The Vine and the Branches

Good morning, Springhouse. I am glad that you are

here this morning. If you are new to Springhouse Church, my

name is Kevin and I serve as the lead pastor here, and it's my joy

to welcome you. I'd love to shake your hand after the gathering today.

Thank you, guys. For those who are giving and coming, we do use these

resources to help those who are in need. A couple of announcements this morning before

we get rolling along. Well, I say before we get rolling, but, boy,

y' all came prepared to have church today, and I'm thankful for the

Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit in his presence. First

of all, if you have the capacity, I invite you, I encourage

you to come on Thursday night to our midweek gathering. Pastor

Barbee has now done two sessions that have been just rich

and full, and you can catch those online if you

were not here. But if you have the capacity to come on

Thursday nights, I invite you to do so. I promise you will not regret

it. We are doing, Rabbi, the words of the teacher. And,

man, it's just been incredible. So come and be a part of that on midweek,

6 o' clock to 7 o'. Clock. We have children's ministry and youth ministry available

during that time. And then next Sunday, I hear there's a chili cook

off. And, you know, we want to invite

you to be a part of this. Angie Beshears was the winner last time, and

I think she's planning on continuing to hold that title.

But see, here's the. But here's the deal. If you come, it means you're bringing

chili. If you come, you're planning to bring

something as well, right? So you're bringing chili. If you go and be a part

of this. Okay? So come. You don't have to participate in the contest, but you

do have to bring some chili. Okay? If you're gonna be a part of this

next Sunday in the fellowship hall immediately following this gathering,

we invite you to be a part of that. So we are

continuing our series Abide you guys keep coming back

for more. Praise the Lord. He's stepping on my toes, and

I pray that in a real wonderful way, he's stepping on yours as well.

Because when we change, we become like Jesus. When we

change, we become like Jesus. And man, I'll tell you, I don't look a whole

lot like Jesus. And I want to look more like him today, tomorrow, and the

next day. And so we're going to continue down this road. And man,

I just apologize ahead of time if I offend you. I pray that. That you

would continue to make this your church home. But boy, we just

wanna come from the truth of God's word and all grow. Amen. So we're

continuing down the road of abide. And we've been in John 15 and

we're gonna spend some time in John 15 this year. But we're going to see

what Jesus does in the setup of us getting to John 15

today by going back one chapter to John 14. Because Jesus

does have some things to say that sets us up for the principle of abide.

So if you'll stand with me and everybody say the word.

Okay, Holy Spirit, espresso this morning. Let's really read with some

gusto and some strength this morning, loudly the word of God.

Here we go. If you love me, keep my

commands and I will ask the Father and he

will give you another helper to be with you and

be with you forever. The Spirit of truth.

The world cannot accept him because it neither sees

him nor knows Him. But you know Him. For he

lives in you and with you and will be in you. I messed that

up. I will not leave you as orphans. I will

come to you. Before long, the world will not see

me anymore, but you will see me because I

live. You also will live. On that

day you will realize that I am in my Father

and you are in Me. And I am in you.

Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one

who loves me. The one who loves me will be

loved by my Father. And I too will love them

and show myself to them. And one more from the book of Galatians.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,

peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

gentleness and self control. Father, I thank you that your Word is

alive and active today. I pray for the conviction of your Holy

Spirit. I pray, Lord, today that you would change our

hearts and we would look more like you leaving this place than we came. Let

the words that are mine, that are meaningless, fall to the ground. And let everything

you have for us stick for eternity. Thank you for the privilege to sit under

your Word today in Jesus name. And everybody said, amen. Amen. You may

be seated in the presence of the Lord. So

we're continuing down the series

here of. Of abide. Of abide. Abiding

in Jesus. Abiding in Jesus.

We started a few weeks ago, a couple of weeks ago, rather,

with this understanding that there's some

foundational work that we need to cover some ground we need to

cover to really put us in a place to really understand and

dissect what it is to abide in Christ, to remain in

Christ. And so we started from the standpoint which I think

is a very good standpoint point for every Christian is that you

belong to a kingdom and you have a king. You belong

to a kingdom and you have a king. And might I suggest this

morning, he is not a king because you say he's a king. He's a

king because he's a king. He's a king because he's a king.

And you belong to this kingdom, you belong to his kingdom,

which means that as your king, he has given the

right to rule and reign over your life, which means that

this is not a democracy on the throne. We don't

have a voice in it. He is the king that rules and reigns from his

throne. And he is sovereign and he is good. He is good.

Regardless of what you think, regardless of what you say, regardless of what you believe,

regardless of your circumstances, I'm here to tell you this morning that

God is God and he is a king. He is a king.

He's the God of the universe. So we belong to this

kingdom. And what we did is we looked back at

the Old Testament and we looked at God's people, Israel, and.

And we looked in Jeremiah how Israel was exiled into Babylon.

And in this exile, God did not say, I'm just gonna deliver you, I'm gonna

free you. I'm gonna set you free, or I'm going to rescue you. He didn't

say that to them. That's what the false prophet said. But what God's word was

stay. I want you to stay planted. I want you to build houses, I want

you to marry. I want you to do your life. And so Israel had to

come about this understanding that it was about learning how to live as God's people

inside a culture that did not share their faith. And that is the world that

we live in today. We live in a world living as God's people

inside a culture that does not share the same values or faith

that we share. And so we're learning how to walk this

journey under this understanding that

we are belonging to. We are people who belong to the kingdom of God

in this context or in the shell of living within the world.

And that on the surface, with our flesh and by ourselves, is

very hard to do, very difficult to do. But here's the thing. We don't have

to do it alone. We don't have to do it alone. Jesus

never said, you belong to my kingdom, now figure it out.

He never said, do this on your own strength in Fact, I

would go as far as saying, he knew that we would not have the ability

to do anything. Part from him, part from him. And

so we live in the kingdom, we're in this kingdom, and

we live also in this world. And so

we have to come to terms with this question. Will we be

formed by the world we live in, live in? Or will we remain

rooted in the kingdom to which we belong? And so

last week, we looked at what it was like to be planted,

where we were, where we are. And so the first week we looked at capacity,

we said, whoa, we need to slow down. I believe part of

Israel's problem was is they weren't paying attention. And in

2026, how many believe it's very hard to pay

attention? Well, part of paying attention is not us having our life

tidy and all together and going before the Lord and saying, hey, Lord, now I'm

ready to. It is about us emptying our lives, emptying

our agendas and saying, lord, why don't you fill me up today? Why don't you

tell me what I'm supposed to do? And so it gives us the capacity to

hear. But then the next step we looked at is being

planted. So many of us, the moment something gets hard, the moment we

see something we don't like, we uproot, we leave, we just jet, we're out of

here. I'm run. I'm done with this. And so if

we will carve out time enough to pay attention and

we will stay put long enough to hear his voice, I

believe God will do something, and he'll give us the answer to this question. And

so what we uncovered last week was faithfulness is often

proven not by where you go, but by where you stay.

Now, this principle rocked some of your world last week. How do I know? Cause

some of you called and emailed and talked to us and all of those things.

Okay? But faithfulness is often proved not by where you go, but by where you

say, now I'm gonna say something offensive. Are you ready? Get your radar

up. Okay, Here for just a. Okay. Some of the reasons

why we get offended by things like this is because we often

make choices in our lives. And then what we want is the word of God

to submit to our choices so we feel good about what we did.

And what happens is in that type of mindset is he is no

longer God on the throne. We become God on our throne. And so

what we can't do is try to take the word of God and let it

wrap around our world, even if we have made, and some of us have, me

included, made bad choices. We've made left terms. We have left when we

weren't supposed to leave. Now, here's the key to this, the key to this principle

is this obedience. If God tells you to go,

you better go. If God tells you to stay,

you better stay. But faithfulness is

often proven not by where you go, but by where

you stay. Because in 2026, we have a propensity

to uproot and run the minute things get hard, the minute things get uncomfortable, the

minute the. The things coming at us that we don't like this. And so

what we did is we uncovered some questions last week that feed

into this principle. Deception always promises an easy way out.

Deception always says, this is an easy way out. Go ahead and just leave. The

false prophets told Israel, they said, leave. God's going to rescue

you. Don't unpack. That was not the word of the Lord. He

said, stay in a hard circumstance in a culture

that doesn't share your faith. So these were the questions. What does God

ask us to consider before we actually uproot and move? Number one,

am I moving out of emotion or discernment?

Number two, have I slowed down enough to hear from God?

We're going to talk about this one a little bit more today. Am I

honoring a commitment I have already made?

Is this a season or am I just uncomfortable?

Have I invited wise counsel or those

just in agreement with me? Am I

being sent or am I running? And

lastly, will this produce greater fruit

or just greater relief?

And so we've gotten to a place on this journey where we're saying,

okay, Lord, I understand I must empty

myself. And now I understand that I'm not

going anywhere. I've decided I'm going to stay right here.

Now what? And I believe that when you clear out, make space, and you stay

put where you are, we are now in a position

to listen. Would you say listen? Have you ever been

talking to someone and out of your mouth as you're talking to them, you say,

are you listening to what I'm trying to tell you?

Are you listening to what I'm trying to say? If you've

got kids, are you listening to what I say? Some

of us listen to, respond instead of listening to

what's really being said to us. And if we will clear out

margin in our lives and we will stay long enough,

we are now in a position to actually listen

to the word of God. But not just listen to the word of God, we're

also looking to Obey the word of God.

Listen and obey. But

the question begs itself, to whom am I listening?

Who am I listening? If I stay and I hear, am I able to

obey? Who am I listening to? Now, here's what we believe. We believe that

Jesus gives this answer. He says, when it comes to

obedience, this is what we think. Jesus said. He says this. Try

harder.

Try harder. When it comes to obedience, try. You meant try

harder. Do more. Try more.

Keep going. Try again. Try again. Try again.

Jesus invitation is not try

harder. His answer is, receive the helper.

Receive the helper. Who is the helper?

It's not your spouse. It's not your

friend. It's not even your

pastor. It's the Holy Spirit. The

helper is the Holy Spirit of God. Now, I grew

up as a Baptist boy, before that, a Catholic boy. And we didn't talk

a whole lot about the Holy Spirit. And so today I wanted to

just do some fundamentals today because that's, you know, on this journey we gotta

start back to the beginning and kind of look at some things. But this

here represents God. We believe here at

Springhouse, we believe the word of God says that God is three in one.

How does that work? Three in one? God is God the Father,

God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

All three are God. So for me to say, this is

God, I could say, he is God. He is God.

We have God the Father, the vase, God the

Son,

And the water represents God the

Holy Spirit.

This is God. The accurate way for me to

describe what just happened here is this. He is God.

He is God. Not, they is God. He is God.

Okay. God the Holy Spirit, God the Father, God the Son,

God the Father carries the authority in the

triune. He's God the Father. How do we know that

Jesus, when he got baptized, God the Father opened the clouds of heaven and said,

this is my son to whom I am well pleased.

Why did Jesus go to the cross? We believe Jesus went to the

cross because Jesus loves me. Yes, I know. And guess what? Boo

Boo, he does love you. But his

motivation to go to the cross was not his love for you. What

drove him to the cross was obedience to his Father. His Father

has the authority. In fact, Jesus said, all authority has been given to

me on heaven and earth by my Father. So

there's Father, God. Okay, then we have Jesus.

Jesus as God. Jesus lived on

the planet for 33 years in a human shell. I want

you to touch someone and say, I feel you.

Jesus, when he was here embodied. He was

God with flesh wrapping around him with a

skeleton. You could touch him, you could feel him, you could

hear him, you could. You could smell him. You could do it for 33 years,

three years at the end with his ministry. Jesus Christ was here on

the planet. Jesus was fully man and he was fully God.

Well, I tell you, today, Jesus Christ is no longer here.

The Bible tells us that Jesus ascended into heaven. He's alive

today, and he's what? He's sitting at the right hand of the

Father. Okay, so you have Father God, creator of the universe. You have

Jesus Christ sitting at the right hand of God, and then he.

He just leaves us, like, out there to figure it out?

No, he gives us an incredible

gift called the Holy Spirit.

And the Holy Spirit is available to all

believers. You have access to the

Holy Spirit, you have access to the Holy

Spirit. And so we get in a little bit. Not in trouble. Because

here's the nuance of this. If I were to say,

rich, this morning, Jesus told me to

go give a cup of coffee to this person who didn't have money.

You could go on with that statement because Jesus is God. But it's

inaccurate because Jesus is not here in

the flesh talking to me and telling me to do anything. The

accurate statement would be the Holy Spirit of God told me this

morning, right, to give the cup of coffee to that person

who we're in relationship with in our day in, day out, it's

this precious Holy Spirit. When you've heard the voice of the Lord,

it is the Holy Spirit. And so we're

looking at this series called Abide. Now, we're going to dive

into the word abide later on the series. But I want to give you

a synonym right now. A cinnamon roll. That's what I was

thinking. A synonym to work with. And that is

remain. Jesus says, remain in me. Abide

in me. Remain in me. Everybody say, remain.

Now, when Jesus says, remain in me, that is

not the starting point of your relationship with Jesus.

That is an invitation. It's a directive. It's a

command. But that is not our starting place with Jesus.

Our starting place with Jesus. Our starting place

with Jesus. When he rolls upon the disciples, what are the

first words that come out of his mouth to the disciples? What is

it? The words follow me.

How many here believe that the invitation to follow

Jesus is available today? Raise your hand. I

believe that the invitation to follow Jesus is available today.

He says, follow me. His first words to his disciples isn't

remaining me. His first words are an invitation, which is follow me. And in

that process of following him. This is what this means.

I lay down my will, I lay

down my way. I lay down what

I want. I lay down my perceptions. I

lay down my opinions. I surrender how I

want things to go. This is what it means to follow

Jesus. Invitation isn't for us to believe and incorporate

some idea into what we are building.

Jesus invitation is to leave what we are building and

follow Him. In other words, he says it this way. Pick up your

cross and follow me. How often?

How often? He says daily. Daily. Pick up your

cross. That means you know what it says to Kevin. If I picked up my

cross on Tuesday is not sufficient for me on Thursday,

Friday and Saturday. I have to pick up my cross daily because

I'm told to die to myself daily. Let me tell you something. I

may get up at 6, 5, 6 in the morning feeling like, hey, I've got

nothing I'm holding onto. I look like Jesus. I tell you, by the time I

get to 6pm it's another whole story. I need

to die to myself every single day. The invitation

is to pick up your cross and follow him. And that's hard because

what we do is we approach the throne and we say this, Jesus,

look what I've built. Jesus, look what

I've done. Look what I have earned. God, have you seen my bank

account? I tell you what, Jesus, this is what I wanna do. Let me pick

up my cross and follow you. But let me bring along the things that I

have done. Let me bring the castle I built.

Could I follow you in the corridors of the castle I've built?

And the invitation is to destroy that sucker

and follow Jesus. And follow Jesus. So here's

the thing. You cannot remain before you make

the choice to follow. You cannot

remain until you make the choice to follow

and to follow. Are you ready for this? To follow means to

obey. Let's say that together. To follow means to

obey. To follow means to obey. Why slow down

and empty ourselves? Why stay planted? Because we want to

be a people who obey. We want to be a people.

Jesus says, if you love me, you will

keep my commands. So this tells me

a very simple truth. Loving Jesus looks

like obeying his commands. Loving

Jesus looks like obeying his commands. I

choose to obey because I love him.

I choose to obey because I love him. Keith and

I. Keith Cole and I were having breakfast this week and we were just laughing

at the simplicity of scripture and how complex we make it.

Do not take scripture and try to make it say something. It doesn't. It

is very plain. It is very Straight on. Jesus is not into

trickery. He's not trying to say things to mess you up.

Jesus wants you to look like him.

So loving Jesus looks like obeying. So let's look at very simplistic

truth here. Okay? Number one, he says.

Jesus says, if you love me, you will keep my

commands. Well, this should. We should be asking an

obvious question here. What's the obvious question?

What are your commands? If you raise your hand, if you love Jesus,

raise it high. Proud are we, proud to love Jesus. Okay,

keep your hands up. I didn't tell you. Put them down. Listen,

if you love Jesus, you will obey his commands.

Put your hand down. If you love me, you'll keep my commands. What are your

commands, Jesus? I love this. I love this. We don't have to search.

It's in the next sentence. I love it. This is. This is

my command. Say it. Love

one another as I have loved you. We do

not like this. Let me tell you

why we don't like this. We don't like this because we think we have

this figured out. We don't like

this. We think this is so shallow.

And what we fail to realize is we stand before Jesus

just like those Pharisees who say this is

so shallow. Let me give you 613 other reasons of things

that we should do in order to earn our way

to you, Jesus. Why did I say 613?

We're talking about the law, the Torah. 613 different

commands and we probably, we could add a million to them. Now Jesus didn't

say, here's my command. Kevin, make sure you do the speed limit down

the interstate. I'm going to hell.

No, this was not his. This was not is. He says, this is my

command. Love one another as I have loved you.

That should beg another question, should it not?

How, how do I, how do I.

How do I love? How do we love one another? This is what Jesus says.

Greater love has no one than this to

lay down his life for his friends. Now I'm going to tell you,

I'm pretty sure I would lay down my life for Shari, Hadassah,

Lucy, Ruby, Nora and Eliana.

But beyond that. Listen, some of

us can't even get up off our couch to go help somebody who needs their

tire changed. Or we can't even get off our

couch to go to a hospital and visit somebody who's been in an accident

or is in need. We are so self centered in

our lives, we can't let alone lay our lives down

for our friends.

Matthew, chapter 22 I love this. I'm telling you, you can't make this stuff up.

Matthew 22 · chapter mention

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees and the

Pharisees, the religious leaders of the day,

they got together. One of them was an expert in the

law. This is what they were. They studied the law. They could tell

you, this is what you're not supposed to do. This is what you're not supposed

to do. This is what. I can quote it, 613 of them. I can just

boom, boom, boom, boom. I can tell you what you're not supposed to do. And

this is what it said. This is funny to me.

One of them, an expert in the law,

tested Jesus with a question. I'm going to tell you right now,

if Jesus is standing in front of me,

there's not one question I'm about to ask.

But this tells us a lot about the state of the Pharisee who's

asking this question. Because Jesus is standing

right before them, and they have no idea who he is. I'm

gonna test you, Teacher, which is the

greatest commandment in the law? I bet you he had some ideas

because he was an expert. Experts have ideas, right? So he

did this to test him. So, Allen, I know what the. I know what the

greatest three, and I'm ready to rattle them off to you. This is what Jesus

said. Do the speed limit. No, this is what Jesus said.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul

and all your mind. This is the first and

greatest commandment. And the second

is, like it, love your neighbor as

yourself. Now, we like to put a little period there, and we move right

along. But Jesus wasn't done saying what he was saying.

There's one more sentence in that little thing, and it's a very important word to

kick it off. And that word is all. Would you say, all

right, all the law. Okay,

all the rules that you can come up with. All of the rules that you

could come up with of the good, or good, good, goodest, bad, whatever.

All the rules, and he wasn't done. And that

law. And he says, the prophets. Who are the prophets? The voice

of God. The voice, people of God, the ones who are bringing voice to

God's word. The ones that are saying the things of God. So

the rules and what God is saying, he says

all. All of the law and the prophets. Hang

on those two commandments. I'm telling you this

morning. I have it on good authority to say that if you're going to do

any two things in this lifetime, love the Lord, God, with all your heart, soul

and mind, and love each other the way he's loved you. Love each

other the way he has loved you. There are

other things. There are other things that we need to be

doing in our refinement and growing like him, and we're going to talk

about those. The starting place is to love God with all your heart, soul

and mind and to love each other.

Love each other as he has loved us. I want to love Jesus, but I

don't naturally love like Jesus. And Jesus agrees with you.

If there's nothing you get from this message

today, I want you to understand this.

You need the Holy Spirit. You need the

Holy Spirit. Jesus said this. If you love me, keep my commands.

And then he puts this conjunction. There any grammar nerds in here?

Conjunctions. Love it. Okay. And.

And I will ask the Father. Okay, here's

the thing. In other words, Jesus is saying this, James. He's saying,

if you love me, keep my commands. But you don't know how to do.

Hannah, if you love me, keep my commands. But you can't do that. Dustin,

if you love me, do you love me, keep my commands, but you don't have

the strength. You cannot do that. So. And in addition

to. I'm gonna ask the Father. I'm gonna ask the

Father, and he will give you another

advocate, a helper to be with you

and to be with you forever. The Spirit of truth.

Jesus asked the Father to give you a gift, and that is the Holy Spirit.

You have access to this Holy Spirit. You have access

to the Holy Spirit of God. So

what about those other 613 things that we have

to obey? Ezekiel says this. I

will give you a new heart. This is the Lord speaking. I will give you

a new heart. If I get a new heart, it means my old one.

Okay, I will give you a new spirit. That means my old spirit. Not

worth a thing. And I will put it within you. I will put my

spirit within you. And cause you to what? Walk in

my statutes and be careful to obey my

rules. This tells me that his spirit, if

it's dwelling within me, I will be walking

in righteous ways. This is what

Paul says. If you walk by the Spirit, you

will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

Are you with me? Paul doesn't say, I want you to fight harder. Do harder.

Put more accountability tools in your life. Get all these programs. He says, walk

by the spirit. Walk by the spirit. Walk

by the spirit. And I love this

one. You will receive what power. You

will receive what power. Excuse Me, you will receive what

power. When the Holy Spirit

comes upon you, you are powerless

against your sin. You are powerless against the

evil in this world. You are powerless against the temptations of

your flesh. Without the power of the Holy Spirit, you are

powerless. Without the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is a good thing to have.

Do you agree? Morning. The Holy Spirit of God is

available to you, and he gives you power to

overcome all of these things. Here's the thing. Jesus

saves you. The Holy Spirit sustains you.

Jesus saves you. The Holy Spirit sustains you.

Guys, we have to become a people. We

must become a people who understand the importance of

the involvement of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We must

become. I beseech you. It is so important. Now, with that,

I have grown up and I have learned a lot about what the Holy Spirit

is not. Because I have seen people use the

Holy Spirit in ways that are not lining up with God's word. So let's look

a little bit at this. What the Holy Spirit is not. Holy Spirit is not

a force. This is not Star Wars. Okay?

He's not a feeling. Pain. Now, I've gotten

goosebumps before. Goosebumps are not an indicator. Only

indicator that Holy Spirit's moving in your life. Sometimes pain

is. And it's the Holy Spirit.

He's not a personality in a

magazine. He

is not a dove. We use a dove to symbolize him. He

is not a bird. He is not a dove.

He's not a manipulator. He's

not a controller. And he will never

contradict his own word. If God

is. If God is. If the Holy Spirit of God, if the true statement of

this up here that I have, if I can say he is God,

then the Holy Spirit is not going to tell you to do something

that contradicts what he has already said. Are you with me?

Never. It will never contradict his word. He'll never contradict his word.

So if that's what the Holy Spirit is not, this is what the Holy Spirit

is. The Holy Spirit is a counselor.

Anybody need some counsel? He's a better counselor than

Oprah. He gives better gifts than

cars. The

Holy Spirit is a strengthener. Anybody feel weak? Need

some strength? Holy Spirit's a strengthener. What about a guide?

I tell you right now, as I'm walking in my life, I need

a guide. I need the Holy Spirit to tell me

where to go. He's a

faithful friend. Let me tell you, people

here on Earth, they're not faithful friends. They try. We try.

He's a Faithful friend. He's a helper.

He's a helper. Guys, I need help.

Ask my wife. I need help. Ask the staff at

the church. I need help. Ask my closest friends. They really know he

needs help. I need help. I need the help of the Holy

Spirit. Do you need help? Anybody here

could use some help.

Miles Monroe and R.H. hori put it this way. The Holy Spirit of God is

a person and he is the most important person

on the planet today. He's the most

important person on the planet today. I got to get rolling here. Here

we go. I ministered to the youth

group, became the youth pastor. And they were in a season where they

were investigating and learning about the Holy Spirit. And in that season

they were learning some things and experiencing some things that didn't necessarily

line up with God's word. At least it had evolved to that. And so when

I walked in, I was picking up on all sorts of things because there were

prophetic words going forth that did not line up with what the word of God

says. There were things happening, there was emotionalism, there were things going on in

there that weren't necessarily what. It wasn't all

packaged with the word. It just really wasn't

the Holy Spirit, it wasn't within his character. And so I went in there to

teach and the only thing the Holy Spirit would give me to teach them for

six months to teach to you for six months was this. The primary job

of the Holy Spirit is to point people to Jesus. The primary job

of the Holy Spirit. Can you imagine how many object lessons I had to come

up with in six months time to teach the same lesson week after

week? Lord, can I move? No. The primary job of the Holy Spirit is to

point people to Jesus. And I wanna tell you today, the primary

job of the Holy Spirit is to point people to Jesus. Over in John

John 16:12

16:12 it says, I have much more to say to you, says Jesus,

more than you can bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth comes,

he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own. He

will speak only what he hears. And he will tell you what is yet to

come. Now this is what he said. He, the Holy Spirit

will glorify me. He, the

Holy Spirit will glorify me. The primary job

of the Holy Spirit is not for us to have a woo hoo experience.

The primary job of the Holy Spirit is to point people to

Jesus. Jesus is going to be lifted up. You know, when we get there, who

are we going to be exalting? Who Are we going? It's going to be Jesus.

It's going to be Jesus. And so. So I want to

hammer this simplicity of this point home. I need five volunteers quickly

to come down here. Five. Just stand up and come. Five volunteers.

Okay, hold this sign. Hold this sign.

I would like you to take these signs. I want one of you to go

on stage and the other four of you, I would just want you to spread

out around the room. You can go anywhere you want, but try not to make

it perfect. Just go somewhere random in the room. Okay? All

right. Now, who in here looks most like Jesus?

Raise your hand. Who here looks most like Jesus? I need a

Jesus. Is it?

Come on, Justin.

Next week we're gonna talk about humility. Okay? So

no, this is perfect. This is actually great. Okay, so

would you agree? Would you agree? Hey, guys, hit that

next slide for me. This should be the fruit of the spirit. Let's say this

together. Quickly, quickly. The fruit of the spirit is love,

joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness,

gentleness and self control. Would you agree that when Jesus

is here, let's transport back. Jesus is here. Physically, we can touch. Jesus is strong.

Okay, Jesus. We can touch Jesus. Okay, we touch Jesus here.

Okay. Would you believe that he is the embodiment of the

fruit of the spirit? Would you believe that the person of Jesus is the

embodiment of this fruit? Yes or no? Yes. Okay, so

here's Jesus and Jesus is here in person.

Okay. Brad, I need you to go grab that microphone for me real fast. Okay.

All right. Now, Jesus. Jesus. What does Jesus do

when he rolls up into our life? What is his invitation? We said it earlier.

What is his. Follow me. Right. Okay. So here you go, Jesus. This

is what I want you to do. Jesus. I want you to find five people

in the room, and I want you to extend the invitation for them to follow

you. And I want them to do what the invitation says. Head out.

Thank you, buddy. So Jesus strolls up

on your life and he offers you an invitation. And the

invitation is, follow me. Okay? And so

with that invitation, we get up

and we begin to follow Jesus. Yes.

Okay. Now, just as we said, Jesus is

in no hurry.

He's gonna take his time.

Okay? I know.

Okay. Okay. What you have

just witnessed, when these people took the invitation and they got up

and they started walking and following Jesus, what you just witnessed was obedience.

Are you with me? You just witnessed obedience, an obedient posture

of following Jesus. Okay, Now, Justin.

Did I. You cannot go.

Okay, Justin, this is what we're gonna do. I'm gonna give you my phone.

My phone is gonna have a Timer. Every time 10 seconds goes

by, 10, 20, 30. Every single time, I want you to say in the microphone

the words, follow me. Every single time, I don't want you to stop

until I literally say, justin, stop. No matter what's going on, no matter what I

said, no matter what I've done, you continue to do this until I say, justin,

you can stop. You got it? So every 10 seconds, you start. Now,

Jesus's invitation is gonna be, follow me. Now, I want you to walk around the

auditorium, okay? And I want you to do that. And then you guys are going

to do what he says. Follow me, okay? And you're

gonna follow him. So Jesus comes into our life and he has a

voice. He's embodied. We can feel him touch. Somebody next to you say, I feel

you. Follow me. You feel. We can feel Jesus. We can

see Jesus. If Jesus was truly here in Smyrna, Tennessee,

he would not be in Dallas. He would not be in New York. He's

here in Tennessee in person, okay? With

his flesh and his blood. And he's saying, follow me,

okay? And the people are following him. And I would hope to imagine

that if Jesus was here in person, we would all be up following him

and doing what he says to do. Follow me. Okay? Now

they are following the voice of the Lord. Now here's what I want you all

to do. Follow me. Justin, I want you. I want you all to stop

on stage here. Justin, I want you to keep going. I want you to go

backstage and around there. I want you to stay back there. Keep going on there,

okay? Come on down here. That's fine. Follow me. Okay?

Now, here we are. And we do not have

physical Jesus here, right?

But follow me. We still hear his voice, right?

Now tell me if I told you to follow the voice, right now. You go.

We'll run into each other. Like, what are we going to do? Like, where's the

voice? Because you can't see, right? You cannot see physical

Jesus anymore. But is the Lord still speaking today?

Is the commission still to follow Him? It absolutely is. So we

still have the directive, but we don't have the person. He's given us the

gift of the Holy Spirit now. Now the gift of the spirit,

the gift of the Holy Spirit. Anytime the Spirit's talking to us and leading

us, he's always gonna lead us to places that yield fruit.

Follow me. He's always gonna lead us to places that yield

fruit. So wherever I'm going, the trajectory I'm on wherever I'm. It should lead

me to places of love, joy, peace, patience, goodness.

Okay? So I would like you to look at your invitation. Look at it. Literally

look at your invitation. Your invitation. I want you to study it and I want

you to see if you can end up where you're supposed to go around the

room here. Based on what you see on your invitation, based on what we

just said. So go ahead and move if you know what to do.

Follow me. The voice is still happening.

The people are moving in

our lives. The Holy Spirit is saying,

echoing the words of Jesus, follow me. Follow me. And

whenever we follow the voice, we will end up

in places, hopefully places that

yield the fruit of the spirit.

Follow me. And if somebody doesn't

know we're going to help them out, because that's what

the spirit does. He puts people in our life. Follow me.

Mel has a handle on this. Mel, do you want to help someone else? Okay,

very good.

Follow me.

I want you to understand. Okay, listen. The voice is happening. Go ahead and

bring Justin back in. Go ahead and bring Justin back in. Mario. You mean

Jesus? Jesus. Oh, okay. Jesus. Ok.

Follow me. Justin, you may stop. Okay, listen, listen,

listen, listen, listen. It

wasn't about how long it took anybody to get there.

It was about the fact that they got where they were supposed to go.

Listen, listen, listen. There were people in here like Mel that

knew exactly. There are some people that it takes because

of their experience, their lack of knowledge, their lack of insight,

the lack of help around them. It takes them. Some people had to walk around

the auditorium to get to a place. Some people had to walk on the.

Some people made a mistake and had to humble themselves and

go the next direction. Do you understand what I'm saying? There is grace

space for us to move, but where we end up should be places

where the fruit of the spirit is manifesting itself. The Holy

Spirit of God is available to you today to end

up in places where the fruit of the spirit resides. Would you guys give the

them a round of applause? Thank you guys so much. You can just put those

signs down there.

Thank you, guys.

The primary job of the Holy Spirit is to point people to Jesus.

If they're to point people to Jesus. How do I point

people to Jesus? How does Kevin o' Day point people to Jesus? With the Holy

Spirit. This is what John says. He said that's not what I

was looking for. Oh, they're taking that off. Okay, John

John 3:35

3:35 says this. They will know me. Listen, stay

focused. They will know me. By the way

you. Come on, finish it, guys. You know this.

By the way you love. By the way you love.

By the way you love. That's how they're going to know Jesus. By the way

that you love. Jesus says, I'm. He says,

listen, I'm going away, but I'm not going to leave you

as orphans. Says, I will come to you.

How? Through the Holy Spirit.

He didn't say, try to live like me. Work harder, try harder, do more. He

said, I, the Holy Spirit, I will live in you.

I will live in you.

Valentine's Day, 1993.

I asked Jesus Christ into my heart. Why

did I ask Jesus Christ in my heart? I didn't ask Jesus Christ because I

had a relationship with God. In fact, I can't have a relationship with God

without having Jesus. But what I was taught

was, father God, he's

about to send you to hell. You are so jacked up, Kevin. You better believe

in Jesus. You better tell everybody there's a hell waiting for them.

This was all I knew about God.

I didn't know that there was a Holy Spirit. I didn't understand that

there was a God who wanted to have a real radical

relationship with me, with little old me. And so

when I turned 15, I got a job at a place called

Chick Fil a. That's Christian chicken. The Holy

Spirit's residing there.

And I met a guy by the name of Isaac. And let me tell you

what Isaac had. He had the indwelling of the

Holy Spirit. And you know what was attractive about him?

That that made me want to be friends with them. He exuded

love, joy, patience, peace,

kindness. And you know what? He also wanted to be my

friend. And I saw the way that he

loved the Lord. And I wanted some of

that. And so I became friends with him. And

guess what? He introduced me on a night here.

We were a bunch of guys laying on the floor of the foyer on a

pink car, playing a guitar. And guess what?

I received the Holy Spirit that night.

My eyes were illuminated. My mind was that there is this God who wants

a relationship with me. Now let me tell you what happened.

That relationship with the Lord started happening. And you know what? This is what

happened. Did I feel goosebumps that night? I did. But soon

after, the Holy Spirit would begin to bring up

things in me that didn't need to be there.

Insecurities I was carrying, healing that I

needed, and I didn't like it. And what I did, what Kevin chose to do

when those things came to the surface is I Said I want to cover them

up. I want to do more to make this person like me. I want to

buy bigger gifts. I want to do whatever I can. I don't want anybody to

see this. And guess what? I got to a point where I was

overwhelmed. And so what I

decided is my life is not worth living.

Rather than concede that I can't be in control of my life, I

decided I'm going to take control and take my life. And

I don't know if you've ever been in a place in your life where you

thought, this is enough.

And so my little red Chevy Cavalier on this street out

here, they were building a CVS right out here. And this friend Isaac,

this particular day. Cause this is how the Holy Spirit works. You

ever have a friend that if you and that friend are going somewhere, you kind

of have. You kind of have roles that you play that just are.

You don't talk about. They're unspoken. Like, one of the things was when Isaac and

I went somewhere, he always drove. Or whenever Isaac went there, he always was the

driver. Well, this particular day, he had a little white Civic. And this particular

day, he was going to the CD store. Do y' all know what a CD

store? You know what a CD is? Okay. Y' all know what a CD is?

Okay. So they're going to the CD store. He and

Justin. Not this Justin, a different Justin, they was going to the CD store.

And he left his car in the parking lot. So here I am, coming down

this road, tears streaming down my face, and I'm going to ram my car into

the CVS wall. That's my plan. And I'm driving,

I'm speeding. And I come over and I turn. It's big mess over here. And

I turn in. And all this happened in 10 seconds. But I

looked over and I saw Isaac's car. And in

seeing Isaac's car, something happened to me that has never

happened again, but happened this one time. Kevin o' Day heard

the audible voice of God. And God

said to Kevin o', Day, I am not finished with

you yet. And

I slammed on my brakes and I sat there

and I just wept. And for

the first time in my life, I'd asked Jesus in my heart, I believed what

he did. For the first time in my life, I

surrendered. I surrendered.

And can I tell you, he didn't fix me. On the next minute,

he set me on a journey that here in my

mid-40s, I'm still working on,

because the God of the universe revealed himself to me.

And Gave me the power. See, in that moment, that moment,

I didn't have peace. But guess who had peace.

I didn't have self control. I was trying to take things. I was trying to

control the situation. But he had an awesome gift for me. He

had the power that I needed and he gave it to me.

I cannot imagine my life without Shari,

Hadassah, Lucy, Ruby, Nora, now Eliana. I can't imagine

not being here with all you wonderful people. I can't imagine what would have been

had I selfishly made that choice. Not

understanding that there is a God who breathes stars that knows and loves

Kevin o'. Day. And that same God loves and knows

you too, guys. You cannot attempt to do this life without the

power of the Holy Spirit. You cannot attempt

to do this without his presence in your life.

And so would you stand with me this morning? I know it's time for us

to close, but I'm just asking if you would just grace me just for a

few moments. In the first gathering, we did not have enough prayer warriors

down front. So I'm going to ask this because I believe that there's some people

that need to come down. If you are a prayer warrior, would you please come

down? Can we fill the front part of the stage here? And here's the deal.

There's two things I want to invite you for. Number one, some of you

here are carrying a legitimate need. You need. You have

a problem in your finances this morning. And can I tell you, there is a

source, there is a Holy Spirit that has an answer for your finances.

Some of you are killing, carrying broken pieces. You need healing. Some of you are

contending, some of you are just in places, in relationships that

you're trying to mend. There's a lot of things going on in people's lives today.

But listen, there is a great glorious God who

sees you and knows you and has the answer and doesn't want you to try

to fight that battle on your own. He wants to be involved and if

you will come. These people are spirit filled believers.

They're spirit filled believers. Brian has his life together, okay?

But anything

he has together is because the Holy Spirit of God's involved.

Second, maybe you're like me at age when I was on that carpet.

Maybe today was a revelation. You're like, there's this Holy Spirit. I didn't

realize today you can leave here with the great

offered any of us the gift and the power of the Holy Spirit of

God. Dawn, do you have the Holy Spirit of God inside your life? How

has it been for you? Been a ride, huh? It's been a wonderful ride. Can

you imagine your life without the power of the Holy Spirit in it, Patty?

The Holy Spirit of God. Come. If you've never received

the power, if you've never asked the Lord, can you fill me up with the

Holy Spirit? Can you give me the power I need to actually make sense of

this thing? Are you sick of running into the same walls over and over and

over and over again? Guess what? You might need to do something different,

like surrender your plan and let him do the work.

Today's a great, glorious day because people are going to get set free because

of this great God. And I believe it. So if that is you,

come this morning. Come and receive from this great God. Let's worship

together.