The Grove Church

Charlie Loften: 00:01

Hello, and welcome to The Grove Church podcast. I'm Charlie Lofton, the lead pastor there, and we are so glad that you're joining us. Whether you are a member and you're just catching up on a sermon that you missed or you're someone who's brand new, we are really glad that you are joining us. And if you are new in some way, and I know that a lot of people will do that, we'll listen to sermons first before they visit. I want you to know that we would love to meet you at any point.

Charlie Loften: 00:25

You can join us live in our services on Sunday, nine and 10:30 or our streaming service at 10:30. Either way, we would love to be able to get to know you. And regardless of why you are here listening to this sermon today, thank you so much for joining us. Morning. If you are new, I'm Charlie.

Charlie Loften: 00:45

I'm the lead pastor here and really glad you are worshiping with us. Glad all of you are here today. And I just wanna back up some of the things that Ty said about Easter. It's next week, 08:30, ten, 11:30. If you are available, would really love for you to be able to serve and worship that day.

Charlie Loften: 01:01

And so if you're not signed up for a regular serving role on Sunday mornings, you can go to our Connect Desk and please find a place. It's just a great all hands on deck to just create an incredible experience for people who are new, people who are part of the church, but we just don't get to love on them or see them that often. It's just a great time for spiritual renewal for a lot of people, and we just want to love and serve the people that are here. And it's also just a great time for you to invite your friends, people that you know, people that are disconnected from church, from God. This is just a it's great week.

Charlie Loften: 01:35

People have more renewed spiritual interests in this time than they typically do throughout the whole year. And so just encourage you just to be praying about who in your orbit would God be leading you to just bring with you next Sunday on Easter? And just please be praying for that day, and we're looking forward to an incredible day of worship next Sunday. There's a couple of things for me. They're just like kind of these real vivid memories for me.

Charlie Loften: 02:07

And our anniversary is actually, we're taking an anniversary trip, so this kind of has it on my mind. We're taking an anniversary trip in about a week, and my wife and I will be celebrating thirty two years of marriage, which we're really excited about. And people, like normal people, you want to do ten, fifteen, every five years, do big like those are the big deals. But let me tell you, 32 mathematically is a significantly it's just a cooler number. And if you don't understand that intuitively, I don't know how to help you, but it is a power of two, two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty two.

Charlie Loften: 02:44

There's not been a power of two in sixteen years, and there won't be another one for 32. So I was a math major, and I told Heidi, it's like, I think we should celebrate this one big. And she was like, no, no, no, I don't want to go on a trip. And so now we, of course, she did. She's like, shit, I don't care, math nerd.

Charlie Loften: 02:59

If we're taking a trip, that's great. So anyway, we're heading next week, and I remember vividly, there's all the stress and emotion and all the things around the ceremony and getting ready for it, and it's just, it's so chaotic, and you're not really everything is about preparing for a ceremony, not necessarily being married. And I remember the feeling, we had the ceremony, and then we had the reception, and then we got on a limo that took us to the Little Rock Airport. And I remember this vividly, being on the plane flying to Dallas, and Heidi puts her head right here on my shoulder. And it was in that moment I was like, I'm married now.

Charlie Loften: 03:50

Like, I mean, I get he's like, I have some shared responsibility for another person. Like, I'm her husband, and there's expect I just remember just kind of having this little mild little freak out, not about her, not about marrying her, but just like, who decided it was Okay for somebody this young to get married, and now I've got all this responsibility? And fast forward a couple of years, probably, again, should have been more years, just a couple of more years when we have our first daughter. And there were complications there for both Heidi and for Maile, so we ended up being in the hospital for quite a few days. And you think that's bad.

Charlie Loften: 04:31

It wasn't great sleeping, but I'm telling you, the service is great. I mean, to have full time caregivers for your newborn is I recommend. I don't recommend the circumstances that let it there, but and so you kind of get used to that. And then when they finally discharged us she was born on the twentieth. It was pretty close to Christmas Eve.

Charlie Loften: 04:49

I it was maybe been the morning of Christmas Eve. And I remember, I put her in the little car seat and it clicked the little thing in there. We got home. I took it out, and I've got that carrier. And I remember feeling, like just even thinking, is it Okay to set the carrier down?

Charlie Loften: 05:08

Like, is that Okay? Like, is that bad? Do I have to take her out? Like, I didn't know what to do. And again, the panic starts to set in.

Charlie Loften: 05:15

I don't know that I was prepared for this. They were just such big, weighty transitions that you're really excited about on the front end, and then on the other side of it, you're just overwhelmed with the responsibility, the newness, the weightiness of it. And you just begin to just feel a lot of anxiety. Well, that's where kind of in this passage that we've been looking at over the last few weeks, it's kind of where the disciples find themselves. They're at this huge transition in their lives.

Charlie Loften: 05:55

They've been following Jesus for about three years now, and it was a very literal proposition for them. Jesus was here, they were here. He would go here, they would follow Him there, and He has now announced to them that I'm leaving. I'm not who you thought I was. They're about to arrest me.

Charlie Loften: 06:14

They're about to kill me. I'm not the political revolutionary that you thought I was going to be. I'm not here to reestablish some order in Israel and independence for us as a nation. What I'm doing is very different, and involves these series of events, and they don't understand. And they're grieving, and they're overwhelmed.

Charlie Loften: 06:32

And what Jesus has been trying to do from the very beginning, and we started in John 13, working our way forward, He is trying to prepare them. You are about to be on you're about to be without me here, and it is going to be difficult. It is going to be a challenge. You've got to put your mind around this this new responsibility that you're going to have, this this new way the world is going to view. You're going to have to get prepared for this, because it is coming.

Charlie Loften: 07:04

And I want to use this as an illustration, because I've been talking a lot of college basketball lately, and know not everybody's college basketball. And by the way, college basketball season's over. I don't care if there's some people say there's games today. Some people even say there were games yesterday. Don't no, it's over.

Charlie Loften: 07:18

Basketball season's over, and I want to show that I'm a well rounded individual, because as I was thinking about Jesus desperately trying to prepare His disciples, I was reminded of the very first video game I bought with my own money. My parents this was the 1989, I'd just gotten back from a youth trip late on a Saturday night, and my parents had flown out of town that morning with some friends to go to Hawaii. So I missed them, and they felt so bad that I wasn't getting to go to Hawaii. They bought me a Nintendo, which was great. I mean, oh no, please don't go for a week and leave me all alone with this Nintendo for a week, right?

Charlie Loften: 07:57

So I had a great week. But I didn't discover it until the next morning, Sunday morning, where everybody is expecting me to go to church, and there's this brand new Nintendo sitting on the bar. It was a challenge, but the rumor mill's too strong, and I went. But I just dreamed of buying my very first video game for this, The Legend of Zelda. And here's the picture, and this is kind of where it starts.

Charlie Loften: 08:24

It starts right you don't have anything, and you find this old man, and he's like, it is dangerous to go alone. Take this. And he gives you this little wooden sword, And you go out, and now you're about to go on this wild adventure. You don't know what's coming, but you do know you've been warned. It's dangerous.

Charlie Loften: 08:45

You cannot do this alone. You cannot do this unprepared. And we find ourselves here with Jesus here in John chapter 16 saying something very similar. This world is about to be very, very dangerous for you, and if you are not prepared, you're going to struggle. John chapter 16, starting verse one.

Charlie Loften: 09:10

All this I have told you so that you will not fall away. They will put you out of the synagogue. In fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or Me. I have told you this so that when their time comes, you will remember that I warned you about them.

Charlie Loften: 09:35

I did not tell you this from the beginning because I was with you, but now I'm going to him who sent me. And none of you asked me, where are you going? Like, listen, guys, I've been talking about this for a while now, and all these things that I'm for us, it's been a few weeks, so this is probably a few hours. All these things I'm telling is I don't want you to fall away. Things are about to get really difficult.

Charlie Loften: 09:59

It's going be a challenge. It's going to be it's going to be hard for you. There are actually going to be people out there that are going to murder you, and they think that by murdering you that they are actually doing a great service to God. That is what you are about to walk into, and honestly guys, I'm a little bit nervous for you. I don't want you to fall away.

Charlie Loften: 10:20

I don't want you to be mentally, emotionally, spiritually unprepared for what this big thing is that is about to happen to you. And so basically what He is telling them, which I think bears mentioning for us too, is this, we need to be prepared. We need to be prepared for what it really means to follow Jesus Christ. Again, it was a very literal thing for them. Then it becomes figurative, right?

Charlie Loften: 10:54

I'm a physically following Jesus. What does it mean to follow Him with Him not being physically here? That's all we've ever known. And so in some ways, we're a little more prepared, but we are still I feel sometimes we are still ill prepared for what comes. And this phrase that he says, I've told you this so you don't fall away, is a heartbreaking phrase for me.

Charlie Loften: 11:19

Because in addition to having been married almost thirty two years, I've been in some sort of ministry as a profession for all that time as well. And I remember the guys I went to college with, and we're kind of all planning on doing this together. And then right out of college, these friends, and we're doing all this together. And I've walked with so many people in various churches, really good friends, people that mean the world to me. And you live long enough, you do this long enough, and you just see so many people, and they just and they fall away.

Charlie Loften: 11:57

They never would imagine. They would never have thought. And the number of times I've sat down with people saying, listen, the way that you're thinking right now, the way that you're talking, these things that you're starting to believe, it's dangerous. And if you don't do something about it right now and kind of reorient yourself, you're gonna wake up a year from now, three years from now, five years from now, and you're going to be somebody that at this point in your life you can't imagine you would ever become. Sometimes I feel like we're not really prepared for what the world is throwing at us, and while we live in a different world than these disciples did, where there aren't necessarily people here actively trying to kill us, I do want you to understand that the world and its system, it opposes you being a devoted follower of Jesus.

Charlie Loften: 13:00

And I don't mean this in some conspiratorial way that sometimes can loom out there in the internet. Hey, they don't want you to be a Christian. They're trying to arrest you, and they're out to get you. I don't know that they're out to get you. But I do know this, that the world is like a river pushing you a particular direction, and it is not pushing you to become the the man or woman that God has called you to be.

Charlie Loften: 13:29

It is calling you to be infinitely more selfish, more self oriented, more more protective, less communal, more greedy, immoral. It is pushing you a certain direction, and all of these tempting ways that pushing it you to be this selfish person, even in a better way, a self reliant person, a self made person, a person who can do it themselves. There's all these subtle ways that the world and its systems are pushing you to be someone who is not living in a way that is dependent on Jesus, that is not living a life of kindness. And if you're not prepared, when out you of here and into that river out there, you're going to end up someplace you don't mean to be. And honestly, I think the thing that's most frustrating about this is how often I forget it.

Charlie Loften: 14:43

Like, I get up here, and I'll talk about it a lot. I'll talk about it a lot. Hey, it's dangerous out there. Take this, right? I mean, it's dangerous.

Charlie Loften: 14:51

Like, you need to put your faith in trust. Like, sometimes life will get you. Life is hard. It'll punch you. It's pushing.

Charlie Loften: 14:57

I'll say, and I forget. I forget. I think, oh, I've kind of got this under control now. And a new season of parenting, a new season of marriage, a new season of my job, a new season of just being old, right? And it just seems like life continues to surprise me.

Charlie Loften: 15:15

And even as someone who talks about this for a living, sometimes I feel unprepared. Here's thing, we'll just keep with the video game metaphor here for a little bit. I really can get into a video game, but what I like is a game that like, you have to work hard at it to be good. Like I work at it to become good. I want to be good at it.

Charlie Loften: 15:37

I'll work as hard as I need to to be good at this game, but then once I've done that, I want to just now I'm just good at it. I don't want it to keep being hard. I want to play some game that's always easy, but I want to be able to learn it, get good at it, and then just be good at it. That's what I want life to be. I've been doing life a long time, and I want to just work hard, be really good at it, put it in cruise control, and then just be good at it.

Charlie Loften: 16:07

But it's just not how it works. There's always something around the corner to distract you, to push you, to hurt you, to get you off course from becoming the man, the woman that God has called you to be, to live on the mission that God has called you to. And sometimes I just find myself unprepared. I want to coast. I want to have this mentality of like, I've got this.

Charlie Loften: 16:36

And maybe now and then I have to come back for some advice, but I've got this, and I don't have this. And we need to be prepared for all of the challenges that are out there, and this is what Jesus is trying to do for them. Verse six, rather, he's what he said, none of you asked me where you're going. Verse six, rather you are filled with grief because I've said these things. But very truly, I tell you, is for your good that I'm going away.

Charlie Loften: 17:08

Unless I go away, the advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment. About sin because people do not believe in me. About righteousness because I'm I'm going to the Father where you can see me no longer.

Charlie Loften: 17:29

And about judgment because the prince of this world now stands condemned. I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own, he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what yet is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.

Charlie Loften: 17:59

All that belongs to the Father is Mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from Me what He will make known to you. So you guys, man, you're you're not even asking Me. I'm talking about leaving. You're not even really asking good questions.

Charlie Loften: 18:15

You're not asking about where I'm going. You don't even seem particularly concerned about it. In fact, honestly, you're just kind of stuck in your own grief here about me not meeting your expectations. And that should sound a little familiar to us. We're not asking God the right questions to help us prepare and understand for what life needs to be, who we need to be.

Charlie Loften: 18:37

We're stuck in our own grief about how God doesn't meet our expectations. He's not doing what we wish He would do. He's not forming. He's not falling into this little box, creating this simple, easy path for life that we can just kind of easily walk behind. Instead, He's He seems to have some other agenda than my comfort, and that frustrates me.

Charlie Loften: 19:00

He's not doing what I want, and this is where the disciples are. What do you mean you're leaving? You can't leave. You're supposed to do this for us. He says, you don't seem curious.

Charlie Loften: 19:11

You're stuck. But even though you're not asking, let me tell you this. And this is going to be the second time he said it because

Charlie Loften: 19:19

we looked at it a couple

Charlie Loften: 19:19

of weeks ago. It's actually going to be better for you if I leave because when I leave, the Holy Spirit will come. And so we need to be prepared. We need to be prepared for the life that God has called us to. And the Holy Spirit is our guide.

Charlie Loften: 19:36

The advocate is what he says. It's the one who comes alongside you. We talked about this last week. One who is kind of a partner inside you that is strong advocate, a pusher, a motivator, a director of you. Last video game reference, mostly I'm doing this for Ty, who really doesn't like sports.

Charlie Loften: 19:58

He's the guy that was hosting a little bit earlier. You keep going into these Zelda games, and I assure you I've played all of them, in case you want to know what kind of person I am. There's one that's kind of one of the more famous ones where there's this little blue fairy that kind of is with you and kind of gives you all this advice. Anybody? Name?

Charlie Loften: 20:14

Name? Yeah, you are so much better than first service. I heard it at least two different places, right? They didn't know, or they were too shy to say. This is a little guy, like any time you would come across something new, he would go, bing, bing, bing, bing, and you could click, and then it would tell you what you're supposed to do, or give you some advice, tell you what was next in the quest.

Charlie Loften: 20:36

Now, I'm not going to delve into some Holy Spirit heresy to say that it is like a little blue fairy hanging out here.

Charlie Loften: 20:44

That is not what the

Charlie Loften: 20:45

Holy Spirit is like, so we'll just pause and move on. Anyways, but the idea is you're not going to know how to navigate this life, and you're going to need an advocate, someone to come alongside you, and the Holy Spirit is going to be that. That Holy Spirit is going to live inside you, and is going to teach you everything that you need to know. Teach you every every everything that you need everything that you need to know. And I love the way it's described here.

Charlie Loften: 21:18

When He comes, He's going to prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment. Again, this is two thousand years ago. Not This last week, or four years ago, or eight years ago, or whatever. Just two thousand years ago. So the world's wrong.

Charlie Loften: 21:37

You got the wrong idea about sin. Think sin isn't really an issue. Maybe think sin doesn't even really exist. Sin's not a thing. And it's wrong about righteousness.

Charlie Loften: 21:50

Doesn't believe that there is a right way to live. That may be right for you, may not be right for you, may be right for you, but you're wrong. Sin is real. There is a right way to live, and judgment is real. How you live is going to matter.

Charlie Loften: 22:07

He's going to get this is one of the primary things that he's going to do. He says, first for sin is people don't know. People don't believe in me. And that's one of one of the great things that the Holy Spirit does is to move outside in the hearts of people who don't know Jesus yet and to help them see their sin. You think you're living okay, you're not.

Charlie Loften: 22:32

You to get you need to orient yourself towards Jesus. And this is one of the things the Holy Spirit does, is help someone see that their sin is destructive and that they need Jesus. He says, and also going to come for righteousness, because I'm not going to be here anymore to tell you. At this point, if the guys didn't know how to live, or what was right, what was wrong, what was appropriate, what pleases God, what displeases God. Jesus was right there to tell them.

Charlie Loften: 23:01

He said, I'm going to be gone, but now this is something the Holy Spirit's going to do. You're not going to know sometimes what's right, what's wrong, what to do. You're going to get off. You've been oriented away from sin towards Jesus, but you want to live this righteous path. You want to be the man, the woman that God has called you to be, to live on the mission that God has called you to live, and he's going to help you stay on that path by convicting you about what is right.

Charlie Loften: 23:31

And ultimately, both the people who need to get oriented and the people who need to stay oriented towards Jesus, you're all gonna get convicted about judgment because ultimately, the world has been judged. It does matter how you live. It matters for your sake. It matters for the people around you. It matters.

Charlie Loften: 23:54

This is not inconsequential. The world may tell you that sin is a myth, that what is right, it depends on depends it just depends. And that your actions don't have eternal consequences. And the Holy Spirit is gonna come because we're all the world is wrong about on all counts. And individually and collectively is going to push us to live righteous lives for him.

Charlie Loften: 24:28

I also like the way that he uses words like he's gonna guide, so he's gonna repeat the things that he hears. It's it's it's a lot less forceful, gentler words. He's gonna remind you. He's gonna repeat things. He's going to guide.

Charlie Loften: 24:50

And there's an implication here that if you really are going to highly utilize the power and the voice of the spirit inside you, that you need to be giving the words of Jesus a louder voice in your life. You need to be consuming more of God's word. You need to be listening to it being preached and taught. You need to be reading it for yourself. You need to be studying it with groups of people.

Charlie Loften: 25:18

You need to be learning and growing so that when the opportunities come, when you find yourselves at crossroads, when you find yourselves at a difficult time, when you find yourself and the river of life is pushing on you so hard, the stronger the voice of the words of God that live in you, the more power the Holy Spirit will have to keep you steady as the world is pushing you. And He will guide us, lead us, direct us. He will guide us into all of the truth. Everything that we need, He'll lead us to. Verse 22, so with you, now is your time of grief, but I will see you again, and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.

Charlie Loften: 26:18

In that day, you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly, I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now, you've not asked for anything in my name, ask and you will receive and your joy will be complete. Though I have been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language, but will tell you plainly about my Father. And that day you will ask in my name.

Charlie Loften: 26:45

I'm not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. No, the Father Himself loves you because you have loved me, and I've believed that I have come from God. I came from the Father and entered the world, now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father. Now unlike kind of the first parts of this passage, you know, those first kind of a little more intuitive, this seems a little more complicated what Jesus is saying, so I'm just gonna kind of give you the bigger picture idea that I think Jesus is trying to communicate to them, and then we'll kind of come back to it, right? So life is gonna be difficult, right?

Charlie Loften: 27:24

We need to be prepared, and the Holy Spirit is our guide, and eternal life now and forever is found in Jesus. He says, now listen, guys, you're right now you're sad, and you're going to be sad for a little bit, but something's about to happen that you can't even possibly put your mind around. He's referencing his death and his resurrection. I'm going to die, and you're going be really sad. Then I'm going to come back, and the grease is going to go, and your joy will be immovable.

Charlie Loften: 28:00

And something amazing is going to happen on that day. You are going to be able to ask the father directly in my name, and you'll be able to get it. Not me asking on your behalf. Not you asking me. You directly to the father saying, God, I would love this.

Charlie Loften: 28:22

This would be great, and he he will hear you if you just ask him in my name. And that may not sound revolutionary to you, right? Oh yeah, you pray in Jesus' name. I get that, right? It's the only way to end a prayer, right?

Charlie Loften: 28:36

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, in Jesus' name, amen. That's just the way it works. That's a prayer. And God, of course, hears prayers. But it would have been revolutionary to them.

Charlie Loften: 28:50

The Father God, the creator of the universe, you could speak to him directly. You do not need a prophet. You do not need a mediator. You do not need a priest. You don't need you don't need someone to talk to Him on your behalf.

Charlie Loften: 29:03

You, regular person, you will be able to directly access God. All you have to do is tell him you know me, and he's going to love you. He's going to love you because you believed in me. And this thing that is about to happen is going to change everything. My death, my resurrection is going to remake the world.

Charlie Loften: 29:30

It's going to remake your world. And you're going to have access to God that you cannot put your mind, that you will not even be able to believe. All you have to do is ask. I'm not some rabbi. I'm not some teacher.

Charlie Loften: 29:47

I'm not some guru. I'm not somebody who has a unique moral insight into life. To limit Jesus to those sorts of things is to barely just scratch the surface of who he is. He says, you know, here's what you've come to understand. I have come from the father, and that is very different than God gave me a message.

Charlie Loften: 30:11

I'm a good person that God gives a thumbs up to. I like what I like this guy. You should listen to him. He's got some good ideas. It's not well, it's like you understand that I came from up here, and God sent me is different than I'm down here one of you, and God blesses me.

Charlie Loften: 30:31

Jesus is declaring himself to be somebody very different than some run of the mill prophet, or teacher, or priest, or guru, or whatever. He is the savior of the world, and life is found in him because of what he did on the cross. You don't find life by following his advice. Life is in him. And when we understand that, what Jesus Christ did to give me life through his death, when I understand now that I have direct access to the Father by asking him, and I know that he hears me, when I understand that the Holy Spirit lives in me and will guide and direct me into everything that I need to know and understand to live this life, then I am prepared.

Charlie Loften: 31:32

I am prepared for whatever this life might throw at me, whatever curveball, whatever trouble, whatever difficulty, whatever relentless pressure I might feel. I will have what I need to become and be the man, the woman that God has called me to be, and to live that mission of inviting people to know Him, connecting with one another, and sharing His hope with the world. Let me pray. God, I thank you for your son. God, I thank you for how how he tried to prepare his guys.

Charlie Loften: 32:18

I thank you for these words of encouragement. I thank you just for the the honesty. And, God, I thank you for the gifts. I thank you for your spirit that lives in us and the truth that he leads us to, to reminds us of. God, I thank you for Jesus' death on the cross that brings forgiveness for our sins and gives us access to you.

Charlie Loften: 32:49

That God, that we can pray right now and know that you hear, God, is a miracle we should never become too familiar with. And we're thankful for your son, Jesus Christ, who makes this possible. And God, and as our hearts get ready for Easter, as we are celebrating now the death that you died for us, the power of your Resurrection. God, I just pray that it would culminate in an incredible time of worship next week as we celebrate together with so many more of our friends and some new friends. That God, that we would all be oriented to live life for you, to stand strong in a river that is pushing hard against us, to be the men and women, God, that you've called us to be.

Charlie Loften: 33:40

And it's in your son's name that we pray. Amen. Thanks again for joining us on our sermon podcast, and you can learn more about us at thegrovechurch.org. If you go to thegrovechurch.org/connect, there's a form you could fill out. Just let us know that you've been listening.

Charlie Loften: 33:56

And if you want to dig deeper on some of these topics that we cover in our sermon podcast or just another issues of dealing with culture or theology, those kinds of things, you can check out our Cultivate podcast. It's on the same feed. However you found this particular podcast. So again, this is Charlie, the lead pastor at The Grove, and thank you so much for joining us.