Michael Koulianos emphasizes the holiness and extremity of the Holy Spirit's character, reminding us that He is not only the Holy Spirit but also the Spirit of the Father. He explains that understanding the Holy Spirit's holiness leads to a deeper relationship with God, who is more loving, gracious, and patient than we can comprehend. Koulianos highlights the importance of being led by the Holy Spirit as a sign of true sonship, and he encourages believers to approach God as their Father, emphasizing the need for a genuine relationship rather than a transactional one. He concludes by stressing that our connection to the Father is rooted in our relationship with Jesus, facilitated by the Holy Spirit.

Take your Bibles to Matthew chapter 10, verse 20. There are so many titles for the Holy Spirit, and He accomplishes so many things. It's good to have Court here, by the way. Let's let Court know we love her. Welcome back home. So many titles. This morning I want to cover some ground, if that's okay. You all still love your Bibles, right? But last Sunday I talked to you about the holiness of the Holy Spirit. And I think that's a very overlooked truth, that He is holy. I heard somebody say, remember He is the Holy Spirit, not the Hollywood Spirit. How true that is. He is called the Holy Spirit for a reason. One, because He is perfectly holy. But I also believe He's called the Holy Spirit to us so that we would actually begin, or at least attempt to begin, to understand His holiness. When you walk with the Holy Spirit, you're going to discover very quickly that He is more holy than you ever imagined. Write this down if you're taking notes. Hopefully you are. I would say type it into your phone, but that might be a temptation for you to scroll, at which point the angel of the Lord will come and mess with you. Write this down. God is more extreme in every aspect of His character than I realize. I'll say it again. God is more extreme in every aspect of His character than I realize. For instance, He is more holy than I could ever dream of. Way more. We are not even experiencing a drop in the ocean with regards to His holiness. God is also more gracious than we could ever imagine. How many of you know the reason you're in this room born again and filled with the Spirit is not because of your plan? You do get that, right? Sometimes we actually fall into believing that. It's due to my diligence and my commitment that I am where I am. No, no, no, it's really not. Do we seek the Lord? Of course we seek the Lord, but we only seek the Lord because of His invitation. This whole thing is His idea. To believe otherwise is to make Jesus plan B. How many of you believe Jesus coming to the earth incarnate was God's plan? Okay, I won't go any further with that. If you want to go deeper, we'll go, you can just come to Jesus School. But this probably isn't the setting to go much deeper. But the gospel is God's message. Do you know who the first person to ever preach the gospel was? God. In Genesis 3, verse 15, He told the serpent that someone was coming through the seed who would crush his head through the bruising of his heel. The early church called that moment, that verse, the Protoevangelion, the first gospel. And that's what we call that verse. So the first person to declare the gospel was the Lord Himself. Come on, that's amazing. It's also amazing that He's entrusted us with that message, His message. It's a message so holy that He would not allow the angels to preach it in the book of Acts, to Cornelius' household. Household. He sent Peter. This is a holy privilege to preach the gospel, the gospel of Jesus, which is the gospel of grace in that order, by the way. Some people have turned the gospel of grace, I should say they've forgotten that it's the gospel of Jesus and only focused on the fact that it's the gospel of grace, therefore making grace Jesus Himself. Jesus is grace, but grace is not Jesus. There's a big difference. I heard somebody say, I came to the altar and hundreds found grace, and in my head I thought, I hope they found Jesus at the same time. Because anything disconnected from Jesus becomes idolatrous, even if it's a moral truth. The moment you sever a branch from the vine, the vine can become idolatrous. The branch will become idolatrous the moment it's disconnected from the Lord. If you grew up in a holiness movement, you may have discovered at some point that having your hair in a bun was as holy as the Lord Himself. Or not wearing deodorant was somehow pleasing to the Lord. Remember, He likes a sweet fragrance. You may have begun to believe that, you know, wearing a certain dress made you more accomplished in the spirit. That's what happens when doctrine disconnects from the person. You follow me? So regarding the Lord's character, He is more extreme on every front than we could ever imagine. He's more loving than we could ever imagine. The love of God is endless. Ryan just read it from Romans chapter 8. Did you not look at those words? If every angel stood before the Lord… Paul is saying, I am persuaded that neither depth… And then he mentions angels. Do you know how many angels there are? Billions, if not trillions. If every one of them stood before the Lord and said, Jenna is guilty, He would not hear it. You need to give the Lord praise. If every principality stood before Jesus and said, Do not accept Michael, He will not hear it. If every saint in heaven and every demon in hell, the devil himself who does accuse us, if they all stood in one massive crowd that the earth has never seen the likes of, billions and trillions of beings. If Jeremiah and Moses and Paul and Isaiah and Peter stood before the Lord and said, Lord, take issue with them and accuse us and try to hold us to our past life of sin, Jesus will not hear it. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. This is amazing. This is amazing. That is the extremity of His love. He is a greater Savior than we could ever imagine. He saves us to the uttermost. He is a specialist in saving the most broken. Do you know God doesn't choose you and your calling based on your resume? If there's nothing wrong with a good resume, but if your resume improves, you're just catching up to the calling that already came forth because of His love. Do you know God glories in raising people? Don't seem so accomplished. My greatest fear in life was public speaking. And I do it a lot now. God gets great glory in our weakness. He's made strong in it. God's not interested in your resume on paper. He's interested in your history with Him. This is the love of God. Jesus saves with an extremely fiery loving heart. He saves the worst of the worst. How many of you are praying for loved ones who don't seem to want anything to do with Jesus? Lift both hands. Look, the whole church. Do not give up. Do not give up. Hold the scriptures before the Lord. Insert their names when it comes to saving promises. How many of you have children you know are called to do great things for God and they just don't seem to want anything to do with it? Don't you dare. Keep your hands up. I just want to see. Okay. Don't you dare give up. Do you know what the Lord said? Will the Son of Man find faith on the earth when He returns? Jesus saves us from the pig pen. Jesus, nobody here, listen very carefully, was saved in a tamed manner. Nobody here was saved from anything less than sin and death. There's no one here who found glorious light outside of a past filled with thick darkness. He saves us from the worst of circumstances. And the worst of circumstances is often ourselves. The demons are easy for Him. We're a project at times. Amen. So the Lord is more extreme. He's more patient than we could ever imagine. But He's also more, how do I say it properly? He's more patient. But He also holds us to a very high standard all at the same time. He takes life and gives life. This is the Lord. His fire will burn you up and His gentle balm will heal your soul. He's so extreme in every direction. And it's that extremity, that aspect of His nature that pulls us in opposite directions, that wounds us and makes us want to love Him. For instance, Jesus is perfectly man. He is not 88% man. He is the most, I should say this, there is no man to have ever lived who is more man than Jesus. He is 100 million percent man. At the same time, 100 million percent God, 100 million percent is a small percentage in comparison to who He truly is. And in heaven, we are going to be blown away by the fact that our eyes will behold the God who became man and remained man. The incarnate Christ, who is still incarnate, will blow you away in glory for billions and trillions of years. We are all going to be shocked at the core that the Ancient of Days has skin and sits on a throne and His hands are still pierced and His feet still have holes and His side still carries a wound. All in one, all in one person. It's going to wound us. Hopefully it's wounding us now. Hopefully it's wounding you while you're listening. That's the whole point of the scriptures, is that our hearts would burn within us. Jesus is more on every front than we could ever imagine. There is no one like Him, period. Period. There's nobody who even comes close. And that's why I say, you know, maybe some of you really burn for politics or really burn for this or that. I'm not saying people don't have assignments. But what I do want to say clearly is that Jesus Himself is unto nothing else. We don't come to Jesus to get what we want out of His being. During election year, the church seems to really fall in love with Him, to get the right person elected. Now, I'm not saying, don't misunderstand me, I've said this before. I'm not saying you shouldn't vote according to the scriptures. You should. But I want to be very clear. Jesus Himself is not a bridge to a human. He stands alone. He stands alone. He's amazing. He is amazing, I say. You know, corporate leaders, political leaders, they may have entourages and staffs and assistants. He has the seraphim and the cherubs crying thrice holy forever and ever and ever and ever and ten thousands upon ten thousands at the throne saying on repeat for eternity, worthy is the man who is slain. There's no one like Jesus. On our best day, our accomplishments are seasonal. He, my friends, is eternal. There is no one like Him. Do not get confused. Do not get confused. Jesus is unto nothing except the Heavenly Father. We don't fall in love with Jesus so that we can get what we want done on earth. We fall in love with Jesus because of who He is. We are the sheep of His pasture. Say Amen. Amen. I'd tell you to slap your neighbor, but it's Father's Day. Let's quickly talk about the Holy Spirit on Father's Day. I want to talk to you about the Spirit of the Father. Write that down. The Spirit of the Father, Matthew 10 verse 20. I'm going to give you a bunch of scripture this morning. That's okay, right? Matthew 10 verse 20, for it is not you who speak, but it is the Spirit of your Father who speaketh in you. Now the context here is Jesus saying, don't worry about what you're going to say when you're persecuted. Does anybody here have trouble remembering chapter and verse, but you do remember the scriptures? Raise your hand. Okay, that's me. Only when I'm under the anointing do I remember chapter and verse really well. But for the most part, I do have scripture in my soul, a lot of it. But I'll hear it like, you know, if you grew up in church, you probably heard this. Hey, how you doing, man? And some of us grew up in such a bizarre setting that we couldn't even answer like humans. Really. If someone was doing horrible, you ask them how they're doing, they go, I'm blessed and highly favored. Their leg's cut off. There's a bullet wound in their shoulder. Their marriage is falling apart. Someone blew their car up on the way to church. They can see out of one eye. And then, how are you doing? I'm blessed and highly favored. It's like we refuse to say, Jesus, I want to see. Like the blind person did. I'm blind and I want to see. It became illegal in our faith setting to actually say, I'm jacked up and I need help. Right? Okay, that's one way. Or maybe you bumped into people and you'd say, just like, hey, how are you? Which usually requires great or not so great. Maybe they answer to you like this. Oh, you know me, bro. I'm just living out Second Chronicles 6.8. And you have two options in that moment. Look like an idiot because you don't know Second Chronicles 6.8. You can go, what are you talking about? At which point they'll probably think you're a heathen. Right? Or you just nod and lie. Great verse. Yeah, yeah. And try to keep the convo moving. Right? We've all been there. Jesus is here saying that the day will come where you'll be challenged and you have to stand before certain people. Don't figure it out prior. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of your Father will give you the things to say. Have you ever been there? Okay. So say this. The Holy Spirit is as much God as the Father. The Holy Spirit is as much God as the Son. Therefore, he is the Spirit of the Father. Hallelujah. All right. John 3, verse 34. For he whom God has sent speaks the words of God. Speaking of Jesus, for he gives the Spirit without measure. So we are given the Spirit by our Heavenly Father. John 15, 26. Look how kind I'm being. I'm actually giving you all of the verses in order. So all you have to do is take a hard right. You don't have to be exposed right now. You know, that person next to you may or may not be looking at your Bible to see if you know your way around it. Don't worry. Oh, the trauma of growing up in church. Pastor's going to look at me. John 15, verse 26. When the Helper comes, that's the Holy Spirit, whom I will send to you from the Father. That is the Spirit of truth who proceedeth from the Father. He will testify about me. So the Holy Spirit eternally proceedeth from the Father because he is the Spirit of the Father. This is very important. Why is this important? Have you ever heard a teaching on the love of the Father or the Father's love? Raise your hand if you have. Okay. If it was void of Jesus, it was not a proper teaching on the Father's love. And I've heard many of them. I've heard many teachings on the Father's love, many teachings on the blessing of the Father. But if they fail to mention Jesus, it cannot be the Father's love because the Bible says, For God so loved the world that he sent his Son, the Father's divine expression of love. Because remember, Jesus came, John teaches us, from the bosom of the Father. His origin is the heart of the Father. In other words, Jesus is the love of the Father manifested. So in many ways, in fact, not in many ways, in all ways, Jesus settled the score. Jesus clarified much mystery. Prior to Jesus, many people wondered, what is God like? Hebrews 1 teaches us this. That in times past, God spoke to the patriarchs and the fathers, right? But in these last days, God has spoken to us by his Son. Or another way to say it is, God has spoken Son unto us. Jesus himself is, listen carefully, the perfect expression of the Father's heart. Therefore, he is the perfect expression of the Father's love. Why am I bringing Jesus up right now? Because there is only one way to discover Jesus. And there's only one way to discover the Father, by Jesus, through Jesus. What did Jesus say? No one comes to the Father but by me. Amen? All right. But the only way to find Jesus, friends, is by the Spirit. That's what Jesus just said in John 15, 26. He will testify of me. So the Spirit brings you to Jesus. Jesus introduces you to the Father. The Father is so amazingly in love and in a holy way, proud of who his Son is. He then reintroduces you to Jesus. And then you want to discover Jesus more. And then you discover through the scriptures that that requires a life in the Spirit. And you are stuck in this divine romance, this holy cloud, where you discover the humility of the Trinity who is constantly going, look at them, look at him, look at him, look at him, look at him, look at him. Wouldn't it be nice if God's children said, look at that person, look at that. Our fallen nature says, here I am. I've arrived. I'm the anointed, man of God of the hour. It's me. Don't we all need help? Yes. Say, he's the Spirit of the Father. Romans 8, 14. Are you enjoying this? Romans 8, 14. For all who are led by the Spirit of God, listen carefully, these are the sons of God. If you're going to be a son, by default, you must have a father. I want you to get this for a moment. This is a perfect day to talk about this. The great I am is your father. Now, many of you may have grown up in a bad scenario with your earthly father. I've heard many people say that your relationship with your earthly father can often determine your relationship with your heavenly father. Fair enough. But I also want to say this, that regardless of your experience with your earthly father, your heavenly father can write a brand new story. We tell our students that all the time, and I want to say it to you guys, our church family. I have great compassion for children who grow up in an unhealthy family environment. And I'm not minimizing that, but I am saying that the moment you receive Jesus, you are baptized into his body, and you can step into a healthy whole family experience in the body of Christ. The Bible teaches that parents will leave you, but though my mother and father forsake me, you will never forsake me. He is a faithful father. Isn't that amazing? So from now on, when you say, Father, when you pray, I don't want it to be a religious cliche. One of the reasons we started Jesus School is to populate the kingdom. Many students come and get married, and they have babies. It's a great way to grow the kingdom. And it's awesome watching students meet each other and get married, and then, you know, knock a few out and grow the church. It's awesome. It's a great way to do it. It's biblical, I tell them. One time, Lou Engle came in, first year, he came in to preach, and it was all about how Christians don't have enough babies. It was our first year. I thought he was going to teach on prayer. It was so funny, because he had called a fast, and then he confessed before our first year students that he broke his fast on the way to teach that morning at Dunkin' Donuts. He said he tried to rebuke the pink sign, but he couldn't. Lou came in, and basically, I don't even know, he went through the genealogies and covenant and all this, and marriage and having children. And finally, I had to say after, Lou, none of these people are married, barely. Like, let's start there. He goes, oh, I should. Yeah, you're right, you're right. But Jesus School has become a wonderful breeding ground. But when your children call your name, listen carefully, with a desire to spend time with you, it melts the human heart. The door should always be open to our children to come be with us. How much more does it mean to our Heavenly Father when we want to spend time with Him? I want to correct something. If you think that it's your perfection that would cause God to want to spend time with you, you haven't heard the gospel. God doesn't wait on our improvement to open the door to us. It is His opening of the door that perfects us. Do you follow me? Some of us are like, I sin too often to open my Bible. If you opened your Bible, it would burn out your sin. Are you getting it? You shouldn't take communion, for instance, in unrepentant sin. It's dangerous. But if you can say in the depths of your soul, I have confessed it, I hate it, I am on a journey, I've repented from it. To not come to the table is to actually halt the freedom process. It's not our perfection that sanctifies the bread and the wine. It's coming to the table that brings us closer to Jesus and births a life of holiness in our heart through the sacraments and through the blessed scriptures. I don't want you to get lost in this whole thing. You have a Father in heaven. Righteous, He's perfect. Holy, beyond our imagination. Almighty God, yes, Almighty God. But He's also our Father. That's why Jesus said, don't call any man, speaking of the Pharisees, Father. Because He was getting to their source. He wanted the Jews to know, you have one source. You have one origin, your Father. Only call God Father, speaking of origin or Genesis or our beginning. Say this, Lord, thank you that the door is open to me. You are my Father. I want you now, when you say Father, I want you to give it a moment when you're praying and let that word add moisture to your soul. Don't rush through it. Sit on it for a little, Father. When the disciples asked Jesus, teach us to pray. Don't you find it amazing that they didn't say, teach us how to walk on water? Teach us how to multiply bread. That was really cool, Lord. We'd like to learn that. Our markets would explode and we'd all be super rich. They didn't say, teach us how to cast out death. They didn't say, teach us how to cast out devils. They got to the source of who He was, His fellowship with the Father. And there must have been something going on. Well, not must. We know there was. But they discovered there was something going on on those mountaintops, on those hills, on Him getting away to be with the Father that caused all of those amazing miracles. They went to the source. I find that very interesting. And Jesus doesn't hesitate to answer it. They said, Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples to pray. That also tells me that Discipleship 101 is not memorizing a manual. Discipleship 101 is teaching people to pray. And prayer is not limited to a list. That's the shallow end of the pool. That's like, that's the kiddie pool. That's the part of the pool Court loves. She's always, no, not spiritually. I heard you love kiddie pools. All right. That's the shallow end. You came, you finally came, so I had to mess with you. It's the shallow end. I'm not saying don't have a list. I have one, but it's 99% a thank you list. And it's written out. Because I don't ever want to fall into a lack of gratitude. Because according to Romans 1, a life of sin is connected to a lack of worship and a lack of gratitude. If you want to fall into a horrible life of sin, start to become unthankful. So that's just the front. That's the entry. That's like, it's okay, but it's just elementary. Okay. Jesus says, when you pray, comma, say. Which also tells me that praying is not limited to saying. When you pray, say. Too much for you this morning? It's him telling us there's much more to prayer than saying. Saying is part of praying. So when you do the big thing, here's the little thing, saying. When you pray, say, our father. That also introduces this truth to me that I touched on last week. He's not just my father. Because if he's your father, I actually have to be nice to you. It's not illegal to say, my father. But Jesus just doesn't open the message with my father. He says, our father. Why are the two connected? Because I can only go as, well, I should say this. My inability to reconcile with Aaron if we have an issue will affect my prayer life with the father. I can't go as far into the depths of the spirit as I want to go if I'm unforgiving to Aaron. So he connects the two. And how many of you met spiritual people who think they know everything? Who have no clue how to reconcile relationships? Yet they glory in the presence of God, but there's no fruit. They're know-it-alls. They think they understand everything. Nobody can correct them. Yes or no? Nobody can. They're never wrong. And the reason they're never wrong is because they know their father. But the moment you meet your father, he tells you to fix it with your brother and sister. Amen? He's the spirit of our father. Let me give you one more verse, and then I'm going to pray with you. Is this okay this morning? Okay. I'm telling you, listen, there's something holy that happens. It happens to me almost every day. I say, father. And this do comes upon my heart. That's what I want for you. I don't want you to go, father, and then keep it moving. Don't meditate on the fact that you have a father whose arms are open wide, proofed by Calvary's tree, when Jesus' arms were suspended open wide. Let me revisit this verse. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God. That means we don't use him. Are you hearing me this morning? We do not use the Holy Spirit. Even if the statement ends with shakababba or ho or wow or so good. You can't use him. Whoa, you don't get to. You don't shoot him out of your little gun called your hand. It's hilarious to me. It's comical. We don't store him up and just choose when to shoot him out. What are we doing? He is the Spirit who hovered over the face of the deep and created the world. He is the Spirit who fills the wheels within the wheels. He is the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead. He is the Spirit that killed Ananias and Sapphira. You know he didn't. He would never do that. It's there. They got smoked for trying him. And Peter said you have not lied to men but to God. And this is what you get. You're dead now. And he said those who have come to take your body who took your husband's are taking yours too. How'd you like to be an usher in those meetings? Another one died. Sliding them right on out. We all want the glory until we discover he's holy. We don't have that in our usher training. This is how you grab ankles and pull them out. Stack up their bodies. It's incredibly holy. We don't use him. Listen carefully. We are led by him. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. Proof of sonship. I've said this too many times but I want you to get it. Listen carefully. Proof of sonship is not you saying it. Proof of being a child is not you saying I am a child. The proof is being led of the Spirit according to the book of Romans. So remember this. As long as you're following the cloud, as many as are led. In other words, they are under lordship. They do not call their shots for their own life. As many as are led by the Spirit, these are how you discover. This is how you discover who they really are. Remember this. Did Jesus choose to walk into the wilderness on his own accord? Yes and no. He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness and he did say yes. Yes, he did. But what is the pattern in the life of Jesus? Where the Spirit leads, he follows. So this is where we're introduced to true sonship. Listen carefully. Which is absolutely connected to lordship. You want to get to the place. Listen carefully. In your spiritual life where you relinquish your vote.