There Is More Going On Than You Think (Part 2)

To the nations, and that's where we flip over to the New

Testament. Roughly 850 years after Naman

takes 2 mule loads of soil back with him to Syria.

Jesus Christ is born and Jesus is God in the flesh.

Amen. He lives the perfect life, He

proves that he's God, He performs miracles, he goes to

war with demons, he teaches, he gains a bunch of followers, and

at the height of his ministry, everything seems seems to take a

wrong turn. Jesus marches into Jerusalem,

the holy City, Ground Zero of holy ground, and he cleanses the

temple and it ticks off all the religious leaders.

And so they plot and they decide to kill them.

They put them on a cross and they kill them.

But there's good news, like we celebrated at Easter.

Three days later, he's resurrected.

And for the next 50 weekdays, he spends his time in the public

square talking, hanging out and eating with people, which is

great. But here's the bad news.

After 50 days, he ascends to heaven.

Sit at the right hand of God, and we're just stuck down here.

And it's kind of frustrating, isn't it?

Kind of frustrating? It's like, hey, what the heck,

Jesus, you're just going to leave us down here on enemy

territory in the middle of a spiritual war?

What the heck? Is that how it feels?

Has Jesus left you alone? And the answer to that question,

of course, is no. And So what I want you to do

over these next 30 minutes, 25 minutes, is I want you to see

Jesus as the new Elijah who actually gives us something

better than dirt to take back to the nations.

Sound good? Cool.

If you're able, let's stand for the reading of God's Word.

OK, so this Acts chapter 2, this is the Pentecost text.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

There's a million things going on here.

I cannot touch on every one of them that this Acts chapter 2,

Acts 2 · chapter mention

this is the new temple St. in Exodus, after they build the

temple, fire falls from heaven and fills the temple and the New

Testament after Jesus builds the temple, fire falls down and

descends on humans. You're the new temple.

Isn't that amazing? This is the new.

This is the reversal of Babel. At at Babel, we see humanity

scattered to the nations and we see their tongues confused.

This is the undoing of that. Here we see the nations gathered

and they're given tongues to understand one another.

So there's like a million things going on right here.

I can't unpack them all. I'm going to stay stuck on the

soil. Here's chapter 2 of Acts.

When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all gathered

together in one place, and suddenly there came from heaven

a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire

house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire

appeared to them, and then rested not on a building on

them. And they were all filled with

the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in other tongues as the

Spirit gave them utterance. Now, and this is an important

detail, there were dwelling in Jerusalem, Jews, devout men from

every nation under heaven. They were there for a festival.

Jesus waits strategically for this festival, knowing that

people from every nation are going to come and celebrate

together. At this sound the multitude came

together and they were bewildered, as you would be too,

because each one was hearing them speak in his own language.

And they were amazed and astonished, saying, Are not all

these who are speaking Galileans?

How is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language,

tons of nations, Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and

residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontius and Asia,

Frisia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to

Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes,

Cretans and Arabians. We hear them telling in our own

tongues the mighty works of God. And they were amazed and

perplexed, saying to one another, What does this mean?

But of course, when there's a mighty work of God, verse 13,

there's always this. But there were others who

mocked, saying they're just filled with new wine, which is

truer than they could have imagined when they mocked them.

Heavenly Father, I I wonder how many of us in here this morning

don't really believe the Holy Spirit.

Maybe we find Christian morality attractive, but we don't believe

in the Holy Spirit. Maybe we, maybe some of us even

find the story of Christ compelling, but we don't believe

in the Holy Spirit. And if that's you, my prayer for

you this morning is that somehow, someway, God would

douse you in the gasoline of the Holy Spirit and just light you

on fire. The image I've had all week in

my mind, stacked firewood. We're like stacked firewood here

this morning. If you don't send fire, there

won't be any real warmth. God and so light us on fire.

It's in the precious name of Jesus that all God's people

prayed. Amen.

You can have a seat. OK?

As I mentioned, there's 1000 things going on in this text.

I can't do all of it. I want to draw your eyes to two

different observations, which means we're going to leave 998

stones unturned. Have a fun week reading Acts in

your spare time and it will blow your mind.

I just want you to see two things right here in this text.

The first thing I want you to see is that no, Jesus did not

ascend to heaven and leave you alone in the middle of the

spiritual war. Jesus sense to heaven so that he

can actually give you something. That's better than having Jesus

in the flesh by your side. That sounds heretical.

Doesn't that sound like heresy? Something better than having

Jesus in the flesh by your side? If that sounds heretical to you,

that's actually Jesus's own words before his death in John

John 16:7

16 verse 7. Jesus says, nevertheless, I tell

you the truth, it is to your advantage or some translations

literally translate it. It's better for you.

Both translations are good. It is to your advantage.

It's better for you that I go away.

How could that possibly be true? For if I do not go away, the

helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send them to

you. So what's better than Jesus

beside you, the Spirit of Jesus within you?

You're not alone. And the second piece I really

want to draw your attention to, especially in light of the

sermon last Sunday, is that no, despite what you might think or

guess, Jesus doesn't give his people dirt, which is strange

because the vast majority of the people in Acts chapter 2 are not

Acts 2 · chapter mention

from Israel. I wonder if you notice that

they're like name them. They're from foreign nations and

they do not live in Old Testament Israel on holy ground.

They can't worship every week in the temple.

Did you notice that here's verse 5.

Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem.

Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven.

And so they see the Holy Spirit descend upon the disciples and

they listen to Peter preach the gospel of Jesus.

And they are chapter 2 says, cut to the heart.

You're felt that way. Cut on the tender part of your

heart. And So what we see is they're

basically like naman. They experience a miracle.

They go all in on Jesus, but they're faced with the problem

that you're faced with. They can't just pitch tents and

shack up in Jerusalem and live the rest of their life in

Jerusalem, right? They've got to go back to their

jobs and their homes and their families and those homes are

outside of holy ground. It's the same predicament Naman

was in. How can I worship Jesus if I

have to go live in my home nation that's under the power

and influence of foreign gods? How do I, how do I worship

Jesus? If I have, If I only get to be

at church for an hour and a half every week and then I got to go

back to my house and my job, what do I do?

And so if you know the story of naman, here's your expectation.

How do you take the presence of God with you get a lot of

shovels, right? What's the number of people

here? It's like 3000, isn't it?

Get a lot of shovels, get a lot of mules, and get ready for a

lot of manual labor because that's a lot of holy ground to

take back to the nations, right? But here's the beautiful thing

about this text. Jesus isn't the prophet Elijah.

He's greater than the prophet Elijah.

And so his gift is greater than Elijah's gift.

And so he doesn't give these people dirt to carry back to the

nation's. What does he do?

Jesus gives Peter the Holy Spirit.

Times of fire descend upon him and then Peter passes the Spirit

on to the other people from other nations.

Verse 38, Peter said to them, Repent and be baptized everyone

of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of

sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

So upon repenting of their sins and believe in the Gospel, they

get something better than holy ground.

They get the Holy Spirit. And what are they going to do

with the Holy Spirit? Exactly what Naaman did with

holy ground. They're going to take the Holy

Spirit back with them to the unbelieving nations where they

live. Pentecost is the invasion, the

invasion of God's own presence back into enemy territory all

across the globe. That's what's happening.

That's why Jesus waited for this day to send his Holy Spirit.

He knew for a festival all the nations would be coming, and

then he could slam dunk him with the Holy Spirit.

That's better than holy ground. You know why the Holy Spirit's

better than holy ground? Because the Spirit.

I don't know if anybody's ever told you this before.

The Spirit, If you're filled with the Spirit, the Spirit

literally makes you into the holy ground.

Has anybody ever told you that before?

If you are filled with the Spirit, you are holy ground.

You're the holy ground. That's the shock of Acts chapter

Acts 2 · chapter mention

2. Soil from Jerusalem's cool,

right? Like maybe some of you have been

to Jerusalem and you visited and you got like a vial and a Ziploc

and you filled it up and it's kind of sitting on a shelf at

home. That's pretty cool.

I've never done it. I'd like to do that.

But you know what? You can lose that dirt, right?

You can drop that dirt. You know what?

You can't lose the Holy Spirit. I hope you have.

I hope you know the Holy Spirit. I, I was this week early.

I was prepping the Sir. I was banging my head against

the text. Now we're just getting up.

And so I decided I was like, OK, I'm just going to, I'm going to

step away from my desk. I'm going to walk out of my

office. I'm going to go on a nice long

walk and I'm just going to ask the Holy Spirit, what do you

want me to say to your church? And so I went on a walk around

the block and around the neighborhood and I and I asked

God, I was like, Holy Spirit, what do you want to say to this

church this week? And do you know, he told me

nothing for the first 25 minutes.

And I was like, all right, maybe I'm not patient enough.

I'll ask you a couple minutes there.

I was like, Holy Spirit, what do you want to say to your people?

Like there's nothing. I was like, that's fine.

I'm probably not even ready to hear.

I'll keep walking, I'll keep praying and I'll keep asking.

And sometimes that's what the Christian life is like.

You just got to keep banging at the door.

You just got to keep asking. You just got to keep begging.

And so about 25 minutes and I was like, Holy Spirit, what,

what do you want to say to our church?

And that's when I heard. Maybe the better, maybe the

better word is sensed. It didn't come to me in an

audible voice, but I, I felt or I sensed the Holy Spirit speak

to me. And I felt like the Holy Spirit

whispered. I was like, what do you want to

tell this church? And I felt like the Holy Spirit

whispered, there's too much dirt and too few fires.

Too much dirt and too few fires. Dirt's heavy, too low, mule.

Loads of dirt to carry around of of holy ground.

That's heavy to carry around with us.

I think a lot of us life feels really heavy because we're

trying to carry our Christianity around with us.

Like there are loads of dirt, right?

You're like, I got to read my Bible today.

That feels heavy. I got to pray today.

I got to forgive my enemies today.

That feels heavy. I got to listen to Cole preach

on cosmic geography and he's going along.

That sounds heavy, right? That's just heavy.

Carry your spirituality around with you.

That's that's heavy. I wonder if that's what

spirituality feels like to you and if that's what Christianity

feels like to you. I've got really good news for

you. You don't have to carry a holy

ground everywhere with you anymore because you don't.

You don't carry fire, you're carried by fire.

That's radically different, right?

The posture is no longer. I read my Bible.

It feels heavy. The posture is, man, I got a

spirit. I get to read my Bible.

Speak to me. Spirit, I made the church speak

to me. What do you want me to learn in

the same? The liturgy, the preaching, the

Communion. Cole's going along again this

morning. OK.

Give me an extra dose of fire. I guess that's being carried.

You don't carry fire. You're carried by fire.

Right? I want.

Oh, I was thinking about this this week.

Man. Man, I wonder how much of our

exhaustion in the modern world we're so tired.

I wonder how much of our exhaustion in life actually has

less to do with the volume of our task load in our To Do List

and actually has everything to do with the fact that we don't

follow the Spirit. So life feels it's the Christian

life feels like you're shoveling the sidewalk, you know, rather

than ice skating. Life in the Spirit is not

shoveling the sidewalk. Life in the Spirit is ice

skating. You don't carry fire, you're

carried by fire. I want you to see this in Acts

Acts 2 · chapter mention

chapter 2. These people who believe the

gospel, I keep on drawing your attention to this.

They don't carry loads of soil or holy ground with them back to

the nation because the Holy Spirit, it's them, the Spirit

makes them into holy ground. That's this is the whole point

of all the temple language in the New Testament.

Have you ever noticed how much temple language there is?

And in the New Testament, look at First Corinthians chapter 3,

1 Corinthians 3 · chapter mention

Paul says, do you not know that you are God's temple and that

God's Spirit dwells in you? The temple is where the presence

of God in heaven is on earth. Paul's point there is you're the

holy ground now, right? I love that he had to ask it.

Did you notice there's a question mark at the end of

that? He says, did you not know this?

I mean, you make an inference from that.

The inference there is, yeah, Some of the Christians didn't

know this, but apparently it's possible to be a Jerry Springer

Christian. When I was little, I was haunted

by this Jerry Springer episode, like every Jerry Springer

episode where there was this crazy woman on the show who

didn't know she was pregnant until she almost gave birth.

Apparently you can be a Jerry Springer Christian, right?

You can have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, filled with the

Holy Spirit and not even know it.

Did you all know this? You're objectively filled with

the Spirit and you don't act like it.

You don't know it. Paul goes on in first

Corinthians 6 to say your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit

within you, whom you have from God.

What's the point? You're the temple now.

You're holy ground. You're where God in heaven

invades earth. And then he explicitly ties it

to spiritual warfare in 2nd Corinthians 6.

He goes on to say 2nd Corinthians 6, what agreement

has the temple of God with idols?

What's the answer to that question?

None, none. No agreement with idols, no

idols, no false gods coming to God's temple.

And the beautiful thing is that these Christians, they didn't

have to do what Naaman did. They don't have to carry soil

around everywhere with them, even though it was admirable and

the right thing for Naaman to do in the context of the Old

Testament, right? When it's time to worship God,

New Testament Christians, they don't have to do what Naaman

did. And like, I don't, it doesn't

actually tell us what Naaman did with the soil.

My best guess, and I'm stealing this from Michael Heizer, is he

maybe he took it with them in into the False Gods Temple back

in Syria and sprinkled it on the ground and then stood on that

holy ground when he was praying and worshiping.

And these Christians in the New Testament, they don't they don't

have to do it when they leave Jerusalem and go back to their

houses in Rome and Syria and all over the world.

They don't have to double check whether or not Oh my gosh, this

is our it's like the Holy Spirit's not like your keys.

Did I leave that put soil in my pockets today by my keys?

With me? They don't have to do that

anymore. Because if you have the Spirit,

everywhere you go becomes holy ground.

Does this not fascinate you? Do you see life this way?

Like, OK, if you want to go to a really holy place, place where

God is very present, he's there and you're there.

Do you know what you have to go? You know what you have to do?

You don't have to buy a plane ticket.

You literally just have to believe the gospel and then look

at your feet. You're the holy ground.

Everywhere you go is heaven invading enemy territory.

Everywhere you go, you're the frontier where heaven meets

earth. Everywhere you go, the Garden of

Eden is breaking into the wilderness.

You should, you should test this out this week.

Test it. Like test this out in your

spiritual practices. OK, so every time you read your

Bible this week, I want you to do something.

Every time you read your Bible, before you even read it, I want

you to take your face. I want you to put it right into

your Bible. I want you to breathe into the

pages. I want you to feel the warmth of

your own breath bouncing off of the page and coming back onto

your face. And when you feel that, I want

that to be a reminder to you that this isn't just printed

text. It's the Spirit speaking to you.

It's God's own breath coming to you.

You know what happens to your Bible reading when you see it

that way. It's not heavy anymore, pretty

heavy. It's like a dialogue between two

friends, right? Test this.

Test it this week in your spiritual test it even in your

non spiritual practices this week, like the places of your

life where you're like, oh, that's that's secular.

That's not really Christian. That's not really sacred, right?

One of the central claims of Christianity is that the Holy

Spirit is remaking all of creation in the temple,

sanctifying all of the secular world is sacred and transforming

every square inch of the cosmos into holy ground.

So one thing I tried to do a couple weeks ago, and this blew

my mind. One thing I tried to do a couple

weeks ago was I, I, I, I was, I came downstairs after the kids

bedtime. I was in a bad mood and I was

going to do the dishes. And so I asked myself, what

would a person, how would a person with the Holy Spirit do

the dishes? Bro, that'll mess you up,

sister, that question will mess you up.

You know what happened? The dishes magically wash

themselves. No, they didn't.

I still had to use dish soap. Or what?

What are the packets called that you put in there?

Dish detergent. I had to use dish detergent.

The Spirit wouldn't even do that for me.

So you still got to use the dish soap.

So what what did happen? What did happen is that washing

the dishes was no, that one time was no longer heavy.

It was transformed into an act of sacrificial spiritual

worship. And guys, I was there with my

shaker bottle, like scrubbing out the dried chunks of protein

at the bottom from 2 weeks ago. And I was like, Oh my goodness,

this is what the Holy Spirit's doing in my heart right now.

He's cleaning out all those hockey trunks and it become the

whole thing gets transformed into an act of spiritual

worship. I wasn't carrying it anymore.

I was being carried by the Spirit.

Do that. Pick a mundane daily task,

mowing the lawn, going to gym, doing the dishes.

Oh, if you have kids, do this one.

How would somebody who has the Holy Spirit do bedtime routines?

That'll mess you up, too. You get lit on fire.

You're playing with fire, literally.

If you ask that question right, it changes everything.

Carl Jung, Not a Christian, but a brilliant man nevertheless,

who needs to be reckoned with? Jung said.

The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life

than the greatest of things without it.

Bingo. I would rather wash the dishes

in the Spirit then give a Ted talk to millions of people in a

sold out audience without the Spirit and walk away thinking

what was the point of all of that?

The beautiful thing too about the Holy Spirit is that He is as

effective in protecting you from demons as He is at protecting

you from your own crappy attitude while washing the

dishes. That's what the Spirit does.

What? What does the Spirit do in your

life? And the better question is, what

doesn't he do right? He, the Holy Spirit, saves you.

It's the Spirit that plants faith in Jesus into your heart

and regenerates your heart and helps you believe in the gospel.

The Spirit saves you, but the Holy Spirit also sanctifies you.

It's the Spirit that takes all the finished work of Jesus and

applies it to your heart so that you can bear fruit in your life.

Every good work you've ever done has been a fruit that comes from

the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit doesn't just

sanctify you, he also perseveres you until glory.

It's the Spirit that will protect you from Satan, demons,

evil spirit, the devil himself. Bofing says quote where the

Spirit of God dwells there Satan's dominion is broken.

That doesn't mean that you won't experience spiritual warfare.

Read Acts, right, right when that's the Holy Spirit descends

on believers immediately. What they're like magnets for

spiritual warfare. The presence of the Holy Spirit

triggers nonstop attacks from demons in the book of Acts.

So getting the Holy Spirit doesn't mean that you'll be

spared from spiritual warfare. It means you'll be spared from

losing in spiritual warfare. That's what he protects you and

perseveres you from. Like I get, I get nervous when

Christians tell me, you know, I don't really experience

spiritual warfare. The good news is you might be

right. The bad news is teammates don't

usually attack teammates. And so this the reason why you

don't experience any spiritual warfare, maybe because you're on

the wrong team and you're not a threat the enemy, but the Spirit

will guard you in this warfare. I'm not making this up.

John 14 verse 26. The question is, how does he do

John 14:26

it? Watch this John 1426.

Jesus says, But the helper of the Holy Spirit, whom the Father

will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring

to you remembrance all things that I said to you.

In other words, the Holy Spirit helps us fight spiritual warfare

by reminding us of Jesus, the Gospel of Jesus, the teachings

of Jesus, the life of Jesus, or John 16.

Jesus says, when he, the Spirit of truth has come, he will guide

you into all truth. So how does the Holy Spirit help

us fight spiritual warfare? He keeps us in truth.

He keeps us believing the gospel.

Ephesians 1 When you heard the word of truth, the gospel of

your salvation, and believed in him, you were sealed with the

promised Holy Spirit. Sealed, sealed.

The Holy Spirit's within you and you've been sealed.

What's that mean? That means there aren't any

other messages getting into you. He'll protect you from lies,

false gospels, the schemes of the devil.

You'll experience spiritual warfare.

But if you have the Holy Spirit, you're going to win.

I was at the zoo for, for Della went on a field trip last week

or the week before that. And so I went, I went to the zoo

with Chloe on their little field trip.

And so I'm walking around with a bunch of 6 year olds, right?

And we, we walk up to this exhibit.

I can't remember what animal it was, but all these six year

olds, they press their face up against the glass and they're

looking for this animal on this exhibit and they're like, where

is it? We can't see it.

So I leaned in and I was like, Dang, that thing's a beast.

Whoa. And they're like, where is he?

And I was like, look at that thing.

He's he's huge. He's massive, he's menacing.

And they were like, where is he? And I was like, you don't see

that beast in there. And I was like, oh wait, it's

just my reflection. And a bunch of 6 year olds

literally started booing me like right when I was like, I was

just like they were like. There is more going on than you

think though. And so sometimes when you

experience lust and temptation and spiritual warfare, sometimes

you are looking through the glass and you have come face to

face with a beast. Sometimes it's just your own

stupid reflection looking back at you, your own flesh, your own

stupidity, your own sins, your own struggle.

OK, so, Cole, the question is, how do I know when I'm under

spiritual attack from the enemy? And how do I know when I'm

experiencing spiritual attack just because I'm a dummy?

And the answer to that question is I'm not sure.

But the beautiful thing is, the solution is the same either way.

You must ask the Spirit to help you believe the gospel in that

moment. What?

What did the Spirit descend as fire?

In what shape? In Acts chapter 2 did you notice

Acts 2 · chapter mention

that? Tongues?

Why tongues? Tongues?

Because the Christian faith is a faith built around a message.

The gospel preached, the gospel spoke, and the gospel believed.

And so every time you struggle and wrestle with doubt in the

gospel, and you feel the Spirit help you believe that Jesus

Christ was crucified for your sins to give you his

righteousness. And no matter what happens, no

matter what sin you're struggling with, you're good

because you got Jesus. Every time that happens, a

miracle has occurred. And you may not see it that way.

You may not have eyes to see, but in that moment tongues of

fire have descended upon you and kept you grounded and rooted in

the gospel. The Holy Spirit lights us on

fire, and He lights us on fire for the gospel.

I was hanging out with some pastors last year in Chicago,

and this particular network, you wouldn't believe how much they

spoiled us. We had this beautiful cabin that

we're all at outside of Chicago, and the centerpiece in the

living room was this beautiful fireplace, and it was surrounded

by white brick. Can you picture that?

And the white brick next to the fireplace, It had a slot in it,

and it had this perfectly neatly stacked firewood.

And I was like, man, that's a gorgeous centerpiece.

And the next day in the morning, I was reading my Bible.

I started admiring the fireplace again.

And then I was like, what the heck?

It dawned on me. And I can't believe it took me

an entire day to notice this. Like, what the heck, That

electric, that fireplace is electric.

Took me a whole day to notice that, so I said what's that

firewood doing next to it? I looked at the neatly stacked

firewood and I was like a ha. There it was.

Right above the slot that held the neatly stacked firewood was

a little plaque that you had to squint if you wanted to read it.

The plaque said for decorative purposes only.

I hope that's not you. I hope your faith is not for

decorative purposes only. Read Acts when people get lit on

fire by the Holy Spirit. I mean they carry the Spirit

back to the nations. They don't go back to the

nations and live the same way. They're carried by fire.

They preach the gospel, believe the gospel, make disciples,

battle demons, worship Christ Jesus.

They weren't plastic firewood neatly stacked.

They were lit on fire. Too.

Many Christians in the modern world are for decorative

purposes only, and that's why so many modern churches are just

electric. Fireplaces don't give off real

heat or real warmth. It's just neatly stacked plastic

firewood. They sit on a shelf.

Too many Christians treat their faith as an ornament.

Pretend to be Christian to attract a spouse, or because

they want an easier life? Good luck with that.

Or because they want to gain social approval or standing

worse, because they want to gain power or influence.

Or maybe worse yet, to feel morally superior, or to maintain

an image, or whatever. It's all for decorative

purposes. And it's like, no, the Holy

Spirit hates that. He doesn't want you to just sit

on a shelf neatly stacked, never burning for him.

Now, what's he want? He wants you to burn for him to

be on fire, to be holy ground that carries the presence of God

into the nations and back home and into every square inch of

your life. You're meant to be flammable, to

burn brightly, to give off real warmth.

In the Old Testament, with naman, holy ground had borders.

At Pentecost, holy ground gets legs.

You don't need to carry soil around anymore.

You're the soil. You're the holy ground.

Stop looking around. It's you.

There's so much freedom in that because it's like, aren't you

tired of living your own life, your way, your will,

micromanaging everything, holding on tightly to yourself,

image holding on tightly to everything, controlling every

little aspect of life, of living with your fists clenched and

your teeth grit? When has that ever produced

flammable joy? Never, Never.

But you know what does produce flammable joy?

The Holy Spirit, real joy, real warmth, real light, real fire,

real belief, real purpose, real mission.

Brother, sister, believe in the gospel and receive the Holy

Spirit, and you will become holy ground and you will be lit on

fire and you will burn brightly. Heavenly Father, I pray that we

would let go of the dirt and just be carried.

Sometimes all it takes is one person, one person to get lit on

fire. And the whole church, the whole

town, the whole city goes up in flames.

And so I just pray that your Holy Spirit would do that this

morning. Descend from heaven, whether we

see it or not. Change hearts, transform hearts,

make us into holy ground so that wherever we go, there you are.

Man, that's awesome news. I don't want to have to buy buy

a plane ticket every time I want to be in your presence.

Jesus already paid the price for that plane ticket and made that

trip. I pray that we would just

believe in His finished work and rejoice in the Holy Spirit.

It's in the press name of Jesus that all God's people prayed.

Amen. Let's stand together and let's

worship this God in spirit and in truth.