God the Father, God the Son, and God the ?

I have a title to this message that I'm doing today, and I wanted to call out the title a little bit.

It's God the Father, God the Son, and God the—and I have a question mark because

the Spirit is probably one of the most mysterious parts of the Trinity.

You have God the Father, you have God the Son. We get that, but the Spirit,

that's the part a lot of us struggle with getting.

I do. I've heard it a lot where people just don't get the Spirit because of

the mysteriousness of Him and just the way He works. It's beyond our understanding.

We don't grasp it. I used to do the jail ministry, and they were always asking

me, how do you know if you're hearing from God?

The Spirit is where we hear from God. And that's why a lot of times we're always

confused about the Spirit.

Now, I've been reading this book. It's called Hosting the Presence,

and it's about the Spirit.

Although I didn't put a lot of what's in this book into what I'm going to say

today, it did give me inspiration for what I'm going to say.

The title, I'm going to go ahead with another title here, Hosting the Presence.

That's also an interesting phrase.

I've heard this before, Hosting the Presence.

It's interesting that we're the hosts of God.

That's what this is saying, Presence of God. We're the host of God,

and that doesn't really calculate because doesn't God own everything?

Isn't he the creator? Why are we hosting him? Why is he not hosting us?

But I guess you got to look at it in this way, and I did get this part from

the book, and I thought this was kind of an interesting way to think about it.

If you think about a landlord and a tenant, if you're a tenant,

you rent from the landlord, but that doesn't mean you own it.

The landlord owns it, and he can't just come barging in unannounced.

And that's the same way with God, and that's what they're talking about with hosting the presence.

He owns everything. It's all his. I mean, he made me. He made all you,

but he doesn't come in unannounced.

He may make a lot of noise, but we have to ultimately accept him to come in.

He's not going to barge in. I don't know if any of you rent,

but if your landlord calls and says, well, I got to get in because some of these

pipes are bad. We need to get them replaced.

And you're like, well, that might disrupt my life. And you can put him off,

say, oh, no, not now. And just keep putting him off.

But one day you're going to come home and your house is going to be flooded.

And that's the same way with God. There's consequences is for us not listening to God when he wants in.

When he's speaking, and we know he's speaking, but we decide for whatever reason it is not to listen.

I have a couple stories here just to explain more about what I'm talking about.

I know everybody probably knows all these stories, but I'll explain the stories a little bit.

But Jesus, when he sent out his disciples two by two, he sent them out two by

two to go out and minister to the towns and the villages around this area.

He equipped them actually with the Spirit because he said he'd give them authority

to heal diseases and to cast out demons. So he actually equipped them with the Holy Spirit.

And this was before the unleashing of the Holy Spirit. He equipped the disciples

to go out and do this by the Holy Spirit.

They went out, and I think we all know the story pretty well as far as he told

them only take a walking stick and nothing else.

No food no uh preparations i

mean no they didn't know where they were going to stay he did say find a place

to stay when you get there and stay there as long as you're there and you have

no food no clothes and you know if i bet you if you've ever been to the airport

when you're going somewhere we are prepared right we have a lot of stuff i mean

some of these people they look like they're taking their whole house.

Here's me and Jan with, we just take backpacks.

So we travel really light. And so we always notice it's like,

man, look at how much they got.

But could you imagine being these disciples and this is their call.

And like I said, they can say yes or no to this, but they said yes.

And they're going off without anything, not maybe even really knowing where

they're going and relying on the Spirit to take care of all the details,

everything that's in between.

Funny thing about these things, I think about this for myself. Could I do this?

That's kind of nerve-wracking. What if I end up in a ditch or something?

But they had so much trust in Jesus that they would do this.

The disciples weren't always perfect, but there was times where they really shined.

But they went out to the people, and this was some of the direction that Jesus

gave them. He said, send your spirit out.

If they reject it, then it comes back to you.

He also said, kick off the dust off your shoes at them.

And the message behind that is, if the Spirit, if you send out the Spirit,

if the Spirit comes to you and you have to receive it.

It's sent, and you have to receive. and it's the same thing we've been talking

about here as far as having to receive what is coming to you.

If you're the one sending it out, the people that you're sending it out to have to receive it.

In Mark 5, that was our scripture. It's in Mark 5, 1 through 20.

They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes.

When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an impure spirit came from the tombs to meet him.

This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain.

For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and

broke the irons on his feet.

No one was strong enough to subdue him.

Night and day among the tombs and in hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.

When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him.

He shouted at the top of his voice, What do you want with me,

Jesus, son of the most high God? In God's name, don't torture me.

For Jesus had said to him, Come out this man, you impure spirit.

Then Jesus asked him, What is your name? My name is Legion, he replied, for we are many.

And he begged Jesus again and again not to send him out of the area.

A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside.

The demons begged Jesus, Send us among the pigs and allow us to go into them.

He gave them permission and the impure spirits came out and went into the pigs.

The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.

Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and the countryside,

and the people went out to see what happened.

When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion

of demons sitting there, dressed, and in his right mind, and they were afraid.

Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed

man and told about the pigs as well.

Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.

As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him.

Jesus did not let him, but said, Go home to your own people,

and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.

So the man went away, and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had

done for him, and all the people were amazed.

When the Spirit comes to you, why would we reject that?

Especially when you can see something that is manifested like something great

has happened, why would you reject it?

During this time when Jesus sent out these two-by-two disciples,

they were doing miracles.

And Jesus said, if they reject this, take back the spirit, why would anybody,

if you're seeing miracles, if I see a miracle in here today,

I can't see myself rejecting that. I mean, it's pretty much out there.

And we come to the story about Jesus and the demons going into the pigs.

And Jesus has come over the Sea of Galilee and he meets this man who has many

demons and we know that because when Jesus asks him his name he calls himself

Legion, which means many.

And before Jesus could call him out, cast him out, they did this big shrieking

noise and they were like, why are you interfering with us, Jesus?

And they kind of went into how you son of God and they knew who he was.

And they pleaded that they could go into the pigs instead of the abyss.

That's pretty much what they're saying.

And Jesus granted them this. He told them that they could go into the pigs.

And so they went into the pigs, and the pigs went over the cliff and died.

And the herdsman who was herding these pigs, he ran off to tell all the townspeople.

The townspeople all came, and the reaction is kind of weird.

I mean, I remember the first time I read this story, why would they want Jesus

to leave? He cast out all these demons. This guy had been a troublemaker.

He was causing havoc all over, and he cast out these demons.

They see this guy in his right mind, but yet they want Jesus to leave them alone.

It says they're even afraid. I remember I was probably a teenager when I first

read this, and I could not figure out why would they want Jesus to leave.

But we see one of the first problems they have is the money issue,

because these pigs were a large part of their economy.

And so to them, Jesus was a liability. He was a liability as far as monetarily.

They cared more about their money than they did about Jesus and all of his miracles.

And then we look at also, they had fear of what just happened.

Is when the Spirit is unleashed.

And that's what happened every time that Jesus did America. The Spirit was unleashed.

And people got to—it's almost like, if you remember the story where Peter,

when Jesus caused a miracle and they caught all those fish, and Peter just bowed

before them saying, Lord, I'm not worthy.

He's seen who he was because they knew who Jesus was through this miracle.

They got to see how dirty they really were.

When Jesus shows us ourself, sometimes it's hard, and we just want to keep doing

what we're doing because that's what's comfortable.

And every time that Jesus shows up and he unleashes his spirit,

we either receive that or we reject it.

So that's some of the problems that we have.

We're in the way, our own self. We rationalize who we are so that we can have

Jesus and keep doing what we're doing because we'll rationalize what we're doing.

So we keep on doing it because it's safe and it's what we've always known.

But Jesus wants something better for us.

And you know, I'm going to come to this part and this talk about Pentecost.

And I want to talk about that as well. I want to talk about Pentecost.

This is a big event that really happens as far as this is where Jesus,

I mean, this is where God unleashes the Holy Spirit and is in every one of us

who asks Jesus into our heart. I mean, we have the Spirit within us.

And Pentecost, that's what happens there. Jesus dies and he is resurrected.

He tells his disciples, go into the city and go to this upper room and stay

there and wait for the Holy Spirit.

That's going to be a little bit of a hindrance. They've got to sit there and

wait, put off their life.

And this happened for about 10 days before the Spirit actually came.

So if we put ourselves in this place, they prayed and worshiped for 10 days

straight and did nothing else.

I mean, I'm sure they had better things to do.

I put myself in this place as well.

Could I do this? The Spirit tells me to go pray, come to this church and don't

come out of here until the Spirit comes.

And they don't even know what they're looking for. So the disciples,

they really showed up, I mean, in spots.

They had great faith to be able to do this, to be able to wait for the Holy Spirit.

And when the Spirit came, it wasn't like a subtle thing. It was like a rush of wind and fire.

And there was like a hum that went out throughout all Jerusalem.

And when the disciples came out, all Jerusalem was out there.

That's quite a thing. I mean, they didn't have to go to the people. the people came to them.

And it was a great event, and 3,000 people were saved that day.

And even though it was a great event, there were still skeptics who thought

the disciples were drunk.

So there were still those. I mean, after seeing everything that had happened,

there were still people that didn't want to be in line with it.

It's uncomfortable. I just want to live my life the way that I want to live it.

And Holy Spirit, that's good. Just

park yourself over there and I want you there, but not in my business.

And I think sometimes as churches, that's kind of what we do as well.

We say, I want the Holy Spirit just to open up the heavens and do his thing.

But when he does, it's scary.

And we have to be prepared as well for that because the disciples were prepared,

They spent 10 days preparing for this Holy Spirit.

And I think that sometimes we don't see the Holy Spirit in an awesome way is

because, well, we're not prepared.

And God's not going to drop something like that on us if we're not prepared.

I mean, the disciples were prepared for the Holy Spirit.

And if we are so much into our own lives and the things that we want to do and

we spend very little time with God,

there's very little chance that God's going to do what he did in Pentecost in

our own shirt, because if we aren't prepared for it, we wouldn't be able to handle it.

But there's a thing about rejecting the Spirit, and it's called,

in the Bible they call it, it's called grieving the Spirit.

Every time we reject what God wants for us, we're actually grieving Him.

And every time we grieve Him, we lose influence. We lose His influence. We lose His voice.

His voice becomes less and less for where we will not hear Him,

and we will become ineffective.

We've become ineffective in the world and what we do because God is saying,

if we don't pray to God and ask, what should I do?

God could be over here, and we'd be way over there doing something because we

forgot to ask God, where are you?

What do you want me to do? We just went out and did something.

It might have been a good thing, but it was way over there, and God's way over

here. We're doing it on our own power.

And we've seen at Pentecost, this wasn't done by the disciples' power.

This was done by the Holy Spirit's power. And that's the only power where we're

going to get anything done.

We have a community around us. And I come here every Sunday,

and not so much today because it was raining, but a lot of times there's people

that have no intention of going to church. I mean, they're getting their boats ready.

They are on a walk. I notice it. There's a lot of people that don't know God

and probably don't really care to.

And the only way that we're going to break the stronghold of this community is through the Spirit.

But that takes commitment, great commitment. We have to be willing to put off our lives.

We have to be willing to do something that's uncomfortable or something that we may not want to do.

Because I'm sure the disciples, the 10 days of praying was probably not 100% what they wanted to do.

They'd probably rather live their lives.

If we want the Spirit, we have to be prepared. And when the Spirit comes, we can't reject it.

We can't reject when He does come, when He's open to do things.

And that's what happens a lot of times.

Let's just pray. So, Lord, I just pray that you just bless us this morning.

We're a church here just in Richland Center. And, Lord, we pray,

Lord God, that we know that there's a lot of people that are hurting out there.

And that's your greatest concern.

And that should be our greatest concern as well.

Sometimes we look at it, Lord, and it just looks like a big mountain that we can't move.

It doesn't seem like there's anything that we can do to change people's minds

and turn them to you, but you lay it out in the Scriptures for us. You show us what to do.

You tell us that these things can be done, but we have to be obedient to you,

obedient to the Holy Spirit, and

know that the power comes from the Holy Spirit. it doesn't come from us.

He wants to work through us, and he's not just going to come blazing through the door.

Lord, we know you're not going to do that. We have to be accepting of you.

I just pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.