The Power of Both | Pastor Noah Ray | Sunday Service

We're gonna continue in this.

We are in week four of our series, The God Who Gives, where we are taking time throughout this summer to really study the person of the Holy Spirit.

The gift that the Holy Spirit is to us.

How many of we need the Holy Spirit in our life?

And all the different facets and forms that the Holy Spirit takes.

We've taken time this week, or this the last four weeks, to really lean into who the Holy Spirit is, and we're gonna do that today.

Stand with me.

I want you to go to 1 Corinthians chapter 2.

1 Corinthians 2 · chapter mention

1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 9.

1 Corinthians 2:9

We're gonna read for just a few verses.

1 Corinthians chapter 2, verses 9.

1 Corinthians 2:9

We're gonna read through verse 14.

This is Paul talking, and he's talking about who the Holy Spirit is.

And he says this, he says, However, it is written, as it is written, what no eye has seen, and what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived, the things God has prepared for those who love him.

Can I just pause right here and say, God has great things for your life?

God's got great plans for your life, big purposes.

These things God has revealed to us by his spirit.

The spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.

Verse 11 and 12.

For who knows a person's thoughts except their own spirit within them?

In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God.

So that we may understand, everybody say, understand what God has freely given us.

Verse 13 and 14.

And this is what we speak, not in words taught to us by human wisdom, but in words taught to us by the Spirit.

Explaining spiritual realities with spirit-taught words.

The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, but considers them foolish and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.

Man, I'm I'm pumped to bring a word to you this morning.

The title of my message today is The Power of Both.

The Power of Both.

Will you turn to your neighbors and just say, you need both today?

You need both today.

I want to spend this morning talking about two things that I think we need desperately.

Will you bow your heads?

I'm going to pray for us.

Father, I pray this morning.

God, that you would speak to us clearly.

God, I'm asking for a moment today where you'd move me aside.

God, and your people would hear your words from your mouth today.

God, I pray a fresh infilling of your spirit for your people.

We ask all this in Jesus' mighty name.

Amen and amen.

You may be seated.

I have learned in life that some things are better separate, but some things are just better together.

Okay.

Some things in life are good separate, but some things in life are really good together.

Okay?

Let's talk about uh food here for just a moment.

Because I think when I wrote this message, I was hungry.

Okay.

So let's just go here.

Um, peanut butter is good on its own.

Jelly, y'all know where I'm going with this, is good on its own.

But when you put them together, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, don't leave me on an island up here by myself.

I'm here.

Listen, hot take, I think peanut butter and jelly sandwiches get better the older you get.

And I'm not talking about them crustable kinds, I'm talking about you homemade peanut.

Chips are good on their own.

Salsa is good on its own.

But you put chips and salsa together.

Somebody's gonna get saved before we even do an altar call this morning.

All right, here we go.

Apple pie is good.

I hope in ten minutes y'all shout like this.

Apple pie is good.

Vanilla ice cream is good.

I feel the Holy Ghost, but put them together.

Let's go, let's let's go really southern here.

Biscuits are good.

But gravy's good too.

Put them together.

I've never gotten a response like this in a message.

Some things are better separate, and then some things are better together.

We see this at Thanksgiving.

Some people, you create your plate at Thanksgiving, and everything's gotta be portioned out just right.

The ham can't touch the dressing, and the dressing can't touch the mac and cheese, and the mac and cheese surely can't touch the green beans.

Are there any of those people in the house?

Okay.

Everybody else stretch your hands towards those people right now.

I'm just kidding.

But how many of y'all are just put it on my plate kind of people?

There ain't no property lines when it comes to Thanksgiving.

Just put it on my plate.

Some things are meant to be separate, and some things are meant to be together.

And this morning I want to take just a few minutes, and I really want to take a few just this morning, and I want to look at two things that I believe that God never intended to be separated, but I think have become separated, and that is the word of God and the spirit of God.

There are things in our life that are better separate, but then there are things that are better together, and we're always meant to be together.

And I want to spend this morning looking at the idea that the Word of God and the Spirit of God were never meant to be separated, but we're always meant to be together.

And we're going to spend some time looking at this and looking at how we can be a church that honors the Word of God and be a church that honors the Spirit of God.

At some point in Christian culture, I'll just kind of walk you through this.

At some point in Christian culture, what happened is there began to be this great, what I call the great separation.

Churches began to lean into either we're going to be a word church or we're going to be a spirit church.

Okay.

And what happened is throughout the years in church culture is it has become like kids who come from a broken home where they have to choose to live with one parent or the other parent.

Come on.

Right?

You're either going to live in the word house, the scripture-based house, or you're going to live in the spirit-based house.

And there has been this pool of we've got to pick one or the other.

We've got to either pick mama's house or daddy's house.

Be in the word camp or be in the spirit camp.

Okay?

And I want to break this down for just a few minutes because what has happened is this separation has created confusion in the life of believers.

It's a confusion that we never see in the Bible.

Because all throughout the New Testament, they were both Word and Spirit people.

They were committed to the Word of God and they were committed to the Spirit of God.

It was not something that was separated, it was something that was together that they needed in their life.

So many people have felt this tension where they have had to pick, am I going to be devoted to the word, or am I going to be devoted to the spirit?

In the word house, people love the Bible.

They believe scripture, they study scripture, they teach scripture, they emphasize sound doctrine, sound preaching.

Let me be clear, we need those things.

We need more sound doctrine today than we ever have.

We need sound theology.

Okay?

You need to know what you believe and why you believe it.

It's not just enough to know things about the Bible.

You need to have strong doctrinal roots in the Bible.

Can I get an amen?

Okay.

That's the Bible house.

But then we also have the Spirit house where people love the presence of God.

They want to see what was in the book of Acts.

They want to see the manifest presence of God, the emphasis on the power of God.

And can I just pause for a moment and say, we need that today?

We need the power and the presence of God.

So what has happened is it's created categories in the body of Christ.

We're either going to be a word church or we're going to be a spirit church.

You're either going to be a word person or you're going to be a spirit person.

And I just want to say today, why can't we be both?

Why can't we be a people of God that both love the word of God and the Spirit of God?

We love the Word and we love the Spirit of God.

Both are needed.

This is the kind of the big idea for the message.

I want you to get this in your heart.

Put this down in your notes.

Here's what it says: Biblical Christianity is not word instead of spirit, and it's not spirit instead of word.

It is always word and spirit together.

Okay?

It's not this over the spirit of God, and it's not the Spirit of God over the Word of God.

It is the Word and the Spirit working together in concert with one another.

And I believe that a healthy church and a healthy believer is someone who leans into the power of both.

What I love so much about our church is the diversity of church backgrounds that people come from.

We have people that come from reformed backgrounds.

We have people that come from spirit-field backgrounds.

We have all these different types of backgrounds.

And as I was writing this message this week, it just reaffirmed in me the commitment that we have here at CLC to be a people and a church that we want to honor the Word of God.

We want to have sound doctrine.

And we also want to be a people that love the presence of God and the Spirit of God.

And everything that the Spirit of God has to offer.

Are you with me this morning?

I love what R.T.

Kendall he says this.

I want you to hear this quote because I think it's it's really good.

Is all word and no spirit we dry up.

But all spirit and no word we blow up.

Come on, somebody.

But with both word and spirit we grow up.

Okay?

All word and no spirit, the church becomes a classroom.

Faith becomes just a set of ideas that we talk about.

All spirit and no word means things get loud and they're exciting, but there may not be an anchor to what we're doing.

Come on, somebody.

But with both word and spirit, we grow up.

Our roots go deep into the truth and into the power and presence of God.

But with both we grow up.

So word without spirit.

I want you just to see this.

I'm just gonna read, these are just some notes that I put down this week.

Word without spirit can become truth with no tenderness, doctrine with no dependence, and information with no transformation.

Okay.

Spirit without word can become passion with no foundation, excitement with no discernment, and movement with no maturity.

But word and spirit together produce maturity.

I want to emphasize that.

Word and spirit together produce a mature believer.

We've got to have both.

Come on, turn to your never and say, you need both.

You need both in your life.

So what does this look like?

What does this actually look like for us to live this word and spirit life out?

This morning, I'm gonna give you three ways.

The word and the spirit work together.

Three ways this morning, the word and the spirit work together.

Number one, you need to know this is that the Holy Spirit inspired the Word of God.

The Holy Spirit inspired.

Everybody say inspired the Word.

I want you to turn in your Bibles, 2 Timothy chapter 3.

2 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

We're gonna spend some time this morning on this verse because I think that it really helps us to be able to capture how both the Word of God and the Spirit of God live in concert with one another.

Paul writes this he says, all scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

I love the very first word in this is that all scripture, everybody say all scripture is God breathed.

Not some of the scriptures, not what we understand, not what we like, and not our preferences.

All scripture is God breathed.

The ones that you really like to read and the ones that you really don't like to read are both God-breathed.

Okay?

So the book of John is God-breathed, and the book of Leviticus is also God-breathed.

Okay?

It's all God-breathed.

But I want to just spend a few minutes and camp out on this word or this phrase, God breathed.

God breathed is such an important statement in this passage for us to understand because it when you really understand it, it brings clarity to how the word of God and the Spirit of God work together.

Okay?

So this word, this phrase, God breathed for us, is obviously two words in the English language, but in the original Greek it's one word.

Okay, this word is the word theonustos.

Everybody say theonustos.

Okay, and it really means two different things.

Theo, meaning God, nustos means breathed, or you put your breath on something.

It is air that has been breathed into something.

Okay?

So the neustos, breathed, blow, breathing on something, is very close to the word that we get for the Holy Spirit, which is pneuma.

Pneuma, and the when we read the word Holy Spirit in the New Testament, that's the Greek word pneuma.

Okay, pneuma and nustos are very connected.

It is breath that is breathed out, it is wind.

That is how the Holy Spirit is described all throughout the New Testament.

Okay?

He is a breath, he is wind.

Okay.

So when when Paul says that all scripture is God breathed, it is the breath of God that is being breathed out to write the word of God.

Okay?

I want you to get this next statement.

The Bible is not just words about God, it is the word of God breathed out by the Spirit of God.

Okay?

I want to say that again because I want you to get this.

The Bible is not just words about God, it is the word of God breathed out by the Spirit of God.

Okay.

It is the breath of God that breathes the scripture out.

And I want you to see this.

I was thinking through an illustration of how I could just kind of make this visible.

I have this balloon, simple, normal balloon.

It has no shape, has nothing to it right now.

It is just normal balloon.

Okay.

I hate balloons too, by the way.

I hate them.

I hate their popping.

I just hate everything about them.

But I'm going to use it because I love you guys.

So when I breathe into this balloon, what happens is my breath caused it to take shape.

Prior to, it was not, there was no shape to it.

There was nothing about the balloon.

But when I put my breath into this balloon, it caused it to form into something.

Okay.

It was my breath that gave it shape.

It's also my breath that keeps it shape.

Okay.

So you can come back tomorrow and it's still gonna be this way.

Why?

Because my breath is inside there, right?

You can't see it, obviously, but it's it's there.

Okay.

This is the same thing that Paul is writing when it comes to the scripture.

God breathed out the word of God.

Okay.

If if I would not have breathed into this balloon, this balloon would not be blown up.

It cannot blow itself up.

It cannot cause itself to take shape.

Okay?

It's the same thing with the word of God.

The word of God is God that has breathed into Scripture, but is not just breathed once into Scripture, is still continually breathing into Scripture.

That's the thing that we need to get, is that God did not breathe into the words on this page and then just leave it.

It's still breathing.

So he breathed into it, but he's still breathing into it.

Right?

He didn't just breathe and then just walk away and say, you guys got a book.

God breathe.

It's the newstos of God.

It is the breath of God that breathes into every single word in this book.

That's why Paul would say it's all scripture is God breathed.

Hebrews chapter 4.

Hebrews 4 · chapter mention

I want you to get this verse in your heart.

Hebrews 4.

This verse just kept coming to my heart.

Hebrews 4, for the word of God is alive and active.

Everybody say alive and active.

The word of God is alive and it's active.

It's sharper than any double-edged sword.

It penetrates even to dividing soul, spirit, joints, and morrow.

It judges the thoughts and the attitudes of the heart.

So just as I breathed into this balloon and it's full of my air, the Bible, God used authors to write this, but it wasn't a one-time thing.

That's what I need you to understand.

He's still breathing into it.

That's why we can pray things like God.

When we open the Bible every day, we can say, God, speak to me.

Because it's still speaking.

That's why we can say, God, I need to hear from your voice.

And we open it up and we hear from his voice.

Why?

Because it's not a dead book, it's an alive book.

It's been written and breathed out by the Spirit of God.

So that's why we honor it.

That's why both work in connection with one another, because we need the Bible.

But we also need the Spirit who makes it come alive.

Amen.

Sam, will you take my balloon?

I think through these illustrations, then I don't think what I'm going to do with them.

So he makes the Bible, he makes everything come alive.

It was breathed out, but it's still breathing.

It's still speaking to us.

The same Spirit who gave us the Word is the same one working through the Word today.

Number two.

The Holy Spirit inspired the word, but number two, we need to understand this is that the Holy Spirit reveals the word.

So not only did He breathe the Word out, not only did He show us that all Scripture is inspired, but He is also revealing the Word to us.

I want you to see this.

Let's go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 9.

1 Corinthians 2:9

He says, What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, what no human has conceived, the things God has prepared for those who love him.

And these are the things that God has revealed to us by His Spirit.

I want you to emphasize this, underline that in your Bible.

That God has revealed to us by his spirit, that the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.

And then verse 12, he takes it a step further and he says, For what we received is not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God.

So that we may understand.

Everybody say understand.

What God has freely given us.

The Holy Spirit is in our life the great revealer.

He shows us things that through your natural eyes you could not have seen in and of yourself.

He brings understanding to things.

Any parents in the house?

Come on, I see the hands popping up.

I can't tell you in a normal week for me and my wife how many times our kids will come to us and say, I can't find blank.

I can't find the the I can't find my backpack.

Okay.

Well, it's in your room.

Come on, parents.

It's in your room.

No.

And then they'll stand there and just argue with you for 10 minutes.

No, it's not my room.

I've already checked.

It's not my room.

I think somebody stole it.

I don't know where it's at.

And then what do you do?

As the gracious, loving parent that you are, you take their hand and you walk with them side by side.

Come on, you know where I'm going with this.

And you walk with them and you walk to their room, to their bed, and sitting on their bed is what?

The backpack.

Why?

Because they couldn't see it, so you had to show them, you had to do it for them, didn't you?

This is the role of what the Holy Spirit does in our life.

The Holy Spirit reveals what we could not see.

The Holy Spirit brings understanding to what you just simply cannot understand.

Have you ever been reading the Word of God and you just you've read a scripture over and over and over again?

But that one time that you read it, it just pops off the page.

That's the Holy Spirit revealing his word to you.

That's him bringing understanding to who you are.

That's what Paul is talking about in this text.

He is talking about how the Holy Spirit brings revelation.

This word reveal in the original language is apocalypto, and it just simply means to uncover, to take the cover off, and just to make fully known.

So imagine if I had a table here and I had a dish with nice food on it, and I just had a cover on top of it.

Before all you saw was the table and the cover, but when I take the cover off, guess what you see?

You now see the food.

That's what the Holy Spirit does.

The Holy Spirit, He reveals and He brings understanding to us to things that just may not make sense.

Things that may be confusing.

And He does this through a lot of different ways.

He does this through people, He does this through mentors and pastors and all these different ways, people that speak into your life.

But the Holy Spirit can directly speak to you and reveal things that you need to know.

He can speak to you and show you these things.

And I want you to know this as well.

In the life of the believer, the Holy Spirit primarily wants to reveal two things to you.

Okay?

I want you to write these down because you need to know this.

Two things the Holy Spirit wants to reveal to you, and it's his word and it's his way.

The Holy Spirit wants to reveal his word, and he wants to reveal his ways.

Okay.

The word is the word of God that's been spoken through scripture.

Okay?

That's the word of God.

It is this, it is the word that we can audibly hear that is spoken to us.

Okay?

God wants to speak to us through his word.

It's his truth, it's his instruction, it's his promises, it's his commands, it's his revelation that God has given to us in his word.

How many of y'all believe God wants to reveal his word to us?

He wants to reveal his word.

But the Holy Spirit doesn't stop there.

Because the Holy Spirit not only wants to reveal his word, he also wants to reveal his ways.

And this is really, really important for us to get.

Because his ways is his heart.

His ways is his character.

It's his timing.

It's his wisdom.

It's his pattern.

It's how he moves and goes about.

He wants to reveal both his word and his way.

I could say it like this is that the Holy Spirit doesn't just want you to know Bible verses.

He wants you to know the God of the Bible.

Because you can know every word in this book and still not really know God.

That's the rebuke that Jesus had for the Pharisees in the New Testament.

Is that they knew all of the scripture, they knew all of the rabbinical law, they knew it from frontwards and backwards, but when Jesus showed up, they couldn't even see that it was Jesus.

Because they knew his word, but they didn't know his ways.

And as a believer, we've got to be able to know both.

We need to know his word, but I also need to know God's character.

And I need to know his timing.

And I need to know his wisdom.

And I need to know his patterns and how he moves and how he functions and what he's like.

So we need to know both.

God uses his word to teach us, to reveal, to bring understanding to what he wants to show us.

And then number three.

Number three.

So the Holy Spirit inspired the word.

The Holy Spirit, he reveals the word.

But then number three, the Holy Spirit applies the word.

I love this one.

The Holy Spirit applies the word.

Let's go back to 2 Timothy chapter 3, verse 16 and 17.

2 Timothy 3:16

We know all scriptures God breathed.

And it's useful.

I say useful.

This book right here, everyone, is useful.

Every day.

Useful.

And he says four things.

We could have spent all morning just on these four things right here.

But he says, for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting and training.

I want to read those again.

Teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.

So that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Every good work.

But he's also the one who leads you.

And somebody cuts you off.

And and and you want to tell them.

I want you to take a picture of this because, or put them in your notes.

These are the four things the Holy Spirit does.

How he applies the word in our life.

He teaches us what is true.

He rebukes what is wrong.

He corrects what is broken.

And he trains us in what is right.

This is why we need the Holy Spirit in our life because He teaches us what is true.

There's a lot of things that are false out there right now, y'all.

A lot of things that are false.

And the only way that we know they're true is by knowing his word and by knowing his ways and allowing it to be applied to our life.

He rebukes what is wrong.

You've got to stay open to the rebuke of the Holy Spirit.

He corrects what is broken.

Anything that's broken, the Holy Spirit corrects, and then He trains us for what is right.

I took these verses this, these four things this week.

This is just out of my personal prayer journal.

And I began to pray these four things, and I think they're gonna have them on the screen.

But I wanted you to see this because this is what I found myself praying this week.

These four things.

Is that the Holy Spirit teach me what is true and help me build my life on your word.

Teach me what is true, help me build my life on your word.

Holy Spirit, show me what is wrong in my heart and give me grace to turn from it.

Show me what's wrong and give me grace to turn from it.

Holy Spirit, correct what is broken in me and lead me back into your way.

And then lastly, here was my fourth prayer.

Holy Spirit, train me in what is right and form me to live more like Jesus.

So I can live more like Jesus.

Will you stand with me?

Stand with me this morning.

We're gonna end in worship today.

Before we do that, before I call the prayer team forward this morning, I want to end with a declaration today.

We're gonna end this message with a declaration, and then we're gonna have a time of prayer.

If you will, will you put the declaration on the screen?

Because I want this idea of word and spirit to get into our hearts and get into our souls today.

I want you just to say this with me.

Say, today we we commit ourselves to the word of God and the work of the Holy Spirit.

We will be rooted in the word and alive in the Spirit.

We receive God's word as truth, we welcome the Holy Spirit to reveal, convict, empower, and lead us.

We will not separate what God has joined together.

We will be people of the word and people of the spirit.

Do you receive that today, church?

I want you just to close your eyes just right where you are.

I believe this morning, I believe there's a fresh infilling of the Holy Spirit into your life.

I want to invite my prayer team forward this morning.

We're gonna spend the remainder of the service receiving prayer and worshiping.

But for some of you, you've walked in, and maybe the word of God just feels stale.

I spent uh this week praying, especially at this moment right here.

And the Lord kept coming back to me that many of you, if you were just really honest, every time you open the word, it just feels like you don't really know what you're reading, and it just kind of feels like you're just kind of going through the motions of it.

And I believe this morning that just through a fresh infilling of the Spirit, that God wants to bring a new hunger for the Word of God and a new love for the Word of God, that when you open the scriptures, that God just breathes to you.

Because we need more of the Word of God, but we also need more of the Spirit of God.

And both of those things come into connection when we have a fresh infilling of the Holy Spirit in our life.

And I believe this morning that the presence of God, the Spirit of God, is in this room to feel you fresh and anew today.

That maybe you came in and you just feel dry and you just feel worn out.

Every time you open the book, it's like I don't even know what I'm reading.

I believe this morning that God's presence can come on you and you can see it different.

That every time it opens, it's fresh and it's new, and you're hungry for the word of God.

But it happens because you get a fresh filling of God's spirit.

Maybe this morning you came in here and you have a need in your life.

Maybe there's something very specific that you need prayer for.

That's what this moment is about.

Will you just close your eyes all across the house?

This morning, if that resonates with you, I want you just to begin to move towards our prayer team.

If you need a fresh infilling of the Spirit of the Lord today, maybe this message has just resonated with you and it spoke clearly to your heart.

And you just want God's presence afresh and anew in your life.

I want you to move forward.

Maybe today you have a need that is very clear and very evident that you need prayer for.

I want you to move this morning as well.

Will you just do this?

Will you just extend your hands towards heaven?

We're gonna worship and we're gonna spend just a few minutes praying.

God, I pray right now over your people.

I pray over the next few moments that you would speak to us.

Reveal who you are.

God, I'm asking right now that there is a fresh impartation of your spirit into your people.

Those that have walked in that just feel dry, God, I pray, give them the courage to get out of their seats and come forward and receive prayer from the people of God.

I pray this morning, God, that as we take steps of faith, that you would move in our hearts, God, fill us like we've never been filled before.

Touch us like we've never been touched before.

Let your word come alive.

I pray every prayer need that's represented in this house right now, God, that you would meet it today in Jesus' name.

Church, let's spend just a few minutes.

We're gonna worship today.