312 ~ PENTECOST SUNDAY 2026

We welcome you to the We Are Zion sermon podcast.

We are a church based out of Chennai, India.

We are thrilled that you tuned in today and hope that you will

be refreshed, revived, and energized by what you hear.

Our desire is that you will live life with a renewed sense of

purpose that stems from a vibrant faith in Jesus.

The Holy Spirit is on the move, and yet many times we miss out

on what He's doing in and around us because we are agitated,

anxious, or too busy. When we enter the rest that God

has given us in Jesus, we are able to experience the Holy

Spirit with greater sensitivity and live with greater

confidence. This Pentecost, we meditate on

how the Holy Spirit brings rest to us and also enables us to

live at our fullest capacity and potential.

As we get into God's Word, I just want to.

Remind you that the Pentecost Sunday, while it's not many,

many times we've actually overlooked it.

We're like, it's just, you know, well, fifty days after

resurrection or whatever, but you have to understand it

literally shifted church history.

The church which was starting to gather.

People are starting to gather together and pray and wait on

God. And he had said wait for the

gift that I'm going to give you. And when they waited, when they

tarried in Jerusalem, the Spirit of God fell on them.

And that was the day that the Jews had Shavuot.

We celebrated as Pentecost when the gift of the Holy Spirit was

given. He is a gift.

And so even as we get into God's Word, my desire for you is that

you will desire this gift if you haven't experienced him yet,

that you would invite him. And He's already in your life.

The minute you said yes to Jesus, he came into your heart.

But the experience of him is an ongoing, everyday thing.

And sometimes it really requires us to surrender our preconceived

notions about Him, letting us side our biases.

Maybe you've, you know, been wounded by people misusing, you

know, the understanding of the Holy Spirit.

But today I pray for a fresh revelation for you personally.

So even as we get into God's word, I was just, when you look

at the news all around, right, the world seems to be in chaos.

Wars around the world, markets are crashing.

There are lockdown precautions being set in place.

It looks like it's not getting better.

In fact, it looks like it's going.

From bad to worse. But where does this leave us?

The Spirit filled believer follower of Jesus.

Where does it leave us? What is our stance supposed to

be? And when I was just thinking

about it, we took a short break as a family and I had a lot of

time just to meditate on things on, you know, kind of.

Allowing God to. Heal certain things, give me

revelation on certain things, Help me pray again.

I hadn't hadn't been able to pray for a while because of the

kind of chaos that was created around, you know, us because of

different circumstances. But in the midst of it, the

three things I realized which caused the greatest chaos in our

life are three PS. The first thing is problems.

The second thing is people, and the third thing is our

personality. Three PS And these are usually

the reasons for continual chaos in our lives, the problems that

just seem to come out of every closet, every corner, just kind

of blind side us people, difficult people, people who are

divisive, people who are deceptive.

Come in, shake your life up. And then of course our

personality doesn't help because some of us are aggressive, some

of us are very docile, some of us are evasive.

Our personality types are different.

But all of it contributes to the fact that chaos exists, coexists

with us. We don't live in a non chaotic

world. Even the most calm person

experiences some level of stress and strain thanks to one of

these three. PS And the sad thing about

these, the agitation and the stress that is caused because of

one of these three PS, is that it begins to disrupt our

emotions, right? It hurts our bodies because it

hurts our minds. And then it eventually starts to

leak into relationships and eventually our faith takes a

beating. And I realized that in all our

lives, this happens whether we like it or not.

We feel a bit weather beaten after a certain set back.

We feel a bit, you know, crashed.

After a particular. Encounter.

But I believe in this next season with Pentecost being the

pivotal, you know, moment, God is shifting us and calling us

and beckoning to us to step into a season of rest.

And if you're like me, you're probably going, God, I could use

some rest. But what we mean by rest is not

exactly what God means by rest. And that's what I want to look

at today because I believe that this Pentecost, Ruach brings the

rest in restoration. That's what I've titled today's

sermon. Ruach brings the rest in

restoration. When we talk about rest, there's

a frequent misunderstanding. We think of rest as, you know,

sleeping it off, slacking off, taking a back step, sabbaticals.

We have so many words for it, and none of these are bad on

their own. But many times we inadvertently

give up on our responsibilities. Many times the things we are

paid to do, we don't do in the name of I need rest.

And many times we abdicate responsibilities in the name of

pursuing rest. And that is not the rest that

God is talking about. Because when you rest in these

ways, when you slack off in your job, when you are signing out

and checking out of responsibilities, there is an

element of guilt that creeps in, shame creeps in, sinful habits

get put in place that is not of God.

And so that's not the rest that God is talking about.

God in Hebrews chapter 3 through the writer of Hebrews talks

Hebrews 3 · chapter mention

about a different kind of rest and that is what we are going to

be looking at today. When God says strive to enter

the rest, he's talking about the rest that.

Jesus, God for us, when he died on the cross, when he rose

again, when he ascended and gave us the Holy Spirit, He now says,

you have the word of God, which is powerful, which is able to,

you know, distinguish between spirit and soul, bone and

marrow. It's so powerful.

He says, now that you've entered this rest as followers of Jesus,

it's important that you enjoy that rest, right?

And so the rest that he's talking about is different.

It is basically doing all that you were created to do, doing

all that you were called to do from a place of inner stillness

and calm confidence. Not a confidence in yourself,

but a confidence in the God who called and created you.

So let's look at Hebrews chapter 3, verses 7 to 14 to understand

Hebrews 3:7–14

better what this looks like in context.

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says today, if you hear His

voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion on the day

of. Testing in the wilderness where

your Father's put me to the test and saw my works for 40 years.

Therefore I was provoked to that generation and said they always

go astray. In their heart they have not

known my ways. As I swore in my wrath they

shall not enter my rest. Take care, brothers, lest there

be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart leading you to

fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every

day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be

hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our

original confidence firm to the end, as it is said today.

If you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the

rebellion. Going down to Hebrews chapter 4,

Hebrews 4 · chapter mention

verses 1:00 to 3:00 and 9:00 to 11:00, it says.

Therefore, while the promise of entering His rest still stands,

let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to

reach it. For good news came to us just as

to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them,

because they were not united by faith with those who listened.

For we who have believed, enter that rest.

So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for

whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works,

as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter

that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of

disobedience. We who have believed enter that

rest. You and I, as believers in

Jesus, have entered the rest already.

Isn't that amazing? And yet it says, verse 11 says,

let us therefore strive to enter that rest, which means I have

entered the rest but not yet achieved the fullness of that

rest. And therefore there's this

process for as long as I'm alive, I'm in that rest, but not

yet fully in it. So it's it's striving to keep

entering that rest. And so today we're going to be

looking at how does Ruach bring rest in the restoration.

All of us, as followers of Jesus are, have entered a new

dimension of the new creation life.

It is a life where the old is gone, the new has come.

So I'm in the process of my life being restored.

I am out of the clutches of the enemy.

I'm in the Kingdom of light. The Kingdom of darkness has

stopped holding, exercising control over me.

But as I walk in the Kingdom of light, I'm still letting go of

the snares and the sins and the struggles that the old man had.

And in that process God is rebuilding me.

He is restoring me. And I find that many times in

this process of needing restoration, I start to strive

to restore myself. For example, I've always had a

problem with anger. I can in a moment, my anger will

hit from zero to 100. I could say a bunch of things

that are completely terrible, and I could hurt the ones that

love me the most. And yet it has been an ongoing

work in progress when there have been months on end when I didn't

get angry. But there could just be one

trigger point when I let loose of my tongue and cause a lot of

damage in a man in a span of 5 minutes.

And I'm learning that in the midst of that restoration, the

Holy Spirit being the agent of renewal and restoration, I have

so many times strived to shut my mouth, strived to say the right

thing, but it came across false. It came across inauthentic, it

came across insufficient because I was striving in my own

strength. But on the other hand, in recent

years I've employed the Holy Spirit in this space and said,

Lord, I am really. Dying to say something mean

right now. I don't know how to shut my

mouth. Can you help me?

And immediately the Holy Spirit brings this level of

self-control. Sometimes he won't let me say

it, but he'll make me actually walk backwards within myself and

see, hey, is this a them problem or is it a me problem?

Invariably it's a me problem. And so this is what it looks

like when we start striving too much for our own restoration.

Many times you might have been hit with a particular set back

or a struggle where your name was on the line.

Or maybe you had to save face and you found yourself striving

to protect your reputation, to protect your name, to actually

vindicate yourself. The beautiful thing is that in

the new creation life, when you're walking in step with

Jesus, He is our vindication. He fights for us.

He saves our face. He gives us the words to say

when accused. We forget that, and we begin to

strive. And there's this beautiful

passage where it says, work out your own salvation with fear and

trembling. And some of us take it to the

next level of of trying to work every detail out.

But what that actually means is you need to invite the Holy

Spirit in where He wrestles with you, He brings things to

resolution, He brings conviction.

He works in you and through you to afford a change.

It isn't a solo business. We are Co laboring with him.

And so here I want to help us understand that in the process

of restoration, we need to enter a place of rest knowing that

God, you do all the heavy lifting.

I need to keep showing up. I need to keep surrendering.

I keep need to keep submitting my hard headedness to you, my

stubbornness to you, my wilfulness to you so that you

can do your greatest thing in me.

Everything about salvation was a gift.

By grace through faith, we have been saved.

Nothing about salvation had anything to do with you, and

it's all done on that. At that moment when God made

this covenant with us, He took up everything on Himself.

All I need to do is I had to call on His name, repent of my

sins, confess. And I walked into a relationship

and that's all. But the process of restoration

requires me to keep coming back to that throne room and with the

help of the Holy Spirit, walking forward, confronting the darkest

sides of me, bringing it into the light and continuing to

walk. Forward When you look at the

restoration of an art piece. I was watching a couple of

videos to better understand this.

When there's an art piece that has been kept in storage for a

long time, fungus or mould or it's just gotten, you know, old

and the colours have faded, expert artists work on restoring

it and it takes hours. Very intricate.

They have to sit in the right room, right?

Lighting work on every detail of the original painting without

spoiling what was originally done by the master, but

restoring it to its original beauty.

Restoration is hard work and so many times we take it on

ourselves to bring restoration. God may have given you a promise

about restoring you financially, and here you find yourself

hustling and bustling, doing multiple jobs, you know,

moonlighting and this and that, and you're wondering why it's

not happening. Well, maybe it's time you stop

striving for your own restoration and find rest as God

restores you. Maybe you've been waiting for

restoration in your health. You've been claiming those

promises, you've been visiting those doctors, you're eating

those supplements, but you're yet to see the promise.

I want to encourage you. Would you find rest?

As the Holy Spirit brings restoration.

That's what I mean when it says Ruach.

Brings the rest in restoration. We were recently in Vietnam and.

As we were there, there's this beautiful basilica called the

Notre Dame Basilica. It looks very much like the

Notre Dame Cathedral in France, but this is a smaller version

and we couldn't visit it because they were renovating it.

And if you look at this picture, this is what I took from where I

was standing. The entire frontage was covered

by scaffolding. And they were doing an intricate

remodeling by keeping the original, you know how it should

look, but they were kind of doing a lot of repairs on it.

And as they were working this, the scaffolding looked like it

was obscuring the view of the basilica.

But nevertheless, you could see behind the scaffolding as to how

beautiful the original structure was.

And then, as we were just standing outside and looking at

it, one wall. Where the scaffolding was very

intensely put together had beautiful Bourgain villa just

popping over it right And this is the picture of that and it

had the sign said sorry for the inconvenience, but as I was.

Taking that picture, it was like for me.

A prophetic image of what our lives look like when the Holy

Spirit is actively at work in restoring our lives.

Because while we might look like we have scaffolding on us being

overhauled by God, being reworked, being touched up,

there is still rest that God is giving us because the Holy

Spirit is doing the heavy lifting.

I keep showing up. I keep saying here I am Lord,

work on me, use me. And what people get to see is a

sight for sore eyes. As I stood there looking at

those flowers, I thought of what God does in my life while I'm

being restored for the next 40 years.

I'm probably going to be getting restored.

But along the way, the fruit that my life bears, the aroma of

Christ that I carry, will keep blessing people along the way.

And that's the beauty of experiencing rest in the

restoration. And that is only mediated by the

Holy Spirit. You and I on our own are

incapable of resting truly, because just the way we are

wired, we are wired to, you know, get excited.

We have an adrenaline gland which is always ready to pump.

We have our amygdala which is always on high alert for

anything fearful or anxiety causing.

But we have a God, a Holy Spirit who knows the mind of God, who

knows the ways of God, who is drawing us closer to Jesus.

He's the one who's advocating for this restoration, working

hard at it, but he's also bringing rest at the same time

and. A year back when I was just

waiting on God for the direction for church, I believe God gave

me this verse, Acts Chapter 9 verse 31 which I want to share

Acts 9:31

with you because I didn't have the leading at any point in the

last year to share it out loud. It was just something I was

quietly believing for Acts 931. I'm reading it from the KJV.

Then had the church's rest throughout all Judea and Galilee

and Samaria and were edified. Walking in the fear of the Lord

and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost were multiplied.

This is post the death of Stephen.

There's huge amount of persecution which broke out.

When the persecution happened, the church broke into bits and

dispersed. And the beautiful thing was the

disciples were going across the lands and home groups were being

started up. Churches were starting to be

birthed. It was not the end, it was

merely the beginning. But at that moment this

inconspicuous verse jumps out at us.

It says then the churches had rest throughout all these

regions and what happened when they had rest?

They were edified. They walked in the fear of the

Lord and the comfort of the Holy Ghost, and they multiplied.

They grew in number, and that's what I want to bring us today.

I believe that God is bringing the church into a season of

rest, but it's not a season of rest where we slack back, you

know, just kind of lay back and say, you know what, our job's

done. Let people come in.

That's not what it means. It is talking about a deep sense

of trust in God, His Word, His promises, and his impending

return. It is trusting that God is who

he says he is. It is trusting that the Kingdom

is in His hands, not in the hands of our leaders.

It is trusting that everything He allows on the earth is

completely watched over by Him, that He is mindful of us.

That's what it looks like to be at rest.

And the interesting thing is when you and I, as part of the

church, when we are at rest, God can move upon us and do His work

in US in wholeness. Think about it.

If you are agitated, if you are going through upheaval after

upheaval, ups and downs, ups and downs.

Your faith is all over the place.

You're questioning. God, you're one minute doubtful,

one minute high on faith. And you're going through these

incredible ups and downs many times when you're in the

doldrums, when you're actually doubting God.

Your doubt comes from a place of is God really with me?

Is he hearing my prayer? Did he really say these things

to me? But when I come to a place of

deep rest internally, when I'm resting in the fact that you

know what, God is almighty, He's solved and he knows what he's

doing, I can actually begin to see God move.

I can actually begin to sense his voice again.

I can actually begin to see Him change things on the earth for

for the betterment of people. I can actually begin to see His

Kingdom come and His will be done in spite of global

upheavals. That's what happens when you and

I come to a place of rest. And just like that verses, there

are three things that the Holy Spirit does when we allow

ourselves to rest in him. When I rest in Christ, when I

rest in God, the Holy Spirit first of all brings edification.

What is it to be edified? The word edifice, right, of a

building comes from this word and basically it means to be

rebuilt, to be strengthened, to be reinforced, to be built up.

The word is oikodomio, which means that there is a enabling

to be strong and sturdy and to stand fast.

And the Holy Spirit is the one who helps us to do that.

You know, in the coming seasons of our lives, things are not

going to get better in the sense that all the wars are all going

to disappear. Things are just going to, you

know, plateau out. No, it's going to probably get

more intense because that's what the word of God says.

But when I am at rest. When my spirit is at rest, when

the. Spirit of God rests on me.

I begin to be edified by Him. I begin to be rebuilt.

I begin to be strengthened by Him.

And this deep enrichment happens where He nourishes me from

within. He begins to fill me with a

strength that is not my own. He begins to help me see things

the way God sees it. And He leaves me more refreshed

than I ever was. He also reinforces my faith.

Many times our faith gets wobbly.

If you've been watching the news of late, even in our own

country, some days are scary when you think, God, where is

this all going to go? What's going to happen to

minority groups? What's going to happen to us?

Lord, it feels like the end times are closer than ever

before, too close for comfort. And that's when your faith gets

reinforced, when you sit with the Holy Spirit in this place of

rest and say, Lord, speak to me. Tell me how I actually face all

of this. Foundations which are shaky get

reinforced. We are edified from within, The

psalmist writes. The sons of Korah write in Psalm

46, verses 10:50. Be still and know that I am God.

I will be exalted among the nations.

I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us.

The God of Jacob is our fortress seller.

The last verse of the sun, that's what we read.

Be still and know that I am God. If I'm not still I will not know

him. The sons of Korra, they were the

descendants of Korra and his gang who led a rebellion with

Moses as their leader. When Moses they they rebelled

against Moses leadership and what happened was God told Moses

separate the rest of the community away from Korra and

God opened the ground up under Kora's family tents and

swallowed all of them up and then the ground closed back over

them. And so when these guys wrote the

Psalm, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the

heart of the ocean, yet I will not be shaken for God is within

her. These guys knew the reality of

who their God was and so they were instructing generations to

come be still and know God. Be still and know Him.

He will be exalted. They knew the problem with man

exalting himself above God and so they could confidently stay

still yourself and know. God know that he is God.

That's what edification looks like, coming to a place of

stillness and saying, Lord, I want to know you.

And in knowing God, he fills us with his strength.

He fills us with his love. He fills us with wisdom and

understanding. The second thing that we saw

from that Acts 931, it says they were edified.

They were walking in the fear of the Lord.

The second thing that the Holy Spirit does when He's resting on

us is enables us to walk in the fear of God.

In Isaiah 11 verses 2 to 3, there's this prophecy that

Isaiah 11:2–3

Isaiah gives about Jesus who is coming.

It says the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit

of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the

spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord and His delight

shall be in the fear of the Lord.

He shall not judge by what is I see or decide disputes by what

his years hear. They were talking about Jesus.

He was talking about Jesus who was going to come.

But the interesting thing is the reinforcement of the word fear

of the Lord. What is this fear of the Lord?

Jesus would walk in the fear of the Lord.

Jesus was God himself and yet he was walking in the fear of the

Lord, and his delight will be in the fear of the Lord.

Jesus was modelling what it looks like to walk in an awe

filled reverence of God himself. He was basically.

Bringing to us first hand understanding of what it was

like to walk on this earth sinless.

And yes, you and I are frail. We are.

Human we are prone to sin, but the model.

Was set for us in Jesus and walking in the fear of the Lord

is basically walking in a way that pleases.

When Jesus got baptized, he came out this voice from heaven said

here is my son in whom I am well pleased.

Jesus had done nothing yet he had not pursued the Kingdom.

He had not established it. He had just come, came to the

Jordan, got baptized by his cousin and that was it.

That was all God needed. And he said, here's my son in

whom I am pleased, walking in the fear of the Lord is walking

in obedience, it's walking in submission.

It is keeping the first thing first, which is God himself.

And it is walking in a way that delights his heart, walking in

such a way that every part of our life, the private, the

public, the personal, everything pleases him, honours him.

Many times we think, well, if I, you know, I behave well at

church. God's pleased God.

Desires that you live in such a way that pleases him Monday to

Sunday and Sunday to Monday again.

He cares that you live in such a way that honours him.

When you're all alone in a room, when you're in front of your

pastor, when you're sitting with your children, when you're with

your extended family who drive you crazy.

How you behave in every place, how you live, The decisions you

make in your business behind closed doors, the way you work,

the way you live with a certain integrity, all of it matters for

the Christian. The compartments are all

connected. There is a leakage from each

thing. If I'm living in a with a lack

of integrity at work, it will seep into my marriage.

It will seep into my parenting. It will see sweep into my seep

into my leadership. There is no separation.

Too many of us are living in this place where we live in the

fear of man. We've forgotten what it looks

like to live in the fear of God. Living in the fear of God means

that I'm living conscious of God's gaze upon me.

He cares how I speak to my maid. He cares how I speak to my

little child. He cares how I speak to my

parent. He cares how I how I live

privately. The choices I make.

Many of us think God cares about only the huge things.

Well, I'm sorry to say, God cares about the smallest thing.

Not because he's a micromanager, but because he he delights in

his people. I am the apple of his eye, which

means he keeps his gaze on me all the time.

Which means it brings a smile to his face when I forgive someone.

It brings a smile to his face when I go out of my way to love

someone who's not so loving towards me.

That is the God we worship. His gaze is on us.

How are you living? When you are at rest and the

Holy Spirit rests on you, you walk in the fear of God.

The third thing is that you will grow and multiply many times.

This is always met with this. Or is it?

Is this a prosperity teaching? No growth multiplication

expansion is a Kingdom thing. You look at all of Jesus

analogies about the Kingdom, it'll always show something

small starting out really really tiny and inconspicuous and just

growing accommodating more spreading white.

The apostle Paul wrote in two Corinthians Chapter 9 verses

11:50. He said he who supplies seed to

the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your

seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.

You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way,

which through US will produce Thanksgiving to God.

For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs

of the Saints, but is also overflowing in many

thanksgivings to God. Basically, the Corinthian church

had been generous and Paul was commending them and saying, hey,

you know what? Your generosity, it didn't just

bless one person or two, it blessed the body.

And your generosity is going to cause so much of an overflow of

Thanksgiving. And he's saying, because you

gave your seed to someone else, God who supplies seed will

multiply it. He will also multiply the

harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every

way, he says. So that you will be blessed and

you will continue to be a blessing to others.

When the Spirit of God is resting on you, there will be

growth in your life, a supernatural kind of increase.

It will not look like what you can calculate on your excel

sheet or. What you can plan for it will be

beyond your plans. It will be in such a way that

you cannot take credit for it because you didn't plan for

that. He will do.

What only God can do, it'll be God induced, it'll be God LED,

but it'll be purely supernatural that you and I cannot take

credit. Our striving, our hustling will

not bring that kind of increase. It is God.

This is talked about throughout. Scripture in Isaiah 54, he says

strengthen, lengthen your tent pegs, you know, spread your

curtains while you're going to expand.

He's talking to people who are heading into exile because that

is the promise of the Kingdom. The Kingdom is ever increasing.

It is growing. Many people tell us, oh, I loved

it when church was just five people or 10 people.

But anything that is healthy grows.

Anything that is not healthy will not grow.

That's a biological fact. And whatever is in biology is

informed by the creator of all the earth.

And So what is healthy will grow.

And so when the. Spirit of God rests on you

without beyond your control. Things will start to multiply.

Things will start to grow. You will begin to be a blessing

to many. And as I was meditating on this,

the Lord gave me this beautiful story that I want to leave with

you from the Word of God. It is the story of David and

Abigail. Abigail was the wife of Nabal,

and the story is found in One Samuel chapter 25, verses 1 to

33. I'm not going to read the whole

of it. It's a long passage, but I'm

just going to pick and choose some verses from it to help you

understand what it looks like to be at rest and to employ the

Holy Spirit's help in the way we live.

David was not yet king. He was on the run from Saul.

He was hiding in the wilderness. And while he was in the

wilderness, Nabal, who was this? He was a bit of a cranky guy.

Was was very foolish in the way he dealt with things, short

tempered, loudmouthed. He was married to a beautiful

woman called Abigail, who was said to have been a woman of

discernment. He's one of the most popular

baby girl names actually for the last 10 years at least.

Now David was in the wilderness when Nabal's guys had shepherds

had been in the same region. So David and his men, he had a

group of men who were warriors who were lionhearted men.

They had kept guard of Nabal's guys.

So a couple of months later he hears that Nabal's whole company

would shearing their sheep. So basically when they shear the

sheep, it was the the season shift.

They were actually going to probably sell it.

There was there was going to be an increase of, you know, wealth

already. Nabal was very rich.

That's what it says. He was very rich.

He had so much. He had thousands of cattle, you

know, 1000 donkeys and etcetera. So what David does was he says

to his young men, go up to. Carmel and ask Nabal to give us

some of its feast time. They're feasting.

They probably have surplus. Let them give us something to

eat. Right?

So David's men go to Nabal. They request just as their

leader David had asked them. They requested very kindly.

They said, you know your men were in Kamal cup some time

back. We looked after them.

Nothing of theirs got you know went missing.

So could you please reward us by giving us something to eat?

You guys are feasting anyway, can you share with us?

And this is what David answered. Nabal answered David's servants.

It says, Who is David, who is the son of Jesse?

There are many servants these days who are breaking away from

their master. Shall I take my bread and my

water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers, and give

it to men who come from I don't know where?

So David's young men turned away, came back and told him all

this. Then David told his men, Every

man, strap on your sword. David also strapped on his

sword. And 400 men went up after David,

but one of the young men told Abigail what happened.

And this is. What the man told David, he

says, Behold, David, send messengers out of the wilderness

to greet our master, and he railed at them.

Yet the men were very good to us, and we suffered no harm, and

we did not miss anything when we were in the fields, as long as

we went with them. They were a wall to us both by

night and by day, all the while we were with them keeping the

sheep. Now, therefore, know this, and

consider what you should do, for harm is determined against our

master and against all his house, and he's such a worthless

man that one cannot speak to him.

What did Abigail do next? Abigail made haste, took 200

loaves and two skins of wine and five sheep already prepared, and

five sears of parched grain and 100 clusters of raisins, 200

cakes of figs, laid them on donkeys said to her, Young men,

go before me, I will come after you.

I'm going to stop right there. Abigail was a woman of

discernment. This is what was used to

describe her earlier in the chapter.

How did she know what to provide?

She just knew she had to do what she had to do, and the alarm at

hearing how her husband had responded to good men, to men

who had protected, spurred her on to do this.

Now coming further down, she's going down the hill, David and

his men angry, ready for war, ready to wipe out.

All the males of Nabal's family are walking up the same

mountain. They come face to face and this

is what happens. When Abigail saw David, she

hurried and got down from the donkey, fell before David on her

face, bow to the ground. She fell at his feet and said,

On me alone, my Lord, be the guilt.

Please let your servant speak in your ears, and hear the words of

your servant. Let not, my Lord, regard this

worthless fellow Nabal, For as his name is, so is he.

Nabal is his name. Folly is with him.

But I, your servant, did not see the young men of my Lord whom

you send. Now then, as the Lord, as the

Lord lives. And as your soul lives, because

the Lord has restrained you from blood guilt and from saving with

your own hand, now then, let your enemies and those who seek

to do evil to my Lord be as Nabal.

Now let his present that your servant has brought to my Lord

be given to the young men who follow my Lord.

Please forgive the trespass of your servant, for the Lord will

certainly make my Lord a sure house, because my Lord is

fighting the battles of the Lord, and evil shall not be

found in you so long as you live.

If men rise up to pursue you and to seek your life, the life of

my Lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living, in the

care of the Lord your God and the lives of your enemies.

He shall sling out as from the hollow of a sling.

And the Lord has done to my Lord according to all the good that

He has spoken concerning you and has appointed you Prince of

Israel. My Lord shall have no cause of

grief or pangs of conscience for having shed blood without cause,

or for my. God working salvation himself.

And when the Lord is dealt well, my Lord, then remember your

servant David said to Abigail, Blessed be the Lord, the God of

Israel who sent you this day to meet me.

Blessed be your discretion. Blessed be you who have kept me

this day from blood guilt and from working salvation with my

own hand. If you look at the narrative,

it's so in line with what we've been talking about, where many

times in our desperation to be restored, we are working out our

own methods of being saved. David was promised a throne, but

for 13 years he was treated like a dog.

He was made to run around, hide. Saul, instead of pursuing his

enemies, was pursuing David. David had to hide out in the

wilderness. He had to take his parents away,

hide them, too. He had a motley crew of about

400 men who had disgruntled, angry young men who surrounded

them him with, you know, and they came together.

He had to go to the Philistines. He had to defect there to

protect himself. What a life.

So much of stress, so much of anxiety.

No wonder he's such a powerful poet when he writes those

Psalms. But here's the thing.

Abigail, having the spirit of discernment in her, knew that

she could intercept this because she did that.

She saved her household, she prevented unwanted bloodshed,

and she eventually grew her home.

We'll look at that in a bit. But here's the thing.

Here's what you know stood out to me out of the whole story.

Sometimes we're so stressed and stretched to mental and

emotional full capacity, we've hit our mark.

We cannot do more. We're desperately trying to work

out how we can save ourselves, how we can get ourselves out of

a problem to save our name. We begin to fight the wrong

battles. And Abigail in discernment was

able to point that out to David. She said, you know what?

You've been called to fight the Lord's battles.

This is not a battle you need to fight.

Nabal is not your enemy. Nabal is crazy, yes, but this is

not something you need to dirty your hands over, because when

you are going to get on the throne, which you will, may your

hands be clean. And I wonder if because she

whispered these things to him in the next chapter, he has a

chance to actually kill Saul. Saul and his men are in a cave.

David is so close. He could, his guys say, why

don't you just kill him? But he's as far be it from me

that I would touch the anointed. I wonder if this piece of

discerning advice caused him to take the right choice there,

make the right choice there. It's time to ask the Spirit of

God, Lord, what battle must I fight?

There are some battles some of us are fighting.

We have no business fighting it because it is not meant for us.

But we have stepped into this because of maybe the pressure to

save someone else or you know, to save our own face.

When God is saying, hey, can you be silent because I want to

fight for you? Can you step, step out of this

so that I can make these things workout in your, in your favour.

I am your vindication. You can't do it on your own.

It's interesting that Abigail didn't turn to Nabal and fight

with him. She decided to save the

household by going to the source directly.

David could have easily wiped out all the males.

There was number scope for anything.

Further, she had tons of servants, shearers, and

shepherds, all of whom would have perished if David was

allowed to fight these men. In gentleness with discernment,

she fought for her household. She didn't argue about what has

to be done, she just did what she knew she had to do.

When we live in hyper anxiety, eternal rush, some of us live

like this. I think most of us, we live in a

if you live in the fast-paced cities of India, at least you

feel like you wake up and you're ready to run.

You just get up, you have to do things.

The buzz around you doesn't die till about 12 in the night.

You're still, you know, a buzz. You have adrenaline running

through you. You have to make quick

decisions. But the problem is when we live

in this permanently rushed and stressed stage, we tend to turn

away from God. He isn't our top most priority.

We tend to make decisions that are not always God honouring and

it's time that you ask God to help you make decisions where

you are positioned in aweful. Reverence of him here if you

look at it in the beginning of that chapter.

David, when he wants to talk to Nabal's people, he says tell

them peace be to you, peace be to your house, peace be to all

that you have. This is the greeting that David

gave. And the interesting thing is

David spoke peace over Nabal's men's men, but Nabal didn't

receive that peace. But the beautiful thing was

Abigail read into that. Abigail became a peacemaker.

Isn't that beautiful? She accepted the peace extended

and in discernment she dealt with it.

She spoke peace to an agitated warrior.

He was a warrior. He he knew how to use his word.

He knew how to rally his men. He knew how to annihilate an

enemy. But she calmed him down.

She alerted him of how to walk, walk in the fear of the Lord.

She told him. She literally gave her forecast.

You're going to be king soon. Do you want this on your on your

plate? Do you want this kill on your

roster? She was basically giving him

direction of how to live in the fear of God.

David was edified because of Abigail's discernment.

She edified not just herself, but an entire household.

She strengthened them because she was able to operate out of

the spirit of rest. She was able to direct David in

the fear of God because she was coming from a place of deep

rest, deep discernment. And finally, like I was saying,

when we live edified, when we walk in the fear of God, growth

and multiplication happens. You know what happens soon

after, 10 days later, she does. She immediately tells Nabal she

doesn't keep it a secret. She said, this is what I've

done. He has a heart attack and 10

days later he dies. David hears about it, sends for

her and makes her his wife. She is his second wife, the

first being Mikhal, son of her daughter of Saul.

But this is her second wife. And eventually it says that she

has a child with him. His name was Daniel.

I think she has a child with David.

They become part of the royal family because soon after Saul

and his family die. David ascends the throne.

She's part of the royal entourage.

Now here's the deal. I'm not advocating for going and

choosing some other spouse. That's not what I'm advocating

at all. This is what the word of God

says. But her obedience to that spirit

of discernment within her, her ability to speak peace over a

very stressful, anxious situation, her ability to stand

in the gap as a peacemaker, to walk in the fear of the Lord.

And to draw. Others to that fear of the Lord,

caused her line to not die out. God expanded her family.

God gave her greater visibility. God multiplied her.

And here's the thing that I believe all of us need to

understand that God is always on the move.

He's always moving. The Spirit of God is like he's

likened to wind that goes here and there.

We don't know where it comes from, where it goes.

But The thing is, many a times we don't feel the move because

we are so agitated. We are so stressed.

We have made it, you know, part of our language to say I am, you

know, anxious. I, I I.

Am just so agitated. I'm in a state of panic.

But what if the onus is on you and me to enter the rest that

Jesus already got for us? What if it's on us to come to a

place of inner stillness just so that the Holy Spirit can do what

He has to do in wholeness in entirety?

When you and I begin to live from a place of rest, God shows

us the larger landscape of impact that our life is

creating. Abigail didn't know when she

stood in the gap for her husband and her household that one day

she would be married to David and have a child who would be

part of the royal household. She didn't know this.

She did what she had to do eventually.

She saw the larger landscape of it.

Right today you don't know what your life actually is going to

create in terms of impact. If only you would come to a

place of rest and allow God to begin to rebuild you like only

He can, you will find that He will take the little you have

and begin to multiply it. I remember a couple of months

back I got a mail from someone in a nation where the the gospel

is actually not welcome. She read one of my Bible plans.

She wrote a mail to me to say thank you.

I was able to read the Bible plan in my language.

I was so blessed by it and it moved me to tears because here I

am sitting in a small room in Chennai, India, writing a plan.

My plan is translated by someone in that nation and it's going

out to people who have underground churches, who don't

have the freedom to worship our God and who are being edified.

That's when God showed me the larger landscape.

When you are working at a call centre or in an IT park, the job

you do. And the support you offer could

be blessing. Someone in another nation across

the ocean. Your tech solution, The app you

create could bless some organization somewhere, which

lightens the load on some individual.

Your smile could change the life of a student you teach.

Your gentle touch as a nurse or a healthcare provider can change

the life of that person who's come in for treatment.

Your generosity towards your maid.

Your kindness towards your Watchmen.

These impact lives for years to come.

Many of us forget that this life is not about us.

You're living in this small little bubble of yourself, your

needs, your mental health, your capacity.

But I want to remind you that the Spirit of God, as He

restores you, is restoring you to bring restoration to others.

He's rebuilding me so that I would rebuild others.

It's never about me. And so as He edifies me when I'm

in rest, He begins to edify me. He teaches me to walk in the

fear of the Lord, and then he causes growth and multiplication

all around me. The opposite of Abigail's life

was King Saul. He didn't have a spirit of

discernment. The Spirit of God left him, and

an evil spirit from God was sent to torment him.

He was fighting all the wrong battles.

He forgot how to live in the fear of God.

He partially obeyed, blatantly disobeyed, walked in rebellion.

He consulted A soothsayer, which was considered absolutely evil

in the eyes of God. His principles were not led by

the Holy Spirit, but on a whim. And eventually his entire family

line dies. His three sons along with him

die on the battlefield. He leaves behind one son who's a

cripple who doesn't make it to the throne.

His line eventually ends. Here's the thing, you want to

see growth and multiplication. There is a process.

It doesn't just happen. Are you resting enough in the

Holy Spirit so that you are edified, you are reinforced, you

are rebuilt? Are you walking in the fear of

the Lord? If you aren't, it's OK, Now's a

good time as any to start. Would you allow the Holy Spirit

to lead you into a place of walking daily in the fear of

God? And will you then be open to

seeing the growth and multiplication that God brings,

which will blow your mind even as we close?

I've been listening to the song Come rest on us This.

Beautiful song that I've just been resting on really.

And the lines in that song was fire and wind.

Come and do it again. Open up the gates, let heaven

on, re in. Come rest on us.

Too many of us are in so much motion all of the time, running

here and there, looking for solutions here and there.

Chat chief eating this web MD ING that talking to this

counsellor and that we have missed the greatest gift of this

time that we have the Holy Spirit, our helper, our

counsellor, our guide. If only we would rest because in

that upper room, if you read Acts chapter 2, I was just

Acts 2 · chapter mention

reading it. In the message it says when the

feast of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place

without warning. There was a sound like a strong

wind, Gale force. No one could tell where it came

from. It filled the whole building.

Then like like a wildfire, the Holy Spirit spread through their

ranks and they started speaking in a number of different

languages as the Spirit prompted them.

Fire, wind. Many of us are living without

that fire. We need the wind of the Holy

Spirit to come and again ignite it.

Many of us have closed off our lives to the wind that is moving

all around us. We put up tight shutters and

we're like, you know what, I'm good, I love Jesus, I have the

Father's love. That is enough.

I'm asking, would you lift the shutters of your life and say,

Spirit of God, come, wind of the Holy Spirit, come.

Remove the shaft, remove the drawers so that what is left is

pleasing to you, so that what is left blesses others.

When you look at Genesis chapter one, just before God created the

earth, it says that the Spirit of God was hovering over the

waters. Hovering is basically resting on

the waters. It is not devoid of movement.

It is not devoid of creative capacity.

In fact, it's teeming with it and that's the Spirit of God.

He's ready to move. There is movement, there's

momentum. There is no chaos or confusion.

That is the enemy. But the Spirit of God, when he

is hovering over us, there is endless capacity, endless

opportunities and possibilities because that is when He has the

movement, the freedom of movement in our lives.

So I want to pray with you, asking you to give God a chance

that the fire of God will be set ablaze in your life, not just

for yourself, but for others. That others would see the fire

of God in you and say I want what they have.

And that you would remove every blockade to the wind of the Holy

Spirit, and you would allow Him to come in and fan into flame

everything that has to be fanned into flame.

Can we just pray together? Father, I just welcome you.

I thank you for your great love towards us in sending us the

Holy Spirit. We thank You for the Spirit of

Jesus that is working in our lives already.

We thank you Lord, even when we are unaware of Him.

He is so present. He is so real.

And I just. Welcome you, Holy Spirit, Would

you come in? Would you fan into flame every

dying ember? Put a passion for your name.

Put a holy passion, Lord, to live in a way that honours you.

Give us, Lord, a deep discernment.

Spirit of God, Spirit of wisdom, spirit of counsel and mind.

Fill us with your strength so that we are edified.

And Lord, bring growth and multiplication in your people's

lives as they are edified, as they grow in the fear of the

Lord. We pray God, that territories

will enlarge. We pray, O God, that greater

exploits are done in the Kingdom for you.

We pray, O Lord, that people will be blessed not.

Just with physical or financial prosperity, but with prosperity

of their soul. O God, minds will be set free,

hearts will be softened. I pray that Lord hands will be

opened up in generosity towards the the world all around them.

We pray in Jesus name that Lord, you will.

Do something powerful in this moment, fire and wind, Would you

do it again? Would you just come in, come

rest on us, rest on us. I pray for those with agitated

minds, restless hearts, that they will be stilled in Jesus

name so that God, you can move in their hearts, you can move in

their lives. We love you, we honour you, we

bless your holy name. In Jesus name I pray, Amen,

Amen, God bless you. I'm believing that starting from

today, this is not a one off thing, this is an everyday thing

that the day of Pentecost as we celebrate it, that will become a

lifelong pursuit of you to say, Lord, I want to enter that rest

today. I want to enter that rest today.

I don't want to be rebellious. I want to enter your rest.

If that can be our everyday pursuit, I think our lives would

look dramatically different. God bless you have an amazing

week. We hope you enjoyed today's

message and we're blessed. If you liked what you heard and

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