The School Of The Spirit - Session 1

So here's a little bit of a silly question, but especially for our young people here.

If you could choose one superpower, and one superpower only, what superpower would you choose If you could only have one?

And all of you, or most of you, are into all of the superhero movies.

So if you could choose just one superpower, what would it be?

You want to throw out an answer?

Yeah, you.

What?

Learn anything just by watching?

Ooh, that's a good superpower.

Okay, what else?

Somebody yell it out yeah, right here, doing everything, anything.

Mind control okay, we're going to have another session on that at a later time.

We will be addressing mind control, but that's not tonight.

Ben, to be able to refill anything at any time?

Okay, everything, everything.

Okay, all right, anybody else?

Yeah, correct, x-ray vision?

I'll tell you.

I've had enough MRIs and CT scans and X-rays.

I don't want to know any more than I need to know.

For sure, nate Shapeshifting man.

We got some demonic stuff in the house tonight.

We're going to be dealing with this for sure.

Back here.

Lance, bible man, which means what?

Here's the question.

Let's use our discernment tonight.

Did Lance say Bible man because he was hoping that we would all think that was a good answer yes, and he's acknowledging that he is Bible man.

He's telling the truth.

All right, very good, a couple of more, just quickly.

You want to fly?

Okay, self healing, okay, regeneration, self healing yeah.

Double portation what does that mean?

Oh, teleportation, teleporting Okay, actually, that's in the Bible.

That did happen.

Yeah, portals man, you guys are deep.

What kind of shows are you watching?

That's what I'm asking Over here.

You, telekinesis, okay.

Again, if I don't know what the definition is, you all will just have to yes, what's the right answer?

The Holy Spirit, give this young man a hand.

So what does it mean?

What is the word?

All right, let's quiet down a little bit, unless the Holy Spirit's doing something.

So the true definition of super power is the ability to do things we cannot do in our natural selves.

That's what supernatural is.

Now here's a question to make all of us think Is the supernatural to us supernatural to God?

No, what is it?

It's natural to him, it's normal for him.

So why does it weird us out so much if that's the way that God lives all the time?

It's normal to him?

Okay, the Holy Spirit is the original super power John 14, 15 through 17.

It's on your sheets.

Can somebody read that out.

No, I didn't put it on your sheets, I lied, I apologize.

John 14, 15 through 17.

But the actual verses aren't on there, are they?

If you can discern the verses without them being on there, there will be a special prize.

So anybody, have your Bible turned to John 14, 15 through 17 and then 25 and 26.

All right, Coretta.

If you love me, keep my commandments and I will ask the Father and he will give you another advocate to help 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 with you and will be in you.

All this I have spoken while I'm still with you, but the advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

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

I do not give to you as the world gives.

Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

You heard me say I am going away and I'm coming back to you.

If you love me, you would be glad that I'm going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.

All right.

So Jesus Himself.

I mean, I would have.

It seems like if I was making the plans, I would have made the plans, I think, for Jesus to be here in the flesh forever.

I mean to me that wouldn't it be awesome to walk and talk with Jesus as a person here in this earth?

It would be amazing.

But there was a plan that Jesus said that the Father came up with together the Godhead, father, son and Holy Spirit came up with, and that was for Jesus to come to become flesh and bone and to take the sins of the world upon himself, to redeem us if we believe in Him.

But then he said I need to go away so that I can send you another helper, somebody that can be with you.

But what did it say there?

After that?

There's another place that says that you'll even do greater things, right In this verse here.

What does it say?

Not only will he be with us, he will live in us.

My friends, if you are a Christian, you have the superpower of Holy Spirit living on the inside of you.

He's already there, and when we came together tonight, one of the reasons that we felt the presence of God as we were worshiping together is because you brought Him with you and when began to worship God.

The Scripture teaches us whenever two or more gather in my name, there, I am in the midst of them.

I know of very few topics within the church world that have caused as much controversy as Holy Spirit.

And here's the truth behind what I believe the reason is.

I believe the reason is because Satan will try anything that he possibly can to distract us away from the truth that makes us free.

Holy Spirit is the one who reveals the truth of Jesus Christ to all of us, and so why wouldn't?

If Satan was trying to take the church out and stop Christianity from spreading what would be his number one weapon, can he get to?

Well, first of all, let's ask a simple question.

If you had to write a letter to God the Father, how would you address it?

Where would it need to be sent?

Raise your hand, somebody.

I'm so glad you didn't say the North Pole.

I was so concerned.

Not you, but somebody was going to say the North Pole.

So where did you say?

Yes?

So we know that Scripture teaches us that God the Father is in heaven right now.

Right, and so where is Jesus?

Again, if you had to send him a letter or an email, a text?

What is his address?

Where is he at?

He's in heaven, too.

The Bible says that he is seated where At the right hand of God.

Okay, so final question in this circle is where is Holy Spirit tonight?

He's here.

He's here in the earth.

He's here covering over the earth and working in the earth, and he's here in us and with us.

Okay, really important to understand that If we want to know how God operates in the earth, we need to know Holy Spirit.

And I'm taking the article the Away, because when we say the Holy Spirit, a lot of times it's like we're referring to something that's not really fully a whole thing in itself.

Holy Spirit, I want you to know him as a person, the person of the Holy Spirit, because that's what Scripture teaches.

Okay, not a human right, but a person.

So what does the Bible say about God?

The Holy Spirit?

Number one, holy Spirit is God.

He's not God's friend, he's not God's cousin, he is literally God.

Okay, the Trinity is dynamic and unified in purpose.

They always move together, they always keep in step with one another to bring about their purpose.

Can anybody think of?

Sometimes throughout history, especially in the Scriptures where you see the Father, god, the Father God, the Son and God, the Holy Spirit working together.

Creation, yeah, genesis 1.

In the beginning, god created the heavens and the earth.

The earth was formless and empty and darkness covered the deep waters and the Spirit of God.

So, first of all, we saw Heavenly Father, right In the beginning God created.

And then we see the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the water.

Why was he hovering over the surface of the water?

What is the Holy Spirit?

If you had to give him a label within the Trinity, what is his purpose?

What does he?

I almost said, what does he do?

Which gives you a clue?

He's the doer.

He's the doer.

God, the Father, is the one who thinks and considers.

Jesus is the what.

John 1.1.

In the beginning was the Word.

The Word was with God and the Word was God.

Jesus gives direction, jesus gives commandment right, and Holy Spirit was waiting, hovering over the earth, waiting for instructions on how to create this beautiful place that we call earth.

Then God said let there be light.

So which part of the Godhead was there?

Let there be light.

Who was that?

Jesus.

And there was light.

And God saw that the light was good and he separated the light from darkness.

Genesis 1.26 and 27.

God said let us make human beings in our image to be like us.

Who is the us?

He's talking to the creative counsel.

You know his deacon board.

No, he was talking.

The Godhead was talking amongst themselves.

Three different personalities, but all have the same purpose, all have the same goals and they are literally one.

It's hard to understand it with our natural minds, but it is true.

So God created human beings in his own image and the image of God.

He created them, male and female.

He created them.

What's another time that the Godhead works together?

Jesus of baptism yeah, that's an excellent.

Come on, steve, come on down.

Yeah, come on down.

Yes, in the Holy Spirit, through me, is asking you to come down here.

So just quickly tell us how the Godhead was involved in the baptism.

Well based on the I'm thinking of the descriptions of Matthew right, you have God the Son, of course, in flesh, going down to be baptized by John the Baptist, and the scripture says that God, the Father from heaven, said this is my beloved son, and whom I am well pleased, and the Holy Spirit manifested itself as a dove, so you had all three at the same time.

Right, you got it right man.

Great.

Yeah, that's good.

Yeah, it says the Holy.

No, we need to read scripture and read it the way it says it right.

The Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove.

So was it actually a bird?

What did the Holy Spirit do in that moment?

What hadn't Jesus done up until that point?

He never had shape-shifted, that's right.

What did he do?

The Holy Spirit descended If you think about Jesus' arms, somebody raised.

Can you stand up and help me for a minute right here?

You I'm sorry, I'd need to know your names better.

Can you raise your hands up to the sky?

Like both of them, like you're worshiping God?

So this is Jesus.

He comes up out of the water, heaven opens.

The Father says this is my beloved Son, in whom I'm well-pleased, a dove.

You see how he's open and ready to receive that.

And the Holy Spirit fills Jesus.

What does the Holy Spirit do?

That's the first thing the Holy Spirit did with Jesus, do you remember?

It's okay, it's okay.

Thank you for helping.

You can be seated.

So what did the Holy Spirit do?

He led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.

All right, good.

What's another example in the scriptures of how the three work together and we'll move on Two more.

All right, quick.

They work together in salvation.

They work together in salvation.

How does that work?

Well, the Father sent his Son to this earth.

We know what Jesus did, the work of redemption that he did.

And then what does the Holy Spirit do?

He regenerates.

He draws mankind unto himself, unto the Father, and causes them to become alive so that they can believe on Jesus Christ.

And then, finally, they work together in mission, and that's on your, that's a fill in the blank there.

They work together in mission.

Isaiah 6-1 through 4.

The Godhead was together.

This was the call of Isaiah to be a prophet.

And the Godhead said Father, said, whom should I send as a messenger to this people who will go for us, for us?

Okay, so quickly, we'll just keep moving and get finished with this part, and then we're going to do a little exercise at the end.

Next thing is that Holy Spirit reveals Jesus.

Holy Spirit reveals Jesus.

How many of you were just walking along enjoying life and one day you just decided that Jesus was the answer.

Was there something that brought you to that point?

Was there at least an acknowledgement of some kind that something was drawing you?

That's what the Holy Spirit does.

He reveals Jesus In John 16,.

Somebody want to look at John 16, 12 through 14?

Come on up here and read it.

Get extra bonus points at the end.

John 16, 12 through 14.

You got it, caroline?

Whoa, they amplified.

Bring it, yeah.

Now, all of these versions you guys know especially.

I'm not trying to talk down to you, but I want you to know that there are a lot of different versions of Scripture.

Most of them are based on the original writings, which is Greek and Hebrew, and that's really important that they come from those places.

If a translation is a like, for example, the message translation, you guys have you ever read the message?

It's not actually a translation, it's a paraphrase.

It's nothing wrong with it.

Like I read it, enjoy it.

But would you want to really put truth into your life and make sure that you're standing on truth?

You don't want to use a paraphrase.

You want to use a good biblical translation and there's some smart people in the room that can help you afterwards to determine which one is the best one for you.

So the amplified is a little longer than the other translations, because it amplifies what is it?

12 and 13?

Yeah, it's John 16, 12 through 14.

12 through.

I have still many things to say to you, but you are not able to bear them or to take them upon you or to grasp them now.

But when he the spirit of truth, the truth giving spirit, comes, he will guide you into all the truth, the whole full truth.

For he will not speak his own message on his own authority, but he will tell whatever he hears from the Father, he will give the message that has been given to him and he will announce and declare to you the things that are to come, that will happen in the future.

He will honor and glorify me because he will take of, receive, draw upon what is mine and will reveal, declare, disclose, transmit it to you.

That's a lot of synonyms, good though.

That's excellent, yep.

So he reveals Jesus to us.

He pulls back the veil so that we can see who he is.

Okay, the other thing is the Holy Spirit is a very present helper.

He's a helper, he meets us in our time of need.

Active work of Holy Spirit should be the normal experience for every believer in Jesus.

This is not something that's reserved for a special few, those who are extra spiritual among us, those who spend hours and hours praying, and I mean all of that stuff is really good.

We should do that when we have the ability to, but Holy Spirit literally is a part of every step of our walk with Christ.

He's with us and he's in us.

So there are two schools of thought, at least in the church, concerning Holy Spirit.

Number one is those who focus on knowing truth about Holy Spirit but have never experienced him personally.

So they know a lot of truth.

They can tell you, they can read you verses, they can maybe give you the history lesson of who Holy Spirit is, but they have not actually encountered him from an experiential standpoint.

You know what I mean.

Yeah, so like if, how many of you guys?

You all know who Justin Bieber is right, just wondering, so, huh, yeah, I won't go into the rest of that story, but Justin Bieber, right, so I could tell you all about.

Do you guys feel like you know Justin Bieber?

No, no, you don't.

Well, that's good, you're giving all the right answers.

You're supposed to play along, though, and say, yeah, we feel like we, really we know everything about him.

I mean all the Instagram, snapchat, facebook, whatever it is smack your grandma, I don't know what all they are, but so you feel like you know him.

But if I were to tell you to stand up and turn around that Justin Bieber was walking in the room right now, what would be your reaction?

Okay, for the adults in the room, I'm trying to be relevant.

Gotta work with me here.

How about if Elvis walked into the room?

No, that would literally be a miracle.

I think you raised from the dead.

Anyway, if you believe that he actually died, okay, the second school of thought concerning Holy Spirit is those who have a wonderful experience with the Holy Spirit, but they don't have any scriptural teaching about him, and so why is it that we have to be careful with just building our lives on experience?

Any reason why that could be a problem?

Yeah, aliyah.

Yeah.

Yeah, emotions can kind of lead us in different directions, right, we don't even know our own hearts.

God knows our hearts, right.

What else Another reason?

Yeah, right here.

Amen, buddy, that's so awesome.

That is exactly right.

Anything that we experience in the supernatural realm, we need to make sure that it lines up with what the Bible is saying, because there are a lot of counterfeits out there.

I heard a lot of counterfeits being talked about when we talked about superpowers.

Right, we want the real thing, not a counterfeit.

Okay, so does anybody know what a caricature is?

What is a caricature?

Yeah, but I know what you mean, though.

Yeah, has anybody ever been to Dollywood and you pass by people and they've got a piece of paper, a pad of paper and a marker and they're like drawing faces of people.

But, like, if they drew my face, what would they draw?

Hair.

I'm thankful for that.

If you said hair, but they would also draw probably a big nose, right, and that might be the caricature.

So it's, did you draw me?

Now?

Here's the problem.

Here's the problem.

I need you to pray for healing from my eyes tonight, because I cannot see that from here.

Alright, make it bigger, alright.

So, ruthie, I think you won a job tonight.

Why don't you come on down to the whiteboard here?

And, yeah, come on down, let's welcome Ruthie there it is.

Yeah, so we're going to talk about a few caricatures about the Holy Spirit and Ruthie is going to simultaneously draw caricatures that represent what we're talking about.

Does that make sense Now?

And, by the way, ruthie and Melissa Neu and several other people had a spiritual what was it called again, I'm sorry, the Heart of the Creator, art Ministry Connect Group, and it was tremendous.

It was amazing, some of the stuff that I saw that you guys produced.

So grateful, so, alright.

So the first caricature concerning the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is essentially only about power.

So how can you represent power in a caricature form?

Ah, I like that.

Actually, it looks a little bit like Steve Cagle, I have to say, doesn't it?

I can see that right there.

Oh, john Hefner, I should say John Hefner, yeah.

So anyway, there we go.

Can everybody see that?

So that's yeah.

So that's a caricature.

That's something that is part of the character nature of Holy Spirit, but it's also blown up out of proportion.

Right Now I'm going to tell you a story really quickly To demonstrate the power of God.

I have been apart, thankfully, of many times, many experiences with Holy Spirit where he has chosen to heal people miraculously.

There was one time that was a girl about nine years old and she had braces on her legs and she could barely walk.

She had braces on her legs and on her arms and she was brought down for prayer and the man that was praying for her asked if they could ask the mom, asked the parents if they could take off her leg braces so that they could pray for her and believe God for a miracle.

Okay.

So I saw this with my own eyes.

I was right there on the front row.

It wasn't doctored, this was not on television, this wasn't.

It was me in the room watching this with a you know about this number of people, about the same number of people, and so she sat down in her chair.

It was actually I'm just going to say it was my dad that was praying for her.

My dad put her heels, the heels of her feet, in his hands, closed his eyes and began to pray that the Lord would heal her and restore her ability.

Actually, she had never experienced the ability to walk normally and her feet were pointing straight up and they both turned like this and pointed to the ground and then back up like this.

My dad helped her up off the chair and she began to walk and run completely and totally healed.

That's the power that we're talking about.

The Holy Spirit has the ability to do things that are impossible with man, right?

Is there somebody who needs prayer tonight that we can practice on Anybody that needs prayer for healing?

Okay, scott, all right, who's got faith for healing tonight that the Holy Spirit can move in power, and not just the caricature, but the real thing?

Who believes that?

Okay, judah, do you believe enough to pray for him?

Right, why don't you go over there and lay hands on him and pray for him?

Tom, maybe you want to come and help and just pray with him.

This is discipleship, guys.

This is how we work with generations to see the Kingdom of God advanced.

So, scott, tell them exactly what you're asking for it.

Okay, so, his right foot.

He's had a lot of different accidents in his life.

Most, a lot of them were not caused by him.

He was just in the and and, but this last one has caused a lot of damage to the point, and he's got all kinds of metal rods and things there to the point to where, at times, they have threatened to even take the foot right.

The Lord has preserved him up to this point, but we would love for God to miraculously touch him and make that foot brand new.

And you got to remember, god's the Creator.

It's not hard for him to replace that whatever's on the inside of there that needs to be replaced and fixed.

That's natural for him, not supernatural.

Okay, so let's pray right now.

Believers will lay hands on the sick and they will recover.

So what the Bible says.

Thank you Lord, we trust you Jesus.

We trust you Jesus.

Now, when you pray for somebody for healing, especially this kind of a really serious healing, they're all serious, but I mean you know what I mean this would be actually would be a miracle for God to do this.

It's important for you to give them a chance to exercise their faith after you've prayed for them.

Okay, and there's simple ways that you can do that.

So, for example, right now I'm gonna ask Tom just to help.

Well, scott, can stand on his own.

If you just stand up, scott, and just just focus in on Jesus, scott, you're gonna praise and worship the Lord and just just move around a little bit, move that ankle around, move that foot around and just, lord, we just pray that you would do the good work, that you would cause complete healing, that the swelling would go away.

We ask you for a creative miracle.

In the name of Jesus.

Thank you, Lord, praise you, father, praise you Jesus.

Yeah, okay, yeah, there's, I can see the swelling is not what it was and I'm not trust me.

I'm the last person that want to make anything up.

I did not want that.

We want the real thing.

Okay, remember the story of Peter and John when they're going to the temple to pray and they passed by a man who was begging because he was crippled in his legs and feet and they didn't have.

He was asking for money.

They didn't have any money, but they said they stopped and they said look at us.

And when he looked at them he said silver and gold we don't have, but what we do have we give you.

In the name of Jesus Christ, rise up and walk.

And the Bible says that the man went walking and leaping and praising God, and the great testimony went throughout that whole region of the goodness of God, and what God had done in that man's life turned his life around just with one word, just in one moment.

Thank you, lord, for touching Scott.

Jesus' name, thank you for restoring his ankle, his feet.

The name of Jesus, the name of Jesus.

You know, we can give glory to God in many different ways.

We can give glory to him like Scott has done through his time of suffering with this, this problem in his ankle.

The fact that he has continued to rejoice in the Lord and trust in him and follow him, even though he's gone through this horrible problem in his body, brings glory to God.

But another thing that brings glory to God and we're not looking to compare them, because that's up to the Lord what he chooses but another thing that would bring glory to God is to completely restore him, to heal him, so that he could tell the story, the testimony to others of what God has done in his life.

Thank you, Father.

I just want to share something real quick about healing, and I totally believe that God heals.

God heals, not us.

We had healings at Trinity, at our old Trinity, one night, and it was several nights, and I kept going and kept going.

Well, I was having some really serious back issues.

I was going for therapy.

It was the sciatic.

If anybody's had sciatica problems, it is crucial.

I mean, it's painful and I would wake up in the morning and I couldn't move, I would cry, I'd go to work and I'd have to sit on a ball because it hurt my back so bad.

I went.

Then I went.

I put magnets on my body.

I've heard that magnets work, so I tried magnets.

That worked temporarily.

It was like a band-aid.

Then I went for therapy to a doctor and she said you know, I don't know what else to do for you.

She said but if you come, if you, you know, told me to take a lot of ibuprofen.

And she said but if you come up with something, please let me know what it is.

Well, that one of the nights I was sitting in the pew did not want to go up there.

I said you know, these people can't heal me.

Only you can heal me, lord, and I was stubborn, and I, but I wanted to get healed.

So bad I was tired of my back hurting so bad and being in pain.

I couldn't drive, ride in a car for very long, it hurt so bad.

So, anyway, finally I gave in.

They were, you know, people were going up there and getting touched and healed, and I said I'm not going up there, lord, I'm not doing it.

Nope, you're gonna heal me, you're gonna heal me right here.

Well, finally I couldn't take it anymore and I came out of my pew and I grabbed the first person that I passed and I said hey, will you pray for me?

And that person prayed for me and I sat down, didn't go up front and tell anybody.

I went and sat down and I said thank you Lord, thank you Lord, thank you Lord.

Moved around a little bit, wasn't sure.

I said well, I don't really know.

You know, yeah, thank you Lord.

Went to bed that night, woke up the next morning, had zero pain, zero pain.

And I was like, wait a minute, what, what?

Well, I don't know, lord, did you really do that?

So the day went on, you know, and I still tested him, as I should not have, but I did and God healed me.

I have never had any ounce of pain for that, for what I was dealing with for months and months and months.

So, scott, I believe God will heal you.

Not all healings are instant, but he will heal you.

Yeah, there was one time when I was a kid and my brother and I were wrestling in the neighbor in the living room and I flipped over him and landed on my wrist and it just snapped.

It was just, and we didn't have any insurance, didn't have any money.

We had Jesus and my parents took my hand and began to pray for me and I promise you it just it was just completely healed and I've never had any problems out of that wrist my whole life.

So many times, so many examples.

And we're gonna talk about healing more in future meetings.

So let me give you a few verses that you can write down on your sheet, that you can read at home Luke 24, 49.

These are just verses that talk about the power of the Holy Spirit.

Power of Holy Spirit Acts 1-8, acts 6-8, and Romans 15-13.

All right, ruthie, are you ready for our second caricature?

So the Holy Spirit is primarily focused on performance, on performance.

So exercising spiritual gifts is that the primary focus of Holy Spirit?

I'm watching to see how she's gonna do this.

It's gonna be good.

So the problem is not with the gifts themselves.

We need the gifts of the Spirit, am I right?

And in a future time we'll talk, we'll go through all the gifts of the Spirit.

We'll ask the Lord to help us to learn how to use them for his glory.

But the problem is that a lot of times Christians only look at Holy Spirit as a gift giver.

They don't have a personal relationship with him.

I remember one time when I was just barely married and I called my dad over to help us fix our washer and dryer Can't remember which one was broken, but probably both of them and so he came over and he was helping us.

But at the end of it he said to me and this was it was hurtful to hear, but it was the right thing for me to hear he said why is it that the only time you call me is when you need something?

Right, and we can apply that same form of truth to Holy Spirit?

Why is it the only time we think of him or encounter him is when we need something?

Shouldn't be that way, right?

Just a quick story.

There was a man and his son.

The boy was about ready to graduate high school and so he wanted.

His dad was going to get him a car for graduation.

So they went out and looked at cars and found the perfect car for that both of them could agree upon.

I don't know exactly what it was, but something that the dad could afford and that would be safe for the son.

And so graduation day came around and the dad came into the son's room to congratulate him and to give him a gift.

So he handed him a Bible that had been neatly wrapped and he said congratulations, son, happy graduation.

And the boy looked at that Bible and he threw it down on the ground and he said that's not a car.

And so from that point on the father and the son, their relationship, they didn't speak, basically Until finally, the father got very sick and they sent word to the son that he needed to come home because things were not well with his dad.

The boy waited and waited, and waited and finally he came home after his dad had passed.

He was so mad, still filled with unforgiveness, that he literally would not even go to the funeral.

He went to the house to look around and in the corner of the attic upstairs he found a dusty gift, a Bible.

He kind of picked it up, remembering that moment, thinking of throwing it back down, but something inside of him told him to open it.

And he opened it up and in the very middle of that Bible was an envelope.

And then the envelope was a title to his car.

He never even opened it.

And so many times the same way.

We can treat Holy Spirit the same way.

If he doesn't give us the gifts that we want at the time that we want them, in the way that we want them, we can kind of say I don't want any part.

Enough.

Right, he's not a show, he's not a drama or comedy.

Holy Spirit is a person who has feelings.

It can be grieved, it can be moved with compassion, all of those things.

Okay, the last one.

Holy Spirit is mostly interested in purity.

So I don't know how you're gonna draw up purity, but I'm sure you're gonna do it well, excited.

So this view emphasizes personal purity, not the use of the gifts.

And again, all of the caricatures have some elements of truth in them.

That's what makes them a caricature.

If you can't look at it and recognize who it is that's being drawn, then it doesn't make sense.

Right?

You have to have some kind of association.

First, corinthians 6, 11.

Somebody who want to quickly look that one up and come read it?

First, corinthians 6, verse 11.

And such some of you were once.

But you were washed clean, purified by complete atonement for sin and made free from the guilt of sin, and you were consecrated, set apart, hallowed, and you were justified, pronounced righteous, by trusting in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit of our God.

So again, does the Holy Spirit deal with us concerning sin?

Absolutely.

Do we want him to do that?

Do we need him to do that?

Yes, but the last point, and if the worship team wants to get ready, you guys can come up and we'll finish tonight.

But the true passion of the Spirit is presence.

These are all P words I know I don't usually do all the same but presence.

If the caricatures of power and performance and purity are caricatures of Holy Spirit, the truth of who he is, the actual picture of who he is, is divine presence.

Spirit's main task is to make known the personal presence of the Christ of history in and with the believer and the church.

As that occurs, he empowers, enables and purifies us, but his chief work is to make known the living person of Jesus.

How many of you have had the experience of feeling the presence of God in your life?

We know by faith that he's with us, that he is in us, but he wants to show himself to us.

He wants us to experience what it's like to be with him.

You know, many times in Scripture the saying is the Lord was with them.

The Lord was with them, and I think that that's something that in the day and age that we're living in, with all of the trouble that's around us and the chaos, it's very easy for us to forget the presence of a holy God.

And so I just want to take a few minutes tonight and I want us to practice the presence of God together.

So I'm going to give a little bit of instruction and then we're going to do it.

Do this song together, sing this song together, and the main thing is for you to focus in on you, on yourself.

At this point in time, don't worry about anybody else around you.

This is your, this is your personal time with Holy Spirit, when we come to Holy Spirit to experience his presence.

Sometimes, again, we experience the presence of Holy Spirit by knowing that he's with us, not just by feeling something right.

But tonight we're going to ask that you will experience the presence of Holy Spirit, and so, really, what you need to do at this point?

Two things.

You need to shut down and put away all of the stuff from today, from this week, anything that you would, your mind would try to wander to that place or this place.

Just put that behind you and you may even need I may need to to repent to the Lord.

I may need to say Lord, I have sinned by worrying and by being afraid, and I ask that you forgive me and cleanse me.

Sometimes that's the first step when we enter into his presence.

Book of Psalms is full of all kinds of exhortations concerning entering into the presence of God.

It says to enter in with thanksgiving, to enter as courts, with praise.

Here's the thing when we enter into the presence of God, it's no longer about us.

Now are we affected by it, of course.

So, whatever you need to do right now if you need to stand up, if you want to kneel, if you want to sit down, if you want to, whatever you want to do to be able to get quiet between you and God we're going to sing this worship song together and before we do that, we're going to pray a prayer together.

If you could pray this prayer in agreement with me.

After me, just repeat these words Holy Spirit, we believe in you, we want to know you as you really are, and so we ask you to reveal your presence to us right now, tonight, in whatever way you decide to do that.

In Jesus' name.

Now we're going to get quiet in just a minute.

We've been praying for you all day long.

I've been fasting and praying for you all day long that you would have an encounter with Holy Spirit tonight.

It's very real to you.

It may simply be a Bible verse that comes to you.

It may be a song, it may be a memory, it may be just a word of encouragement.

So just open yourself up now and let's sing this worship song together.

You don't even have to sing the words.

If you want to focus in and you don't want to sing the words, just let this song be sung over you.

Jesus' name.

Just be still If you feel comfortable closing your eyes.

Sometimes God shows up like a bell.

His presence can be a lot seriously, his presence can be a lot of different things.

My dad was preaching one time in the Indian reservation about Jesus coming back and just as he got to the crescendo of preaching, there's a train that came right by the tent I mean right behind the tent, with all of the noise and pomp and circumstance.

And I'm telling you that was like a living epistle, a living example of what it will be like when Christ returns.

All right, let's just be still for a few minutes, thank you.