The Spirit

Welcome to Gateway Churches Podcast.

Wherever you're tuning in from, we hope you're encouraged by today's message.

We're continuing on in our series Promised Land.

This is the last week, and honestly, this week I've been sad about it.

I have had so much fun with you.

It has been such a joy and a pleasure to be able to preach.

And I've learned through so much through this time.

I hope you have too, and I have had so much fun with you, and we're gonna have fun today too as we continue talking about this.

I do have a quick question though for you guys.

Um, where on social media are my pro-beard people?

Because you've been quiet lately, and there's a lot of anti-beard people on there lately.

A lot, all right?

They are organized, they are active, they are well funded, I presume, because they have a lot of time on their hands.

Uh no, it's been mostly in fun.

I mean, there's been some uh there's been some vicious ones on there, but um my counseling is expensive, but it's working.

And uh so I need some pro beard people to show up every once in a while on social media.

So thank you, sir.

I can hear that beard from here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, as a reminder, uh, we've been uh talking about uh Moses' journey and the Israelites' journey to the promised land.

We started off by talking about the curse, then we talked about the salvation.

Last week we talked about the water baptism.

This week we're talking about the spirit, us being baptized in the spirit, us receiving the spirit so that we can walk out our lives.

And I want to encourage you uh to keep studying this stuff for yourselves.

Uh, there is so much.

It was impossible for me to cover everything that I wanted to.

There were so many things.

Uh last week we talked about water baptism, and Moses' name literally means born of water, and we just didn't have time to cover all the details about how he emerged from the water and what all of that meant.

And there's just so much that you can read and study in that.

And so uh the series just have not has not even scratched the surface of the depths of the profound meeting, meaning that is found in the imagery of this story.

So I just want to encourage you that uh through the spirit, we can continue to unpack these passages, we can continue to learn, and and and as the imagery uh as we read it, it speaks to us through the spirit.

And so I'm in a group uh uh in Amarillo with my father-in-law.

Um Hannah's dad works at the church where I work in Amarillo, and he leads this group called Havarim.

It's a Jewish word where a group of people come together and they study the scriptures, and uh in that he doesn't teach us, he doesn't come with a prepared plan and say, this is what I'm teaching you today.

Instead, we all dig together, we all ask questions and and we all work towards uh studying the scripture and knowing it better.

And uh just last week he was explaining that there's this uh this Jewish uh uh way of studying scripture, and it's an acronym.

It's P R D S.

And so uh the P, let me just go through some of these real quickly.

The P is Peshat, and it means you you look at the explicit meaning of Scripture, the simple meaning, the the meaning that's right on the surface, on the face of Scripture.

And then there's the remesh, and that's the alluded meaning.

It's uh to sort of uh look for the hints.

It might hint at something over here or over there.

And then the D is Drosh, and Drosh is the interpretive meaning, it's to search and find new meaning in scripture.

And then the S is sod, and sowed is the mystical meaning.

It's the the speaking or the mystical things that you can only get through through long times of meditation in in that way.

And so the the Jewish people have this, it's P-R-D-S.

And uh then if you add the vowels into that, what it says is paradise, or in the Jewish language, the orchard.

It is the study of scripture that is in the hopes of returning to the garden.

We've been talking a lot about whether we eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, or if we eat from the tree of life, we find paradise by being guided in scripture by the Holy Spirit.

We find our way back to the orchard to eat from the fruit of the tree of life.

And so we can't just look at the scripture just for the law or the rules.

Instead, we need to let it unfold and unpack itself before us, and that leads us back into the garden.

In fact, uh in Luke 24, Jesus was in the upper room with the disciples, and we know from one of the other gospels that Jesus had just breathed the Holy Spirit onto them, and then it says that as he's talking to them, he opened their minds so that they could understand the scriptures.

Now, I don't know if you've noticed or not, but Jesus kept trying to make them understand things for a long period of time.

And then here all of a sudden it says their minds were open and they understood what he was saying.

What's the difference?

They had the Holy Spirit.

The difference is that he had breathed the Holy Spirit on them, and what that means for you and I is that we now have the ability for all of these mysteries in Scripture to be unpacked for us.

That we can understand Scripture, not just the surface meaning, not just the face value meaning, but the deeper meanings of Scripture.

And the Spirit leads us and guides us into those things.

And so, this is what we want out of this series is to find these areas where it pulls us into a deeper meaning.

And so uh we've been seeing it all through the lens of the life of Moses and seeing how it pointed us to the future work of Christ through the imagery of the story.

And uh, and even though the spirit had not been given to the people at that time, the imagery points to how God was leading his people.

So you might wonder then, well, how could we talk about the Holy Spirit when we're using the reference of Moses and the Israelites uh in the wilderness?

Let me show you Exodus chapter 13, verse 21.

Exodus 13:21

It says, By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or by night.

The Israelites have been saved from the oppressor.

They've walked through the waters of baptism, and now they have nothing to worry about.

Life is perfect, right?

They're on the way to the promised land, everything is easy, everything is simple, no, nothing to worry about from here, right?

That's we get saved, and and then life is perfect.

This is uh this is an issue with some models of evangelism.

It says, your life isn't good, you know that you're doing wrong, you know that things are bad in your life, and you're not seeing victory in your life, so just give your life to God, and then everything will go well with you.

That is to make a promise that Christ never made.

It is to make a promise that Christ never committed to fulfill.

And that's why we see people fall away so often.

They say, I thought God was gonna fix my life.

Just as the Israelites did, we see that once we cross through the waters of baptism, we have a long and difficult road ahead of us.

And for that, we're gonna need a guide.

For that, we're gonna need a guide, someone to lead us through that.

And that's what the Holy Spirit functioned for as them.

And uh the imagery is clear in talking about the cloud and the fire.

There's multiple places where uh where the cloud is used as for an instance of the Holy Spirit.

In fact, in one of them, in uh Matthew, I believe, it's the voice of God is heard in the cloud.

The Holy Spirit stands as the voice of God for us today, speaks to us and leads us and guides us.

Many examples of the fire representing the Holy Spirit, but the primary one that we can look at is the moments of Pentecost when they're in the upper room, and the Holy Spirit comes in the form of a fire resting on their head.

And so this illustration of the cloud leading them and the fire leading them by night is the spirit guiding them through life on their way to the promised land, and that is what he offers to us today.

Um, we, uh as I'm sure many of you know, we had moved to Austin and planted a church, and we'd been going for just about a year whenever COVID hit, and uh, and and once we shut down, it really dried up everything for us.

And and so uh we ended up ending the church and and moving away.

And uh we were we had been packing up our stuff and we'd been getting rid of a lot of junk that we didn't need.

And so uh there was a place where you could go to uh these um massive dumpsters and dump off stuff.

And so I had backed up a trailer and I was just throwing all this stuff and it went down probably 30 feet into this compressor that would compress all the trash.

And I was there and I was feeling down, you know.

I was like, I'm throwing my life in here, you know.

It was just I was like really struggling.

And uh, and and um, and so let me pause there for just a moment and tell you that uh when I was eight or nine years old, I my dad was preaching at a church and and he was he was he did a salvation call at the end of the message, and I knew that I needed to, I needed to come forward.

And I just sat there and I battled with myself and I couldn't do it, I could not bring myself to do it.

I thought, what will everyone in this room think if the pastor who's up there preaching, if his son, walks up and says, Yes, that's me.

And so I didn't do it.

And that night I could not sleep.

I could not sleep at all.

I I I ended up going into my parents' room at probably three or four in the morning, and I had not fallen asleep, and I told my dad I needed to pray that prayer.

So he got up with me and he prayed the prayer, and the next day he bought me a Bible, and we wrote in it the date of my salvation and and little things that we wrote in there, and I had saved that Bible since then.

Flash forward, I'm throwing my life in the dumpster, and I throw a box down there and it cracks open, and I can see that Bible laying in the bottom of the dumpster.

And I just immediately, there was no way for me to get down there, and I was like, I already feel like I'm throwing everything away, and God, what were you even doing sending me here?

What were you doing calling me to this just so that I could fail and feel miserable about myself?

And there goes all of my salvation with my Bible in the dumpster.

And it was the story of Moses that I remembered in that moment because I read somewhere one time that the first time God showed himself to Moses, it was in the light of the burning bush.

But the next time he showed him to himself, it was in the darkness at the top of the mountain.

And God said, I'm meeting you in the darkness right now.

I knew in that moment that as bad as it was, God was still with me.

Thomas reminded me, Pastor Thomas reminded me of the passage uh in in John 3 where it says the wind blows this way and that way, and you don't know where it's coming from, and such it is with the people of the spirit.

That the wind will push you this this way and that way, and you won't know the purpose of it.

And if you're really living in the spirit, you won't be like the Israelites who continue to question, God, why are you sending me here and why are you sending me here?

Instead, you'll be light and you'll flow with the spirit, and he'll send you to this place and then send you to that place, and you can move freely because the winds of the spirit are blowing.

That's the life that we're called to in the spirit is to be able to move in and out of what God uh has called us to, in and out of different places that He has called us to.

And the Israelites thought that they were saved so that God could serve their will and their desires.

But a true follower of Christ knows that they are saved so that they can serve his will and his desires.

A true follower of Christ recognizes that we have died to the old man and we serve the will of Christ.

We sit under the authority of the tree of life.

And after baptism, we attempt to walk out this new life that God has called us to, and we will need a guide.

The spirit functions in that role in our lives.

In fact, scripture even refers to the spirit as this guide, and we have to look to him and call to him.

And our choice today is simple, just as it is every day.

Will we live through the flesh or the spirit?

And so the first thing that we need to remember about this is that the law brings death.

The law in itself brings death.

This is to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Now, I've asked myself many times, why would God give the law if all it does is bring death?

Was there something flawed?

Was there something wrong with the law?

Was it flawed in some sort of way?

And remember, we've been going back and forth in this, uh, talking about our tendency to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil instead of eating of the tree of life.

And so is the law at fault for all of this?

Well, Paul addresses this in Romans chapter 7, starting in verse 7.

Romans 7 · chapter mention

It says, What shall we say then?

Is the law sinful?

Certainly not.

Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law.

For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, You shall not covet.

But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting.

For apart from the law, sin was dead.

Once I was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life, and I died.

I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.

For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death.

So then the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good.

You see, the law reveals to us who we are tied to.

Paul, in fact, in other parts of Roman uses sort of a marriage language to this, and so uh uh it's uh it's it's uh pointing to the female side of marriage, and the reason for that is just so you understand about the things that I'm about to say, the reason for that is because we, the church, are the bride of Christ and Jesus is the husband.

And so when uh a woman, especially in that day, was married to a man, she was uh beholden to that man, which meant that she would bear his children, that she would bear his name, and and so she was tied to or attached to that man.

And and as Paul is talking about death, the thing that relieves you from that marriage is a death.

What he is saying is that when the law came around and we then began to pursue that, we did as Adam and Eve did.

And because of that, we were married to sin and death.

We were beholden to that, and the only offspring that we could produce because of that was more sin and death.

So a death was needed so that we could remarry and become the bride of Christ.

And as Christ becomes our husband, we are beholden to him.

We carry his name and we bear his children, which is the fruits of the spirit of peace, joy, love, kindness.

All of those things are the new things that we give birth to in this world.

Uh, a good way to describe this, N.T.

Wright kind of puts this into words, that a good way to describe what Paul is talking about here in Romans is uh that, say, for example, you needed to have a security system installed in your house.

And uh you you weren't gonna be able to be in town on the day that they were installing the security system.

So you asked your neighbor, hey, can you come over and uh let them in the house and let them install the security system?

Your neighbor comes over and he shows them around and they show him how the whole system works and what the codes are so that the neighbor can pass it on to you.

And uh, and so the the security system is fine.

And the way that it was installed is fine.

But what happens is that the neighbor has a thought.

I now know how to break what was just installed.

The law functions in that way in our lives, is no matter what law is given, our minds, think about it, our minds begin to work and say, Yes, but how can I do this?

How can I get around it in this way?

There's nothing wrong with the alarm system, there's nothing wrong with the law.

It is sin that is in us, in ourselves, and something needed to take place to break it.

And that something became the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to break our attachment to the law, so that no longer would we be married to the law, and instead we would be married to life, and that that's what we would produce.

So, there in that then in that passage where he's talking about the temptation arising from the law, it's that when you become aware of it, your mind starts to work.

You become like Adam and Eve in the garden saying, Why can't I eat of that tree?

What's really so bad about it?

Why can't God let me be like him and know what he knows?

And in the creation of the law and in the difficulty of us trying to choose it or not choose it, that is where we begin to break the law.

And that is why our focus needs to stop being on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and shift to the tree of life.

Whatever you focus on is where you will end up.

Whenever my uh kids were learning to ride their bike, I would tell them, don't look at the ground, look ahead, because wherever you look is where you'll end up.

If you come into church, or if in your life or in your prayer time you say, I have this addiction that I can't get rid of, and God, I need to be healed from this addiction, and you go to God all the time, you can go and continually go, this addiction, this addiction, this thing, this thing, this thing, I need to stop this thing, this thing.

All of your focus is on the thing that you want to avoid.

But if instead you shift your focus to the tree of life and say, I want more of God, I want Christ in my life, I want to live in him and him live inside of me, all of your attention is to him.

Where we look is where we will end up.

So the law was good and holy, but the enemy attacks and tempts us, and sin is latent inside of us.

And until we awaken and choose to marry the bridegroom, we will not break these patterns in our lives.

And so we know that the law brings death because on that day that the law was given, that Moses ascended the mountaintop and God gave the law, the Bible says that 3,000 men died that day.

So the law brings and produces death in our life.

So what's the contrast to that?

Well, that is that the spirit brings life.

Remember, when the Bible refers to the Holy Spirit as a gift, it's when Jesus says, You, being evil fathers, know how to give good gifts to your children.

How much more will I give you wealth, health, no, the spirit?

How much more will I provide every desire that you have?

No, I'll give you the spirit so that you can live the life that I have called you to live.

And so the gift of the spirit is a powerful and overwhelmingly good gift that he offers to us, and we have to receive it.

It's the Spirit.

And so in Romans chapter 8, starting in verse 1, it says, Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

Because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit, who gives life, has set you free from the law of sin and death.

For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the in the likeness of the sinful flesh to be a sin offering.

And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.

We do not live according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.

We do not live according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.

We have two options.

Every day, two options.

Will I be in the flesh today or will I be in the spirit today?

That's the only two ways to live.

And every day we make that choice.

Will I be in the flesh today or will I be in the spirit today?

Those are our only two options.

And so we remember for a moment that just as we talked about when the law was given, three thousand men died.

But when the spirit was given on that day of Pentecost, when the spirit rested on the people, it says 3,000 men were saved and added to the church.

There's never been a better contrast of the law shown to us through the story of Moses, revealing to us that the Spirit has come to give life.

3,000 men die over here.

3,000 men are saved and added to the church.

And when they went up into that high place to meet with God, you'll remember that when Moses went up there, the people could have gone also, but they were afraid and terrified.

But on this day, all those people there gathered in the upper room.

The spirit fell, and they boldly proclaimed the goodness of Christ.

The Spirit empowers you to be that proclamation of who Christ really is.

Okay, I want to show you something, and uh this is uh this is going back to the story of Moses, and and this is very towards the very end of the story, and uh and I think it's a fitting way for us to wrap up this series.

Something that um caught my eye this week as I was studying.

Starts in Numbers chapter 13 in verse 26.

Numbers 13 · chapter mention

It says, They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh.

In the desert of Peran.

There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land.

They gave Moses this account.

We went into the land to winch you which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey.

Here is its fruit.

But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large.

We even saw descendants of Anak there.

The Amalekites live in the Negev, the Hittites, the Jebusites, the Amorites live in the hill country, and the Canaanites live near the sea along the Jordan.

But then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.

Now this is just about the entrance to the promised land for the people.

And for us, we know that we have access to heaven spiritually.

You have access to spiritually see heaven.

You have access every day to see the world in its reality or to see the spiritual reality that is in in front of you.

You have the opportunity to live under the tree of the knowledge of the tree of life, and you have the opportunity to be led by the Spirit.

And a great way to think of this is that uh since Christ's death and resurrection, there is but a thin veil separating heaven and earth, and you've been given a sword, and your job is to go around poking holes in that veil so that a little bit of heaven can shine through.

So here they are about to enter the promised land, and Moses and Aaron send out spies to go check it out.

And when they come back, they say the challenge is too great, the enemy is too big.

But Caleb says, No, we should go take it.

We can do this.

You as a believer have witnessed the higher things of God.

You are a spy that has witnessed things that lost people and unbelievers have never seen.

Which spy will you be?

Will you be one that comes back and says, it's too great a mountain to climb to overcome sin and death in my life?

The enemy is too strong, the enemy is too powerful.

Or will you be a spy that says, We should conquer?

It will be tough.

It will be a battle.

We will have to overthrow.

It will be difficult, but God has given us power and we should overthrow.

You function every day of your life as that spy, and you have a choice.

And I don't know about you, but I want to be the kind of spy that comes back and says, yes, the enemy is great, but we are greater.

We will overcome, we will take the land.

We're led by the spirit.

I'm light as a feather, and when he blows me this way, I go that way.

And when he blows me that way, I go that way.

We will overtake and we will overcome and we will defeat the sin in our lives.

We'll all still make mistakes, but we are called to live a higher life, and it is the spirit that leads us and guides us into that life.

So uh I'll tell you a story about my my mother-in-law.

Um she uh she she ministers to people all the time in in really amazing ways, and um and and she just does this.

She just prays over people all the time.

She just uh spends time uh uh you know talking to them and praying over them.

And we were at a restaurant one time and she asked uh the waitress, she said, Is there any way that I can pray over you?

And uh and I'll admit, like at this time in my life, I was a little embarrassed by it.

I was like, uh come on, like, are you serious, you know?

And uh and so she just was like, Yeah, you know, okay, yeah, let me pray for you.

And so uh she just would do that all the time.

Well, there was a lady that she did that to one time.

She said, uh, can I I pray over you?

And uh the lady said, Yes, absolutely.

And so she prayed over her.

And then years later, she was in church, and that same lady walked up to her and she said, When you prayed for me, I was completely overcome with an addiction to drugs and alcohol.

And I had just said that day that I felt like my life had been broken into a million tiny pieces.

And what you said when you prayed over me was that God was picking up every piece and he was putting it together and he was creating a mosaic, and that it was gonna be a beautiful work of art.

She reached into her bag and she pulled out a mosaic that she had made for her.

She said, I want you to know I am completely free from my addiction to drugs and alcohol.

I'm remarried and I'm serving Christ.

Would you bow your heads and close your eyes with me for a moment?

I'm gonna ask a question of you tonight.

If you want to live that kind of life, if you know today that you need the spirit in your life.

If you want to live the kind of life where you're not worried or bothered, but you are as light as a feather and you are sent everywhere that you need to be sent by the Holy Spirit, you can receive him, you can receive the Holy Spirit tonight.

Just as Jesus said, if you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the father give you the spirit when you ask?

My request of you today is that if you want to live that kind of life, that you will ask for the Holy Spirit.

So if that's you, right there where you are, just at every campus online, just hold your hands open in a receiving position and receive.

We never have to take the grace of God because he offered it as a gift, and we don't have to take the spirit tonight because the spirit is offered to you as a gift all we have to do is receive so Lord, right now, we receive your spirit.

We can't do this alone, Lord.

We won't be able to make it, we won't be able to live the life that you have called us to unless your spirit lives inside of us.

And so, like a wind blowing through, Lord, we receive your spirit.

May it descend down like a dove and rest on each and every one of us.

We submit tonight to your will and to your authority, and Lord, we receive your spirit so that we may walk in your ways.

And Lord, we thank you.

We thank you so much that you gave us the gift of your spirit.

We repent for the times, Lord, that we've neglected your spirit, that we've pushed aside your voice.

We receive your spirit.

You are here, Lord.

So, God, may we bring peace where there is hatred.

Lord, may we, through the power of your spirit, bring joy where there is sadness.

And Lord, may we be your hands and your feet on this earth.

We receive your spirit and we say, God, use us for everything that you have, every will, every desire that you have, God, use us.

And may we be a light that shines on this earth and draws people closer to you.

And we receive your spirit.

We pray all these things in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you'd like to connect with us, text Connect to 71010 or visit gatewaypeople.com.

We hope you have a great week.