorney is not pleading that we're innocent. It's not that we were unrightly accused. There's no. There wasn't a clear admission of guilt.

And we see that in Romans, all have fallen short of the glory of God. We're all sinners before God. But this is what Jesus in heaven is doing. He is not pleading that we are innocent. He is pleading that.

That the price of justice has already been paid, that the justice of God was satisfied by God's own love.

And so we have Jesus in heaven, an advocate pleading for us and the Holy Spirit on earth, inside of us, advocating for us, with us, defend us from the outward accusation of the world, but also that accusation that comes from within. Because the most persistent liar you will ever meet lives closer to you than the world does. At least the world has some decency to come from the outside, right? From your news feed, from the boardroom, from the mouth of someone who should have known better. And you can, on a good day, just close that door, turn off your phone, draw the curtains, make a cup of tea, and sit in something approximating silence.

I can't because I have three boys. Maybe you can. The world respects, however grudgingly, the closed door.

But the voice that is inside of you does not knock. And you know that voice because that voice has been with you longer than any other relationship that you can name. It was there on the first day of school. It was there with you rehearsing the disaster in the parking lot. It was there at the wedding as you were questioning the statistics during the vows.

And it was there at three in the morning with a spreadsheet of every foolish thing you've ever said since 1987, organized by category, cross reference and annotated. It is, in its own terrible way, extraordinarily thorough. And the ancient church called this by different names. Clement of Alexandria, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas. They named it the flesh, the accuser, the false self.

And psychologists now have their own vocabulary for it. Whatever you call it, you know its tone, and it sounds reasonable. And that's the thing. It. It Never rages.

It simply reasons in your own voice, with your own memories as its evidence toward the conclusions that leave you smaller than you were the day before.

And here's where the Paraclete does something that ought to stop us cold. And maybe if you've never had a life in the Spirit, maybe if you've never committed yourself to Christ, maybe if you never involved yourself into church in any meaningful way, this is why you should be involved. The Holy Spirit dwelling in you, protecting you from you, is the most powerful thing that God could do. Jesus does not say that the Spirit will silence that voice. He does not promise a surgical removal of the inner critic, a spiritual lobotomy that lives you blissfully in self denial.

What God promises, what Jesus promises In John chapter 14, he promises a witness. He promises a presence that has access to the same interior wounds that is heard every season of that 3am tribunal. And that testifies anyway on your behalf from inside the very courthouse where you have been both defendant and jury. Barbara Brown Taylor, another preacher, once wrote about learning to trust the darkness, about finding what felt like abandonment was sometimes a different kind of presence. The Paraclete knows that room too, knows the darkness you have created so carefully that no one else had seen it.

And the Spirit does not flinch. And I think this is what advocacy looks like from the inside. It's not cheerleading. It's not relentless positivity of someone who hasn't read the file. The Paraclete has read the file.

Every page, every. Including the ones you sealed. And every testimony is not. This person is without flaw. The testimony is something far more submersive.

This person is not defined by what the accuser says. I know who made them. I know what they were made for. And I am not done with them yet. Help me, somebody.

Is this good news? Help me. Brickner wrote that the grace of God means something like, here is your life and you might have never been. The odds of you being born are so infinite and small, it's hard to imagine. But you are here because the party wouldn't have been complete without you.

And that sentence doesn't come from the outside. That has to be received somewhere interior. The Spirit has to speak that into your heart in the room where the other voice has been holding court on the very bench where the condemnation was being prepared. And the Spirit walks into that room. Not loudly.

The Spirit has never been loud.

The Spirit doesn't have to be loud.

When the Spirit enters into the courtroom of your heart, it comes with quiet authority of someone who was there at the Beginning, who knows the original design? Who can hold it up next to the accuser's evidence with a different kind of document entirely. Not a verdict, but a name. Your name, spoken by the one who created it.

And it turns out in that court of law inside your heart, that kind of evidence, that is enough not to silence everything, but from keeping you. But to keep you from mistaking the loudest voice for the truest one. And that's the difference that the Paraclete makes, that you are no longer alone in there.

And this is where I think you need to hear the truth, Highland. I think you need to hear that truth in your life. And I think we need to hear this truth as a church. And I think we're ready to hear it. I think we're ready to receive it.

And so I want you to lean in just for a moment at the end of this sermon. Because the truth of the Gospel is. The truth of John 14 is that the Spirit is still in the business of hovering. And that when we feel the presence of the Spirit's life, that means that things are about to change, that God is about to act, that the reality is going to be torn and God will send his hand in and make things new. Over the formless places of your life, the places that feel like chaos, like deep water with no bottom and no shore.

The Spirit has not abandoned them. Or over the ordinary places, like an unremarkable Tuesday, or an ordinary person who doesn't feel like a candidate for anything miraculous. The Spirit does not require a spectacular address. And over the frightened places the upper room you have built inside yourself and that door you have locked and the breath you are holding. The Spirit is patient.

And maybe it's time to speak because something is about to begin. It's beginning. Our practice for the last several weeks, and I have adored this practice, for us to stand at the end of the service and confess the Apostles Creed together. It was that early baptismal confession. And maybe you're not at the place where you're ready to make this your own confession.

Maybe you can't say, Jesus is Lord and God is Creator. The Spirit exists, the Spirit is God. But maybe it's time to ask yourself why.

Maybe it's time for you to ask yourself the question, do I want to have an advocate in my heart that not only convinces me or convicts me, but just reminds me of the truth? If you want to have that conversation, there are elders in this room that would love to have that conversation with you. There are Bible class teachers, there are huddle leaders there. Are dig leaders there. Find me at the end of the service.

Let's have that conversation together and make that step. Because I think the spirit is hovering in your life. I think it's time for you to believe. Would you please stand while we say this together?