Friends of God

Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this to lay down one's life for one's friends.

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You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer because the servant does not know what the master is doing. But I have called you friends because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my father. You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last so that the father will give you whatever you ask in his name.

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Sorry. In my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another. Lord Jesus, would you bring understanding, conviction, help, power, all by your mighty spirit, we pray. Amen.

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You may be seated as we are approaching the season of Pentecost. And Pentecost is a big deal. Pentecost ought to be one of these holidays that is as big as Christmas or Easter, shouldn't it? It should indeed, because Jesus himself, I will remind you, tells us, dear friends, I must go, not to be physically present with you any longer. Why?

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He tells us directly, doesn't he, so that the comforter will come. The comforter is God's holy spirit. And so Jesus tells us that his mission was so that the spirit may be given to all, which is exactly what happens on the day of Pentecost. And did you notice in our reading today that we get the spirit descending or falling upon those gentiles? By the way, in the acts reading that we had, did you catch that?

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And the gift of the spirit was given, it says, and then there were tongues and other gifts that come from the greatest gift, who is God's spirit. And could we just go ahead and say that God is still pouring out his holy spirit upon people? The Holy Spirit still is coming upon people and empowering gifts and abilities that are not our own, but rather are gifts from God. And we do not neglect to say that, oh, this, you know, because tongues and some other gifts are what we call extraordinary gifts. They're extraordinary, right?

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The ordinary ones are the ones I want to focus on today. When the Holy Spirit comes into every life, this is what he brings. All right. The extraordinary gifts are awesome to study and all of that. Okay?

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But not everybody has those. But when God's spirit comes to us, I'd like to submit to you that at least there are three, if not here, four that you'll kind of see that are sort of under the text here. Because remember, when we're in John 15, which is the vine and the branches which we covered last week, you remember that John 15 is in the middle section of a very important night. This is the very night in which Jesus shared the meal with his disciples. He washed their feet.

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You remember this? And then they go together and we get this conversation that begins in 13 and will end with Jesus prayer in chapter 17. Well, this is right in the middle here. Okay? And all throughout here, littered throughout it, is some of the most profound and clear teachings on the Holy Spirit.

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In other words, when we just moments ago said we believe in the Holy Spirit and even claimed that we worship the Holy Spirit, this means that the spirit is not just some mystical power of God or mystical breath of God. That is not God. Rather, the spirit is the power of God, is the breath of God, and is the love of God in such a way that it has to do with his personhood, not a function of another. That's why we can say we worship the Holy Spirit. Could I say this?

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Do you know that it is okay to pray to the Holy S