Sermons | FBC Boerne

Recharge | The Holy Spirit | Fall 2025: Week 9

• FBC Boerne • Season 1 • Episode 9

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We trace a single thread from the cleft of the rock to the cross. Moses begs, Show me your glory, and God answers by proclaiming his name—compassionate and just, merciful and holy. Paul says we now behold that same glory with unveiled faces as the Spirit transforms us into the image of Christ. We unpack why spiritual experience is never severed from revelation, how Ephesians 3 calls us to grasp the vast dimensions of Christ’s love, and why Galatians 3 warns us not to swap grace for grit. Along the way, we break down the difference between a mediator and an advocate, and we let that word reshape how we fight shame, face hardship, and return to joy.

This is a practical path, not a vague vibe. We talk about beholding Jesus where Scripture shows him: in the gospel that reveals God’s heart, justice, mercy, and holiness meeting at the cross. We offer simple ways to plumb the depths—slow reading, focused prayer, honest repentance, and trusted resources like Gentle and Lowly and Everyday Gospel—to turn moments of insight into a steady life with God. If you’ve been chasing a spiritual high, consider a better pursuit: a clear sight of Christ that the Spirit loves to bless.

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SPEAKER_01:

Well, good evening. Happy Wednesday to you. Before we get started, let me make two quick announcements. One, we sent out a text earlier this week in regards to so that the area that we went to on a mission trip to India about a week and a half ago. A house church on Sunday in that region. We actually met some of the leaders from that church. A group of Hindu radicals attacked them while they were meeting. And when the police showed up to break it up, they arrested 12 of the Christians and kept them in jail. And we sent that text out. You guys have been praying for that. The update of that is that about 50 believers showed up to the police station, gave testimony to their faith in Jesus Christ, that they are Christians. And amidst all the commotion, the police didn't like all that attention. So they released 10 of the 12 believers. So good news on that regard. But two of them, the pastor and one other, are still being kept, and the police are demanding a bribe. The uh Christians are refusing to pay the bribe, but that is the current situation as it stands. So you please continue to pray for that. Um the police are threatening to trump up charges, just come up with something, and uh the Christians are refusing, okay? Um also at the conclusion of Recharge Tonight, as you guys break up to choir and go to different classes, um, I'm gonna be making myself available for the foreseeable future right after recharge. If you need prayer, I would love to pray with you and over you if you have situations. If you came in with a heavy heart this evening, um, I would love to pray with you. Okay. All right, show this picture, Miss Rhonda. All right, check that out. That that is me and my future wife. So when I was back in 2001, uh I went to India. I was in India for three months on a mission trip. And uh I was over there doing engineering work. By the way, this is also proof that once upon a time I did have hair, okay? And let me just say this pretty good looking hair, alright? So you could imagine what it would look like. So I'm in India for three months on a mission trip. And back in 2001, there uh there was no internet where we were staying. Um Lane and I had been dating for a year and a half, and now I was gonna spend now we're gonna spend three months apart. And so our only form of communication primarily was was email. But in order for me to email her, I had to go down to the local internet cafe and used to have to pay money to get online to check my email. So you can imagine these trips were uh they were they were planned. They they might be every other day that I could break away from work. I was there to do engineering work and go down to the internet cafe, check my email. Now, obviously, just I want you to picture right the correspondence just wanting to hear from her, wanting to communicate back to her. And on special occasions, I would save up. Uh I took some of the money that I had and and I would purchase a calling card. And only about maybe three times over that those three months was I able to call to phone home and communicate with her. Imagine how important and how special those meeting spots were for me and her. I share that with you as an illustration because um this second half of our uh sermon series on Wednesday nights on the Holy Spirit is on meeting spots where the Holy Spirit has promised to meet you so that you can experience God in the fullness of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit permanently indwells us, but there are particular spots and occasions that you know the Spirit of God has promised to meet you. And the first one that I want us to look at tonight is the Spirit of God promises to meet you in the gospel, in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Let's go back to the Old Testament in Exodus chapter 33. There is an incredible scene that uh most of you are probably aware of. There's a particular moment where Moses, after Moses interceding for Israel, Moses has this incredible tender moment with God, and he it's like an explosion of praise. He says to God, God, show me your glory. I want to see your glory. I want to see more of you. And God says, Okay, you can't see my face, but I'll let you see my back. And Moses is called up into the cleft of the mountain, and God says, I will put my hand over you and I will walk by and I will allow you to see my back. Now, after this account, Moses comes down from the mountain and his face is shining like the sun. All of Israel is freaking out. They're like, Moses, put a veil over your face, it's weirding us out. I can't stand to look at you because your face is shining. Now, when you read the account, though, of what it was like, okay, you're reading along, you're like, what must it have been like? All the scripture gives you is that when God passes by, you don't get any description of God. You don't say, and his back was full of muscles and it looked like Hulk or anything like that. This is what you get. The Lord declares his own name to Moses. It says, God declared his name, and it says, The Lord, the Lord God, who is gracious and overwhelming with compassion and loving kindness, who shows his loving kindness and mercy to thousands upon thousands, but will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. It's simply the declaration of God's name. Here's the tie I want you to see real quick. That is that to experience God in the fullness is simultaneously tied to experiencing the character and to have the revelation of who God is exposed. Those are not separate. You don't have this euphoric experience over here detached from the realization of who God is. Okay? Now the New Testament, Paul, picks up on this exact scene with Moses. Now, I would imagine every one of us in here, after reading Exodus 33, would say, I would give anything to have been Moses up in the cleft of that mountain.

SPEAKER_00:

To see God's back, to have God declare his name to me, to have your face shining like the sun.

SPEAKER_01:

The New Testament, Paul, in 2 Corinthians chapter 3, picks up that exact story, okay, but listen, look at this on the screen. As Paul articulates, look at what he says, he says, and we all, we are now with unveiled face, okay, the veil is off, and we are beholding the glory of the Lord. And we all are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. In other words, believer, again, remember in Moses' account, the declaration, the experience of God's spirit, and that overwhelming experience is not detached from the truth and the declaration of who God is. But listen, believer, the Old Testament looked forward to the New Testament when the exact replication, the exact revelation of God would come in the form of his son and would unfold to us the fullness of God's character. In other words, the Spirit of God, believer, meets you in the gospel of Jesus Christ, the fullest revelation and picture of the love of God and the mercy of God that meet in the cross of Christ and all that Jesus Christ is. Here it says, we have unveiled face and we are beholding the glory of the Lord. Okay? We are beholding the glory of the Lord. I want to give you another verse. These three verses that I'm about to give you, they are hammering this exact same point that the Spirit of God promises to meet you in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Listen to Paul as he prays in Ephesians chapter 3, verses 16 through 19. Okay, this is a lengthy prayer prolongs that I started in the middle because Paul is praying for you, okay, that God would grant you and I, believer, power through his spirit, so that, okay, so this is it. Do you want to experience God? Okay, this is what Paul is praying, that you through the Spirit would begin to experience what? That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend. Comprehend what? With all the saints. What is the breadth and length and height and depth, that you would know the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Do you want to experience the Spirit of God? It's attached to the revelation of who God is, that you might be able to see all the dimensions of the love of God in Jesus Christ for you. That's Paul's prayer. That the Spirit would unfold, open the eyes of our heart, that we would see the gospel in its fullness, all that Jesus has done, all that Jesus is for you. The Spirit meets you in that knowledge so that your heart, right? You drink this much, a thimble full of God's love. You understand this much, and there's an ocean out there. And this is his prayer. I pray that you would understand how absolutely big and magnificent all the dimensions that is God's love for you. Or again, yet again, in Galatians. If you've ever read the book of Galatians, in the very beginning, it's a church that has left the gospel and they've returned back to works righteousness. And Paul writes them and he's like, What has happened to you? How come you have left the gospel? And in part of his argument, in chapter 3, verses 1 through 5, this is the way he argues. He says, Listen, did you receive the Spirit of God by works? No, no, no, you didn't. You received the Spirit of God through the gospel. So what do you think is gonna happen now? Do you think after receiving the Spirit through the gospel, God then expects you to live out this life through your works? What's wrong with you? Do you not understand? Of course, you started by the Spirit in the gospel, and you're supposed to continue through the Spirit in the gospel of Jesus Christ. So, what is the final application for all of us? That is, if you want to meet the Spirit of God, if you want to taste, if you want to experience the Spirit of God, plumb the depths of the gospel. Plumb the depths of the gospel. Understand. Contemplate, okay, the love of God in the cross of Christ. Contemplate the justice of God, the holiness of God in the cross of Christ. Contemplate these things. Search them. Think diligently about them. Listen to different words that are in the scripture. When the scripture says that Jesus is your advocate, what is that talking about? It's an incredible scene. Just that one word in 1 John when it says that you now have an advocate, Jesus Christ. It means, do you guys know what a mediator is? A mediator is someone who stands in between. So imagine you have you have a judge and then you have us. A mediator is someone who stands in between and talks back and forth to both sides. But an advocate, an advocate is someone who comes all the way on your side and argues on your behalf. That's what the scripture says that Jesus Christ is, that He is your advocate. So if you want to experience the Holy Spirit, if you're like, I want an experience, plumb the depths of the gospel. Contemplate, open your mind and your heart. Real quick, I gotta close. I'm out of time. I have two books here that I highly, highly recommend, just on an everyday reading level. This first one is called Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortman. This other one is called Everyday Gospel by Paul David Tripp. But it is just continual good news of the gospel for you to take it in in bite-sized or illustration form, just that you would understand the depth of the gospel. Pray with me. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the truth. That the gospel is the revelation of your heart, that there is no God like you who is overwhelming love and overwhelming justice and holiness. There is no God like you who spans all of eternity. Everything is from you and through you and to you. And you have revealed yourself to us in the good news of your Son. Who are we? That you are mindful of us, that you would draw near to us, and yet the truth of the matter is, is this is the kind of God you are. Help us through your spirit to meet with you in the gospel. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.