The Voice Of The Holy Spirit | What's The Deal With? | DJ Heyward

Amen.

Amen.

Well, good morning, Central.

All right.

Hey, my name.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Hey, my name is DJ.

I am the Glendale campus pastor.

And just really excited for what God has for us this morning.

And if your family is like mine, this is kind of the weekend where we're kicking off summer and all the end of the year parties and stuff are done and we're rolling into summer.

But for many of you, this weekend, Memorial Day weekend, is one that's maybe a little difficult.

So thank you for those of you who sacrificed, whether in service or supporting those who are in service.

And God bless you.

This is a time of lament as you reflect on those who lost their lives for our country.

So God bless all of you.

And appreciate, man, just the freedoms that we get to have just to do something like this.

So I love it.

Yeah.

Sure.

So what we're going to do, we are going to jump straight into scripture.

We're going to be in Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

And we're going to be in a few different places.

We're going to start off in Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

And we're just going to dive in and see what the word has for us.

So this pastor right here is about the disciples, um, Jesus' disciples, and uh man, what what God does.

So here we go.

Uh Acts chapter 2, starting in verse 1.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Um, when the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.

Suddenly a sound like a blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.

They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.

All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit.

So last week, um, Sean uh he talked about the Trinity.

And man, I just love like the way that he just walked us through uh the Trinity and the three persons of the Trinity, understanding that the Trinity is one being, um, but uh three persons, each one has personhood.

So I just love the way he did that, and just having us understand that, man, God wasn't a God that was in heaven, lonely, um, in heaven and not having anything to do, but he is a God of love and he wants us to share in his love.

This is why he created us.

And God is a God of community and perfect um harmony, and he allows us to be a part of that.

Man, what a mighty God that we get to, that we get to serve and get to have a relationship with this.

And to clear something up, he did ask me to do that message um last week for those of you who heard that reference, and I said I was gonna be sick last week, so I couldn't do it.

Because I said, no, we're we're not gonna do that.

But what I want to do is today, um, I want to uh zoom in on one person of the Trinity, just one person of the Trinity, which we're gonna uh uh just kind of walk through today, and that person is one of the Holy Spirit.

So the Holy Spirit, um, many for many of us um is kind of mysterious, right?

It could be confusing, it could be like, okay, what is what's going on here?

Who is the Holy Spirit?

What is the Holy Spirit?

Is it a who?

Is it a what?

And uh what is exactly uh going on here?

Maybe it may feel a little bit weird.

It could feel like the Holy Spirit is something that's really hard to uh make tangible, it could be really hard to understand.

And that's what that's gonna be our task today.

I mean, we just just read about in Acts chapter 2 how the Holy Spirit was like tongues of fire and it came down on the disciples.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Like, what is like what is going like what's going on here?

Some people believe that holy the Holy Spirit is anything you want it to be, almost like just a pure energy source, or it could be um just uh just something, whatever you want to make up in your mind.

Uh, some people believe like the Holy Spirit is you know, maybe like a spirit animal.

Mine's a dolphin, by the way.

Okay, I love dolphins.

I don't know why I love dolphins, I just love dolphins.

And but uh the Holy Spirit can be really hard to understand.

I understand why, right?

Because we have Jesus, who we see in Scripture, and here we have four biographies of Jesus, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and we're able to kind of see his adventures, see his teachings, see him do all these amazing things, and we may have a picture of like, okay, I can I can get who the person of Jesus is.

Or we can even look at God the Father, who is Almighty, who um even the word father itself, like we kind of have a definition in our mind that we're working from when we're thinking about the word father, uh someone who's almighty, the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings, the God of all the gods, like, man, that's something that's understandable.

But when it comes to the spirit, it's like, and especially in our context, like what's a spirit?

Like, are we talking about Halloween?

We're talking about Saul 7 or some kind of horror, horror movie or whatever it's on now.

Like, I like like having an understanding of the Holy Spirit can be really difficult.

And that's what we're gonna try to do today.

But first, I gotta say, um, like Sean said last night, we serve and we worship a big God.

And so to understand God in our human minds may be impossible.

It probably is impossible.

We're gonna try to do today is just grab some handlebars on who the Holy Spirit is, and that's our task today, okay?

And so, what I want to do is um is I think it's just really important for us to understand who the Holy Spirit is in our life.

Like I think it's vital to our Christian journey.

The idea that we're following Jesus is to understand who the Holy Spirit is and understand the Spirit's voice, almost like how we understand a voice of a friend.

Because the Holy Spirit is doing so much work in our own lives, and the Holy Spirit is doing so much work in the lives of people around us.

He's doing so much, so much work.

So, for those of you who were here around Central for a long time, um, you would know the name Jamie Winship.

Jamie Winship is an author, he's a speaker, just a phenomenal peacemaker, um a man of God, and he said something um in one of his messages to Central that just always stuck with me.

He talked about how he would go on airplanes, and uh when he would go on an airplane, uh he would do exactly what all of us would do.

The mission of getting on an airplane is to put your headphones on, get your book or whatever it is, and to leave me alone.

We're going from point A to point B.

Don't be crazy, so we have to ground the thing.

Like we just got to get through um get through these next few hours um together in this little uh you know metal box that we're flying in.

And this was his his um his kind of perspective on getting on planes, but at some point God convicted him and he started to ask a different question.

He started to ask a question to God, to the Spirit, um, while he was getting on a plane or in any public space really.

And the question is, hey God, what are you what what are you doing?

Like, are you doing anything on this plane right now?

Is there any work that's happening right now?

And if so, can I help?

Is there anything that I can do to help with the work that you're doing in this moment?

And this really struck me.

I would never forget um these words that he said, and I it's not something that I do perfectly or all the time in every setting that I'm in.

But one day um I decided to do this.

So me and my family were we are on vacation in Flaxaf, and so I'm I'm going to the grocery store and to get some stuff, and it's pretty late in the in the evening.

And so I remember this and I just say, okay, I'm gonna try it.

So I go into Walmart and I'm like, okay, God, is there anything that you're doing here in Walmart any way that I can help anyone?

And so I walk into Walmart and I realize it's pretty late at night, and it's probably a little weird if I'm gonna talk to people at this time of the light.

So tonight, so I don't say anything to anyone.

And so I just go to the counter and um I'm just waiting in line, and there's a mother and a daughter right in front of me, and they are um you know checking out and stuff like that, and I'm not really paying attention.

I realize, man, this is taking a lot longer than it should be taking.

There's not a lot of stuff that they have.

And so I um just start paying attention and I realize they are discussing what do they need to put back because they can afford everything that was in their cart.

And this doesn't, I don't lose, this is not lost on me.

So I'm right here, I'm like, oh, like, okay, God, maybe this is it.

This is for me to do.

And so I asked him, hey, like, what are you guys trying to do?

Like, are you can I help you?

And they they allow me to purchase um whatever it is that they were trying to put back.

And um, you know, I got to do it, I got to bless them and say, God bless you.

And then we walked to the park parking lot, and then we found a fountain.

I baptized them right there in the parking lot.

You guys are laughing because you know there's no fountains in Walmart, okay?

They don't have they don't have that.

No, I'm I'm just kidding.

I I don't know what happened um from that story.

Like I really don't.

I don't know if they ended up finding Jesus.

I don't know if they already knew Jesus.

I I don't really know.

Um, but I do know is that, man, I'm so I was so blessed by the interaction.

Not because I've received anything back, but it's because what I received was, man, just a blessing I got to help God and what he was doing.

I don't know what he was doing in their life, but man, just so blessed to be able to listen to the spirit um and and and ask him to do something in my life.

And I think, man, when we get to know the spirit um in some really real ways, we get to experience something amazing in our own life.

So that's the hope for today is that we have an encounter with the Holy Spirit and see what the Holy Spirit is doing inside of us right now in this very in this very moment.

Um, what I believe is gonna be important for us as we walk through um cat kind of getting an understanding of the Holy Spirit is that we try to um see the Spirit in Scripture.

So that's what we're gonna start off with is that we're gonna take a look at a couple verses.

And we already looked at one earlier uh in Acts chapter two with the disciples when they received the Holy Spirit on the day of what is called Pentecost.

Um, and which is by the way, today is Pentecost Sunday, 50 days after um Easter, and um yeah, being able to uh look at the the disciples and what happened to them.

And but we're gonna take a look at some other places.

So we're gonna take a look at Genesis um one, right at the very beginning.

We talked about this last week as well.

And so Genesis 1, 1, the first two verses, this is what it says.

Uh Genesis 1.1.

In the beginning, God created um the heavens and the earth.

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

See, the Old Testament authors would have used the term uh, they would have called Ruach, is how you say it.

Ruach is what they would have used to describe the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit of God is Ruach.

They would have used in terms like wind, like the power of the wind, and how we can't see the wind, but the wind has definitely an effect on our life and uh what's going on outside in the earth.

And then also breath is another way they would have used term ruach.

Uh, but I love how Bible Project Timaki um talked about the Holy Spirit and this idea of ruach, is that uh the Holy Spirit, this idea of ruach, is God's personal presence.

His personal presence to all of us.

And if we look at Genesis 1-1, we also see kind of like a picture of the Holy Spirit as he is almost floating, hovering over the waters.

You can probably think of your um think of like a bird hovering over the waters.

We would have seen this picture used a few times in the Old Testament of the Holy Spirit kind of hovering, almost like fluttering alike, like like a bird in some ways.

Right?

And so the Holy Spirit is God's personal presence as we see from the very beginning.

In the beginning, he was there from the very beginning of time, creating something new.

We also see the Holy Spirit when we look into the New Testament as well.

Uh, this is in Matthew chapter 3, and um, we're just gonna read it.

Matthew 3 · chapter mention

We see the Holy Spirit was there at the beginning of Jesus' ministry, and it says, As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water.

At that moment heaven was open, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove.

Remember this picture of a bird?

And he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him, and a voice from heaven said, This is my son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased.

So the Holy Spirit was there at the beginning, and the Holy Spirit was a key driver in the ministry and in the mission of Jesus.

See, after Jesus was baptized, he comes out of the water, John the Baptist, he baptizes him, he comes out, and then he goes into the desert.

Well, that's just that's true, but that's kind of half the story.

It's scripture says that Jesus was led into the desert by the spirit.

So he gives up out of the water, the spirit leads him into the desert.

And this is where we see Jesus.

He is he is tempted by Satan, but he's fasting and praying for 40 days.

Or he's having a moment where he is, man, just really getting to know his father, getting to know the voice of the spirit in his in this in his human-likeness, right?

And he's just taking time and being in solitude with the spirit.

Then after he is done the 40 days and the temptation story and everything like that, what happens is he starts his ministry.

This is where we see Jesus do things like he's walking on water, he is um feeding the 5,000, he is um heal healing people, he's casting out demons, he's turning water into wine.

It's my favorite miracle, by the way.

It's a great way to start off the Minister of Jesus as your first miracle.

I think it's a great way to attract the people, get the people's attention.

But we see Jesus do all these things, and he is in he is in relationship with the Holy Spirit.

And so maybe this gives you, maybe it's a little bit of handlebars, right?

We see Jesus uh with the Holy Spirit, uh communicating with the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit communicating with him.

We have the picture of the disciples receiving the Holy Spirit before they go do their ministry and all the things that they accomplished through the church.

And um maybe this gives a little bit more handlebars of what's going on with the Holy Spirit.

But I think there's another step, a deeper level that we must go when it comes to understanding of the person of the Holy Spirit, and that is the function of the Holy Spirit.

Like, what does this Holy Spirit do in our lives?

And I believe that while we were on earth, the Holy Spirit is transforming us.

The Holy Spirit is doing work in us to transform us into who we once were, into who he designed us and created us to be.

I mean, we just look at the apostles, and I mean, before they received the Holy Spirit, they weren't doing anything.

They were just, they were just waiting.

And then they received the Holy Spirit and did all the things that that they were that they were supposed to do.

And the church was built because of what the Holy Spirit was doing inside of them, transforming them into something new.

And I just want to pause here for a second because I think this is really important to think about.

Is that the same Holy Spirit that was with the disciples, that was with Jesus, raised Jesus from the dead.

The same one that is in that we have access to raised Jesus from the dead.

Romans 8, 11 through 13 says the Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead.

If the same Holy Spirit lives in you, he will give you give life to your bodies in the same way.

Like, like, wait, what?

That same Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is the same Holy Spirit that I have access to in my own life?

That has to sit for a second.

Because that's just that's amazing.

So the Holy Spirit was there at the beginning of Jesus' ministry in the beginning of time, and the Holy Spirit was there at your beginning as well.

See, if we read a Psalm 139, 13 to 14, it says, For you created my inmost being.

You knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Your works are wonderful.

I know that full well.

Man, the Spirit was there at the very beginning of you, and he knitted you into who you are.

This is understanding your design as you, man, and as we as we all do this, right?

We we get older and we start putting on shame and we put on poor decisions and we get into toxic relationships and we start believing lies about who we are.

When we get to understand the Holy Spirit's voice, those lies get to go away.

When we get to understand how he knitted us, how he designed you and who you truly, who you truly are.

And that's why it's so important to get to understand who the Holy Spirit is, because when we accept Jesus, we become a new thing.

When we accept Jesus, when he is our Lord and our savior, like I mean like he's our Lord, meaning that everything about us, everything that that's inside of us belongs to him.

There's nothing that we're holding on to.

So he becomes our Lord and then he becomes our saviors.

He saves us from the things that are trying to capture us.

He becomes our Lord first and becomes our savior, and then as we put our belief in him, we become, we have access.

We become adopted in the family of God and we receive the Holy Spirit because when we encounter the Holy Spirit, something changes.

When we encounter the Holy Spirit, stuff happens.

Acts chapter 2, the the disciples receive the Holy Spirit and they go change the world.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

They start the church.

Jesus says things like, Hey, in my kingdom, the first will be last, and the last will be first.

Something changes when we encounter the Holy Spirit.

And you know, for some of us, I mean, this happens really quickly.

Like I was I was walking this way, and then I met Jesus, and my life has completely turned around.

Now I'm going this way.

All these things, the addictions and all that kind of stuff, just falls away because the power of the Holy Spirit that's worked inside of me.

But I would say for many of us, that's just not the case.

The Holy Spirit takes a little bit longer to work these things out of us so that we become a new person.

For most of us, it could be really slow, or it may take eight years of therapy, or taking time to forgive and let go of the bitterness that you have for someone in your life.

It may take a little bit longer, which is why it is so, so vital that you get to truly know what the Spirit's voice sounds like.

The promptings that he gives you inside of your heart.

That is supernatural, things that you may not understand, but the Holy Spirit is revealing to you.

Like I want us to know the Holy Spirit in a very deep way.

The Old Testament authors would have called this yada.

Like yada.

For those of you older, you're thinking of Jerry Seinfeld, yada yada yada.

Well, just for you, old old people.

I love you.

Um, but a yada in a in a deep, deep sense of knowing who the Holy Spirit is, knowing who God is.

Like in the Old Testament, they would have used this uh picture of yada in the context of intimacy.

Like it's an experiential um learning.

Because we have a God, which is so amazing, that we have a God that just doesn't want us to know, just to know about him.

We have a God that wants to experience his love and to feel his love, and not just to learn about his love in a podcast or a book or even a sermon.

It's an experiential love that we have to do things in order for us to have this yada in our own our own lives.

So, function number two of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit produces fruit in our own lives.

So as we are walking closely with the Spirit, things start to change inside of us, and it also starts to produce behaviors that we may not have before.

Galatians 5, 22 through 25 says this.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Against such things, there's no law.

Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with his passions and desires.

Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

In other words, as we accept Jesus as our Lord, we surrender to him, our lives are changed by the Spirit.

Take a look at this list.

How are we doing?

Are these things coming out of you?

See, this list is in the checkbox.

I'm with the Holy Spirit because I've done these things.

No.

I am in community, in relationship with the Holy Spirit.

So these things come out of me.

They're a product of what the Holy Spirit is doing inside of me.

Not something that I do or put on like a hat.

It's something that comes from the inside.

By having a deep relationship with the Holy Spirit, having a deep relationship with God.

I love how uh Francis Chaney puts it.

He says, I don't want my life to be explainable without the Holy Spirit.

I want people to look at my life and know that I couldn't be doing this by my own power.

I couldn't do any of this amount.

This is this is stuff that's supernaturally happening inside of us as we are walking with God, as we are walking with the Son, as we are walking with the Spirit that is doing so much work inside of us.

And so as I've been kind of walking through this, kind of a question has been kind of burning in my mind of like, okay, then what is life?

What is a life lived with the Holy Spirit?

Because Jesus thought this was really important.

Like he thought this was a major thing to happen.

That he must leave this earth.

Where in my mind, I'm like, Jesus, just stay.

Just stay and you be you be the preacher.

You you be the guy that we can follow.

God, Jesus, just stay.

And he's like, no, like if I stay, the Holy Spirit cannot come.

Look at um Acts chapter 1, verses 4 and 5.

Acts 1:4

We're talking about the disciples again.

It says, On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.

For John baptized with water, but in a few days you'll be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

So the reason why we read Acts chapter 2 was because of this.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Jesus, like, no, you guys gotta stay.

I gotta go, and you guys must stay.

And he's actually been telling them telling them about this since before he was crucified.

You can go read in John chapter 16, where Jesus is like, hey, listen, I gotta leave so you can receive the Holy Spirit.

John 16 · chapter mention

Because before, the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament was very selective in who the Holy Spirit came upon.

Very selective.

But now, as we walk with Jesus, as we receive Jesus, as we accept Him as our Savior, as our Lord, now we all have access to the Holy Spirit.

We all have access to the gift that God has given us.

I love how J.D.

Gere says it this way the Jesus inside you is better than the Jesus beside you.

The Jesus inside you is far better than the Jesus beside you.

That's the Holy Spirit living inside of all of us, doing something different with our hearts and our souls.

And I love how Gerald Hawthorne articulates the implications of this for the disciples.

It's pretty long, so you can read along with me, but I think it just captures it so well for all of us.

This is what he says.

Not only is Jesus their Savior because of who he was, and because of his own complete obedience to the Father's will, but he is the supreme example for them of what is possible in a human life because of his own total dependence upon the Spirit of God.

Remember Jesus in the desert?

Do you remember Jesus in the desert where he was, man, he was hungry, he was thirsty, he had to have a complete dependence on God.

Jesus is living proof of how those who are his followers may exceed the limitations of their humanness in order that they, like him, might carry to completion against all odds, their God-given mission in life by the Holy Spirit.

This is how you were knitted.

In your mother's room, this is how you were designed.

Jesus demonstrated clearly that God's intended way for human beings to live, the ideal way to live, the supremely successful way to live, is in conjunction with God, in harmony with God, in touch with the power of God, not apart from God, not independent of God, not without God.

The spirit was the presence and power of God and Jesus and fully so.

This is the same spirit that was there at the beginning of time.

I was there at the beginning of Jesus' ministry and fueled his ministry.

And there in the early church.

The same spirit that is inside of you as you accept, as you accept him.

That's why it's so important to have this yada understanding of the Holy Spirit's voice.

A deep, deep knowing of God.

It's almost like there's times where we have to, um, like a radio, like if you don't turn to the correct dial, if you don't do something, I'm just gonna hear static.

Now, that's not a perfect uh analogy, but um, I think there are things that we can do in our own personal lives that can help us tune into what the Holy Spirit is so that we can learn what the Holy Spirit is communicating to us.

And so the first one is something that we've been talking about since um since we started this series, and that is his word.

Now, we talked about um throughout this whole series of what's to deal with all these different topics, but getting in his word is really and truly important.

Shane Wood a few weeks ago said the goal of the Bible is to is to transform you.

If I can add to his quote, I would say the goal of the Bible is to transform you, but the person of the Holy Spirit is doing that work in you.

See, the goal of the Bible is to transform you, but the work of the Holy Spirit is doing that work inside of you, changing you, molding you, inspiring you, comforting you, pursuing you, teaching you.

This is what the Holy Spirit is doing us in life, and it is so important that we get to learn and hear the words that this is written down in scripture, that the Holy Spirit was inspiring the authors so that we can read what is going on, so we can understand how we were knitted and designed.

See, because the Holy Spirit also, another function we didn't get to talk about today, ton, is that the Holy Spirit reveals things to you so that when you are reading your scripture, there's things that's popping up out of the word that you did not understand before.

There's things that are popping out of the word that you had no idea was there, because the Holy Spirit is communicating to you through his word.

And he also convicts you.

Like when we read our fruit of the spirit list, and you have that feeling inside of you that's like, oof, I need to I need to commune with the with the Spirit a little bit more to get these things to come out of me.

I'm not hitting the mark.

The Holy Spirit reveals things to you.

The Holy Spirit also reveals things to you through the people around you.

See, there's sometimes where the Holy Spirit's voice sounds like the people that are in our lives that are loving and caring for us, which is why we all have to have wise counsel in our life.

Wise counsel is so vital.

I could think about the time where Courtney and I, we were having a rough patch in our marriage.

And man, we didn't really know, we just couldn't really get on the same page.

Have you been there before?

Just couldn't really fit figure it out.

And we had some people that came over from church, from central, and they sat with us and they they cooked us dinner and they said, hey, what's going on?

Let's hear what's happening.

They were able to just to come alongside us and just offer us wisdom, but also let us know that we are not alone.

That there's people inside of your life that are in your corner.

And that's why having wise counsel is so important.

This is why we're so big about that here.

Is understanding that you aren't just made to be alone.

You were made for more than that.

You are made to have a community of people that's going to support you, much like Jesus did in his own ministry.

Much like the disciples did as they were doing the ministry of the early church.

There were people around them.

Which is why, I mean, we always say, man, find a group.

Whether that be something like a celebrate recovery where you can get help, or just a home group or a community group or a Bible study where you're around like-minded people that's saying, Hey, Jesus, Holy Spirit, God, what are you asking of me?

What are you calling me to do?

What are the things that you've put inside of me that I need to be using?

If you've been baptized recently, or just for anyone for that matter, if if if if you if you have come away with the conclusion that Christianity, the idea of following Jesus is a solo mission, that's just not true.

It's not a solo mission, it's not a solo act.

And I'm not against like having times of solitude and quiet.

That's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about if you think that you have to do this whole thing alone where you just keep your faith here, or my just faith just stays right here.

I'd say, man, you're not reading your Bible, you're not into the scripture.

Because your faith is not just supposed to stay here, it's supposed to be expressed to other people, and it's supposed to experience through other people.

This is why God has put people in our own lives.

And I would encourage you to find, to find your people that's gonna come alongside you in this in this walk.

And then the last one is prayer.

See, prayer um for me really changed.

Just a few years ago, I was in my quiet time and I was praying, and I just felt, I felt the spirit really convict me and say, Um, hey, why don't you call on my name?

Like, why don't you call on me the person, this person of the Trinity?

Not in a this is a better way or anything like that, but like, hey, do you know that I am called the advocate?

Like, do you know that I am there communicating with your soul?

That I am in your thoughts and in your mind and your whole body and your whole spirit, like you can call on me.

And so I started, I mean, I started calling on the name of the Holy Spirit in my life.

And we're gonna practice that um today in a few moments.

But before we get there, I also want to put out a challenge to all of us.

Wherever you're listening, online, at home, wherever you are, I do have a challenge because I don't believe that experiencing the Holy Spirit is just coming to listen, listening to me, and then, oh, great job.

No, I I think there are times that we got to do and try to encounter the Holy Spirit.

So here's my challenge.

When you go to your lunch or your brunch, or when you go to work tomorrow, or if you have the day off on Tuesday, whatever it is.

See, my challenge to you is can you go into that space, that grocery store, whatever it is, and say, Holy Spirit, you doing any work here today?

Holy Spirit, are you working on something in here?

And if so, can I help?

Can you show me how I can help?

You may hear something, you may hear nothing.

But that's not the point, is to do something.

The point is to be willing to listen to what the Holy Spirit has for you.

What the Holy Spirit is calling you to do.

And sometimes what we have to do is in our times of prayer, in our times connecting with God, we have to learn how to listen to the Holy Spirit.

And sometimes that's just getting out of our way and sitting in and sitting in quiet and just asking the Holy Spirit, man, what is it that you're trying to say to me right now?

What are you trying to say to me right now?

So, what we're gonna do, we're gonna practice this as well.

We're gonna practice this of asking the Holy Spirit to speak to us.

So if you're new and you're like, man, I'm not really sure about this because we're gonna have a moment uh where we're gonna be silent for about a minute and it might be uncomfortable for some of us, especially in the big city that we live in where it's just so fast and everything is so loud all the time.

We're gonna have to take a minute just to quiet your hearts.

But the point is, like, hey, if you if you're not really sure sure about it, you're like, hey, I would ask for you just to treat this like a moment of silence.

Don't walk out.

Treat it like a moment of silence.

Or what you can do is ask the question.

Maybe the Holy Spirit has something to say to you too.

But here's what we're gonna do.

I want you guys to bow your head, close your eyes.

You can you can kneel, you can do whatever you need to do.

And I want you to ask this question right now.

Holy Spirit, what do you want to say to me right now?

Holy Spirit.

And I pray as we as believers seek your voice that we get to know your voice incredibly well.

I don't know if you said anything to anyone inside of our church, but I ask that you continue to allow us to do things where we get to know your voice really well.

And that you show up in our life every single day.

Lord, I pray that you mean that that that you that you bless, that you bless those that are listening right now, that they feel something that they've never felt before, that they've been called to something that they've never been called to before, that they're ready to surrender like they never surrendered before.

Father, I pray all these things in your son's name.

We thank you so much that you're a God that wants relationship with us, that you designed us for relationship, and that you designed us to have a relationship with you.

So give us rest inside of that.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.