The Spirit of God [Make Room] — Pastor Jason Burns

This word helper, depending on the translation of the bible you read it in, it could be translated helper, comforter or advocate. This word is an interesting word and it's kind of hard to translate from Greek to English. The word is parakletos. It literally means someone who comes alongside you, someone who lives alongside you, and someone who helps you through life's challenges. So for example, imagine that I had a large heavy case and I had to pick it up and I had to carry it for 10 miles. Maybe I can't do it in my own strength. Maybe I could lift up one side and muscle it a little bit on my own, but I can't get it on my own. The picture of the parakletos, the holy spirit, is I take one side and he comes along and he picks it up. He's helping me through this life. [00:25:20] (42 seconds)  #ParakletosComesAlongside

of giving the holy spirit a clean plate page, a fresh slate today? And let me teach you from the bible who he is because I want you to make room for him in your life. Let me say it as clearly as I can. If you fall asleep during the message, the Holy Spirit is a person. He is a gift from God to you and I don't think you should live one more moment of your life without his presence in you. It's a big deal. Okay? Now, when you read the bible, the bible is very clear. First of all, the bible, the old testament was written in Hebrew. The new testament was written in Greek. The the words holy spirit or spirit of God is found over 800 times in the bible. In the old testament, here's the word. It's the word ruach. You gotta say it like you got some popcorn stuck in the back of your throat. Ruach. [00:05:16] (42 seconds)  #MakeRoomForHolySpirit

One more. I need you to know this wind is refreshing. Now one of my favorite things about living in Florida for so long is when people who are not from Florida come to Florida and they move here and they get to like June and they're like woah woah how much hotter can I get? And I want to be like honey listen it's still preheating like we're not even there yet. Like come see me when you're medium well. You know what I'm saying? Like but every September there's a day, come on you know this, for me it's I go to the gym early, there's a day it's like you walk outside and it's like oh someone turned on the air conditioning. It's not cold yet but it's like oh And you just walk out and the the air feels different, the sun feels different, everything feels different. You ever had a day when you just spent a day at the beach and you and you just felt so refreshed? [00:11:45] (49 seconds)  #BreathThatRefreshes

A few days ago, was slipping through my phone through some old pictures and I stumbled across a picture of someone that I love so much. It was my grandpa. I called him Papaw. I don't know if anybody had a Papaw but I had the best one and if you disagree, I will fight you for it. He was the best. And I love my papa and he lived this amazing life. He was born in 1925 and I was thinking, man, like what a crazy time to be alive. He lived ninety five years and in those ninety five years, think about how different the world was. I I was just thinking about it. Like, (31 seconds)  #MyPapawStory

Now this this is true for so many of us in most parts of our lives. Like I have no idea how my TV last night showed me college football games. I I don't know how that happened but I know that it it happened. So very often what we tend to do is we tend to just accept things that we don't understand because it's it's working. But for some reason when it comes to God, a lot of Christians flip it and what they do is they say, if I don't understand him I can't follow him. And if there's one place that I think you need to make room in your life, if there's one challenge that I could have for you as we start this twenty twenty six year of pursuing God, it's that you and I would become people who really know and love the Holy Spirit. [00:02:12] (38 seconds)  #FaithOverUnderstanding

He is the person of the holy spirit. And I went on to talk to them and and what I found was they had come to access from a whole lifetime of being in a great church, but it was a it was a Baptist church and the Baptist church taught the bible but they didn't like teach the whole bible. Like they taught the parts that feel good and that are about grace and all that, but they would skip over the parts that maybe felt uncomfortable or felt like it was outside of their theology. So every once in a while someone will say to me, Jason, what does Access believe about the Holy Spirit? I'm like, easy. We believe the bible. Like, yeah yeah, but tell me more. I'm like, we just believe the whole bible. [00:03:46] (33 seconds)  #WeBelieveTheWholeBible

Like all of it. Like what about this? I'm like, yeah, if it's in the bible, we believe it. And it's like some people will say things like okay, cool. I believe in the holy spirit but when the holy spirit was there, it was like right after Jesus left, but when all those people, all those disciples and followers of Jesus, when they all died, the holy spirit left with them and I'm like cool. I believe that too except it's not in the bible. Like I just believe the bible. Now for whatever reason, a lot of people, they they grow up with this hesitation. Like we're good with God the father. We're with that. And we're good with Jesus, God the son. Like he saves us and changes us. We're good with that. But the holy spirit, for whatever reason, it's like he's gotten some bad marketing. Like it's it's hard to get our minds around who the holy spirit is. Like you read the bible in an old translation like the king James bible and he's not called the holy spirit, he's called the holy ghost. And I'm like, even spirits and ghosts, that feels like Halloween. It doesn't it doesn't seem normal to me, but I would like to do this. Would you do me the favor [00:04:19] (56 seconds)  #GetToKnowTheHolySpirit

The holy spirit doesn't seem to work that way. Like, for example, if we were to go back into the old testament. Remember when God delivers the people of Israel out of years of captivity to Egypt, and as they're leaving, they get stuck at the Red Sea. God speaks to Moses and Moses lifts his rod and the Red Sea parts. Like if that was the way God speaks to humanity, every church would be called the first church of the Red Sea, second church of the Red Sea. [00:09:49] (22 seconds)  #GodSpeaksInManyWays