Partnership with the Holy Spirit Part 1: Acts 15:28, 2 Corinthians 13:14 - Prepare 2020

You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

Where do you want to be at the end of 2029?

Where do you want to be in your finances?

Where do you want to be with your family?

Where do you want to be in your spiritual life, your walk with God, on December 31st, 2029?

You've got to start dreaming.

You've got to have a bigger dream than you've had before.

Yes, this year is vital.

It's important, but I say start with the macro and then work to the micro.

At The Road, our mission is to empower people to change the world.

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We hope you are encouraged by today's message from pastor teacher Steve Hope.

All right, I want you to write down or type in or whatever you do, Matthew 19.26.

Matthew 19, 26.

This is the theme verse for 2020, and it's under the rubric partnership.

Partnership with the Holy Spirit.

Here's what Matthew 19, 26 says.

With God, all things are possible.

With God, with God, all things are possible.

If you know the verse, this is in reference to the communication that Jesus was having with the rich young ruler.

In which Jesus began to explain that it's really hard for a rich guy to get into heaven.

And then the disciples say, Well, then how can this happen?

He says, with men, listen, with men, this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible.

Some of you are facing impossible situations right now.

It might be a marriage, it might be singleness, it might be, it might be bankruptcy, it might be issues with your company, it might be issues with a relationship that never seems to get better.

And I'll tell you, with men, that is impossible to change.

But with God, with a partnership with the Holy Spirit, all things are possible.

I didn't say it.

This is not some positive mental attitude thing.

This is not some motivational speaker in front of you.

This is God's word.

With God, all things are possible.

With God, God can break through barriers.

He can bring breakthrough in your life.

But if you don't believe it, listen now, it's not going to happen.

I don't know how many Christians I've met that say stuff like this and they quote stuff like this, their life is the same year after year, and it seems to go from defeat to defeat, from failure to failure, because they really don't believe it.

They believe it up in some kind of almost like a cloud somewhere, but they can't bring it down and put feet to it.

That's what we're going to be challenged with over the next few days.

That's what this year is about.

Here's what we do, guys: we overestimate what will happen in our lives in one year, and we underestimate what can happen in our lives in the next decade.

So I'm going to call it a decade of destiny.

And as long as you're with me, you're going to be hearing it year after year after year.

Where do you want to be at the end of 2029?

Where do you want to be in your finances?

Where do you want to be with your family?

Where do you want to be in your spiritual life, your walk with God on December 31st, 2029?

You've got to start dreaming.

You've got to have a bigger dream than you've had before.

Yes, this year is vital.

It's important.

But I say start with the macro and then work to the micro.

And so that's why a journal becomes key because God's going to speak to you guys tonight.

I'm going to give time tonight, where we're going to take like 10 minutes to get it started, 10 or 15 minutes, where it's just going to be silent.

We'll put some music in the back, and then we're going to ask the question.

What's God saying to me?

What's God putting on my heart?

And I'll set you up with what I'm going to talk about this morning's part one, tonight's part two, Monday's part three.

Okay?

And then God's going to speak to you.

You've got to write that down.

And you're going to begin to dream in a whole new way.

Because it's a partnership with God.

Can you imagine that?

I mean, think about what I just said.

The creator of the universe wants a partnership with you.

He wants to work in and through our lives in such a way that impossible things that you could never do flow through you with your personality, as quirky as it is, and with your sinfulness and brokenness and all the shame that we've all gone through in this room.

We've all been through shameful things.

That God wants to use shameful people, broken people like us, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to change the world.

He's been doing it for 2,000 years, and he wants to do it again.

And the world is longing for that.

You've heard me say before how Walt Disney said that Disney World and Disneyland were the happiest places on earth.

We want Disneyland to be the happiest place on the face of the earth.

Why not the church be the most joyful place in the whole city?

Why not the road be the happiest?

Because you know what?

Happy, happy?

Who wants to be happiness tends to be circumstantial, does it not?

But joy is something down deep within that's based on a faith in the sovereignty and the glory and the beauty and the intimacy we can have with Christ.

That's joy.

I want to be the happiest, happiest place on the face of the city.

And that's joy.

That God's joy would flow through us.

That's a partnership with the Holy Spirit.

It's interesting, you guys, we read about God's plan and partnership when he says the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking.

You know what he's saying there?

He's saying the kingdom of God, Romans 14, 17, he says, it's not eating and drinking, meaning it's not externals, like you've been taught from the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

It's rather righteousness, peace, and joy.

So Jesus takes an external view of the kingdom.

He turns it internal to the heart, and he says, but here's what he says: it's listen, it's righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

In other words, if you're not filled with the Holy Spirit, you're not going to have righteousness, peace, and joy.

It's not something we can drum up.

It's not something that we can somehow have a positive view of.

Or we chant little uh phrases and stuff like that.

Nothing wrong with that, I guess.

But at the core, it's a heart-deepening intimacy with Christ, where his righteousness, his peace, and his joy begins to overflow into our lives and to others.

We start to have associations with people who believe in righteousness, peace, and joy.

And you know what righteousness is?

It's not what the Pharisees said.

It's not what religion says.

It's not primarily external behavior.

It's actually righteousness by the Greek, right relationships.

It's walking in right relationships.

And you can't have right relationships with your brothers and sisters if you don't have a right relationship with God.

Because you all, we all tend towards who struggles with a little bit of selfishness sometimes?

Right?

We do.

So we are always right.

And they're always wrong.

Just ask your neighbor.

Are you ask your neighbor right now?

Are you always right?

So, righteousness, guys, righteousness is right relationships with God in the middle.

It's with God in the middle.

Peace and joy.

When we have right relationships, we have a better shot at peace and joy.

I believe that if you were to go home today and you were just sitting in your bed or sit on a couch or something like that, and you started thinking, what brings me, typically, the most consternation?

What brings me the biggest angst in my life, 90% of the time, it's relationships.

So for Christ to say that the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, it's not externals, it's righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, he's talking about a partnership.

He wants a partnership, he wants a personal, vital, dynamic relationship with us that overflows into the lives of others.

But you have to want it.

You have to go for it, you have to have a hunger for it, right?

So, turning your Bibles to John 14.

In John 14, Jesus begins to communicate to us that he's leaving.

He's communicating to disciples, he's gonna leave the earth.

He's physically going to leave.

But then he says, but I'm gonna come back, I'm gonna visit you, and he's not talking about a second coming.

He's talking about he's gonna send himself in the form of the Holy Spirit to fill all believers.

They don't get this, they don't understand this, so he has to keep emphasizing it.

So really, John 14, 15, 16, Romans 8, and many other passages all through the scriptures talk about this work of the Holy Spirit.

But I chose John 14 because it leads into John 15.

And John 15 is where I'm going to camp starting today and tonight and Monday night.

I'm gonna talk about this idea of a partnership with the Holy Spirit through abiding in him.

How we abide in him.

But here's the setup.

So I just want to follow the context of what Jesus does starting at verse 12, which is remarkable that he starts off in verse 12 by saying this.

He says, Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also.

That's an amazing statement in and of itself, that we can do the works of Christ.

But then he says this, but then there's greater works than even these he will do, because I go to my father.

So he's saying, I'm leaving, I'm going to my father, but you guys, you disciples of Jesus, you're going to do the same works that I did and even greater works.

And whatever you ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

If you ask anything in my name, I will do it.

So he's saying something about prayer, which we're going to talk about tonight and Monday night.

The power of believing prayer.

He's saying, look, you can do the works, but you're not going to do the works unless you ask to do the works.

If you don't ask to do the works, you're not going to do the works.

Now think about where they're at.

Okay, he says, you can do the same works I did.

You can see miracles, you can uh you can see multiplication of resources, um, you can raise the dead, heal the sick, cast out demons.

You can do all that.

And you can even do them, because you can do them greater than me.

More of you will be doing it, it's gonna be greater than me.

See ya.

Wouldn't that be slightly confusing?

He's saying, if you ask me, I'll do it.

But then he just kind of leaves it there.

Then he says, This if you love me, you'll keep my commandments.

Now this is key, verse 16.

And I will pray.

So he just said if you pray and you ask for stuff, then I'm gonna respond.

But then he says, I'm praying for you.

He says, I pray the Father, and he will give you another helper.

Capital H in your Bibles, paracletas, that that word paraclete there, that he may abide with you forever.

The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him.

You know him, for he dwells with you and he will be in you.

But the Holy Spirit hasn't come yet.

So he's associating himself with his physical presence, that there's going to be a spirit coming with a spiritual presence not unlike his physical presence, and it's actually going to be deeper because it's not gonna just be beside you, it's going to be, he's going to be in you.

I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you.

Verse 19, a little while longer, and the world will see me no more.

I'm leaving.

But you will see me.

What?

They won't see me anymore, but you'll see me.

What are you talking about, Jesus?

Because I live, you will live.

What?

At that day, you will know that I am in my father, and you in me, and I in you.

He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me.

He who loves me will be loved by my father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.

Verse 23.

If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my father will love him, and he will come to him and make our home with him.

What?

He said, I'm gonna leave, you're gonna pray to me, but then I'm gonna actually pray to the Father for you.

I'm gonna come back with the same kind of presence that you experienced when I was physically here, except now it's in you.

I'm gonna make my home, and this is what's interesting.

My father's gonna make his home, I'm gonna make my home.

It's a Trinitarian home coming into our home to live within us.

Verse 24.

He who does not love me does not keep my words, and the word which you hear is not mine, but the Father who sent me.

Verse 27.

Peace, excuse me, 26.

But the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.

Not as the world gives to you, do I give it to you.

Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

Well, I'll tell you, folks, I it if you are a news junkie like I can be, I'm actually, I'm actually repenting of being a news junkie.

Um I'm a confessing news junkie.

But if you watch half of what I watch, which is less than it used to be, you might be fearful of what's happening in our world today.

I mean, it's just crazy right now.

And I guarantee you, it's not gonna get better, it's going to get worse as we move into the new year.

But here's what I see from what we just read.

Number one, four key truths about the Holy Spirit.

Number one, the Holy Spirit empowers you to do the works of Jesus.

First thing.

Jesus says, you will do the works in even greater works.

Folks, you can do the works of Jesus if you believe.

Number two, the Holy Spirit empowers you to pray.

He empowers you to know when to pray, he empowers you to know how to pray.

And we're gonna talk more about that tonight and tomorrow night.

About this issue of powerful prayer.

Number three, the Holy Spirit will come and live in you.

If you're Jesus' follower, he now lives in you.

Some of you have received Christ in the last three months.

Many of you have prayed with me right up here, you receive Christ.

Well, if you truly believed in Christ, the Holy Spirit now lives in you.

You have the Holy Spirit.

Now, if you have never surrendered to Christ, you don't have the Holy Spirit.

You're on your own.

But you can receive Jesus and receive the Holy Spirit today or tonight.

Come to Jesus.

Smart decision.

Really dumb decision to live without the Holy Spirit.

Really dumb.

Everybody go really dumb.

Really dumb.

Okay.

Really smart to walk with Jesus because you get the partnership of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords and all of his power, all of his manifest power and his righteousness, peace, and joy.

It's flowing through your spiritual bloodstream through the Holy Spirit.

Then fourthly, the Holy Spirit is a helper or a comforter.

The Greek word is paraklete or parakletos.

It's this idea that he comes alongside your life.

It means intercessor, it means comforter, it means helper, it means advocate, it means counselor.

It's a technical term, church, for an attorney who appears in court in another's behalf or defense.

It's like you not knowing what to do about your accident that you were in, and you hire an attorney, and he goes before the judge and he argues on your behalf.

That's the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit comes and leads out, and he's an advocate for you.

Especially when you don't know what to do.

A lot of us don't know what to do.

We are in situations with our finances, we're in situations in relationships, we're in situations with our parenting, we're in situations in our singleness or school.

And we can have a partnership with the Holy Spirit and get wisdom from God, kingdom of God wisdom, that is like you know that's not from you.

There's no way you could have thought of that.

There's no way you could have made that plan, but God drops it into your heart, and guess where he drops it from?

It 90% of the time it comes right out of here.

It's not a vision or a dream, it's not an impression.

Those things are vitally important.

I believe in all of them.

But if they don't line up with this book, then cast them out.

They're not from the Lord, because there's also an enemy.

And part of, I think part of maturity is knowing the difference between when your flesh is speaking, when Satan is speaking, when the world's culture is speaking, and when you're listening and hearing literally from God.

So let me just say this.

If you don't spend regular time in God's word, don't ever trust one of your visions and dreams.

If you don't spend regular time in God's word and know what he's actually saying, his inerrant, infallible, unconditional, loving word to all of us in this room.

If you're not regularly reading that, knowing that, meditating on it, and experiencing his word in your life, do not trust any visions and dreams.

It's probably the pizza you had last night.

It's probably the movie you saw two days ago.

You want to hear a dream I had last night?

Pretty cool dream.

Okay, I spent the last hour meditating on the passage we just read, John 14 and 15.

We're gonna come to 15 in just a second.

So I just what I do is I just read it.

I don't have any of my notes anywhere.

I've worked on my message.

So this is y'all just downloading God's word.

So I always go like this.

I read it and I put it like this because there's too many lights in our room.

So I got so nothing spiritual about it.

Okay, I just do that.

So I'm like this, and I like to kind of cover my head, and I just think about it.

I just meditate and I think about it.

Well, I had a dream last night.

In the dream, I had been recruited to a minor league baseball team.

Don't laugh, it's very serious, really very meaningful to me, okay?

So I was on this minor league baseball team, and there was this other guy, and it seemed like it was my son Josh, who's a catcher.

And he was on this team, and I remember thinking through the whole dream, what position do I play?

And it was never clear in the dream what position I played.

It was super weird, okay?

But I had this sense that I've got something to do.

In other words, I got a bright future.

I've got this future.

I'm gonna make it to the major leagues.

That's what was like in my heart.

And then I woke up.

Everybody say weird dream.

It's a weird dream, okay.

Here's what I think it means, though.

I think it means that God's got me in a new place of starting over.

That's what he's doing is he's saying, I'm gonna teach you some new stuff.

You're gonna have to learn some new skills, you're gonna have to grow.

It really is a decade of destiny.

And you can imagine if you're a kid and you're going out and you're in minor leagues and you have these visions and being in the major leagues or something like that, you know how, I don't know, teachable you would be.

That's what I felt like from that.

But let me just say if you're having visions and dreams, but you don't regularly spend time in God's Word, you don't regularly worship the Lord, do not trust Him because it's popcorn, man.

That's just that that's that popcorn with too much butter.

That's what it is.

But if you start spending time in God's Word, you start journaling, hello, God's gonna start.

To speak to you sometimes through visions and dreams.

And it's pretty exciting when he does that.

It's more exciting to be in God's Word.

So now look at John 15.

So, you know, keep moving through.

So he's talking about the Holy Spirit, and then I'm just going to start this, and then we'll go into part two tonight.

So Jesus, in my opinion, gave us, I think I would put John 15, probably John 14, 15, and 16, this treatise, alongside the Sermon on the Mount of Matthew 5, 6, and 7, as the two most powerful sermons that Jesus ever spoke.

He's so practical here.

Here's what he says.

Remember, he's speaking to an agrarian culture.

They understand vineyards, they understand farming, and he's making this illustration.

I am the vine, and my father is the vine dresser.

Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away.

And every branch that bears fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit.

Now let's just stop right there.

If we look at the first command in Genesis to mankind, humankind, us.

Do you remember what it was?

What it was was that we were to multiply.

We were to bear fruit.

The actual phraseology is be fruitful and multiply.

Do you remember that?

Adam and Eve.

Okay.

Then we look at what God commanded Noah, Abraham, it was to be fruitful and multiply with the Noahic covenant as well as the Abrahamic covenant.

It was about the land and it was about multiplication.

Then we follow the scriptures through Deuteronomy, and we've read that before, Deuteronomy 28, 29 and 30.

If you obey me, if you love me, if you'll hear my voice and follow me, here's the blessings that are gonna come your way.

Here's the fruit that's gonna flow out of your life.

If you disobey me, here's the cursings that are gonna be all over your life.

So all through Scripture, God is on the kingdom move to make you and I fruitful in what we do with the assignments that He's called us to do.

He wants you prosperous in a spiritual way.

I'm not, don't, don't get me, don't get mixed up and say everybody's gonna be a millionaire, we're gonna all be doing rolls and royals or something.

I'm not saying that.

I'm not saying that that's not gonna be true in some cases, but what I'm saying is this is that God, I believe, wants you fruitful in a kingdom sense in everything that you touch and everything that you do, if you'll believe and trust him.

That's what he's saying here.

So look, I sent you to this earth as my image-bearers that you might bear fruit.

So he says, I am the true vine, my father is the vine dresser.

Every branch in me, there we go, partnership in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away.

Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes.

I don't like that part.

God's gonna prune us.

He's gonna prune us in 2020.

He's gonna prune us in 2021.

He prunes us, but listen to why he prunes us.

That we might bear more fruit.

You are already clean because of the word that I've spoken to you.

Abide in me.

That means stay connected to me, cling to me.

Have a partnership relationship with me, and I in you.

In other words, you abide in me, I'll abide in you.

Here's what's true.

It always starts with God, but it doesn't end there.

This whole relationship with God starts with God calling you and wooing you to abide in him.

But then you take that next step, you start abiding in him, and he abides in us, and it begins to be this reciprocal, beautiful, organic relationship of communication and love and intimacy.

Verse five.

Verse four, abide in me and I in you as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.

I am the vine, you are the branches.

He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit, bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing.

And if anyone does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered, and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

And you we've got friends where we've seen that happen to them.

It's unfortunate.

But here's the first point.

Number one, in a partnership with the Holy Spirit is partnering with Christ, and you'll prosper.

You guys, you'll prosper.

I don't, I mean, if you have any doubt about that, just read the Gospels.

Jesus is about fruitfulness in your life.

But it's you've got to want it.

You've got to be hungry for it.

You gotta want to grow.

Obey God.

Trust in Him with all your heart.

Lean not on your own understanding.

And watch what He'll do.

He will make your path straight.

He will open doors that no man can shut.

He'll shut doors that no man can open.

Sometimes it takes fasting and prayer.

You're in a church where we as a body believe that with God that all things are possible.

You have to believe it though.

You have to believe it tonight.

You have to believe it on Monday morning when you show up to work and you find out that just dad dies and you're out of a job.

You've got to be that kind of a person that can say, with God, all things are possible.

I'm gonna trust God.

I believe God has good things, great things, and awesome things for my life in 2020, even though my circumstances don't show it.

Seven times in this passage, seven times Jesus talks about bearing fruit, bearing more fruit, continuing to bear fruit as we abide in Him.

God has a great plan.

That's why I've told you so many times before.

My favorite verse is John 10, 10.

I came that you might have life and might have it abundantly.

So first, first point.

Partner with Christ, we're gonna bear fruit.

Verse 7.

If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.

By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and you will be my disciples.

Number two, partner with Christ through his word and prayer.

Through his word and prayer.

Men and women, we don't even know how to pray if we're not in the word.

But when we're in the word and we know how to pray, and we begin to believe and we begin to trust God, God gets glory by seeing fruit coming out of your life that you could never personally produce.

Some of you guys have dreams.

You have dreams about your vocation, you have visions and dreams about your marriage or getting married, or visions and dreams about where your kids might be.

Give those to God, give those to him.

He's saying, Oh, I can do that.

I've put those desires in your heart.

If you'll abide in me, if you'll partner with me, and then you'll ask me for those things.

Look what I'm gonna do.

I'll shake the heavens and the earth on your behalf to bring to you the richness of life that you're longing for.

You've been listening to The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

We hope you have been blessed by today's message.

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Thanks again for tuning in today, and be sure to listen to the next edition of The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.