Feed the Spirit| Pastor Bryan Grant | PATIO SEASON Series |

Just want to welcome everyone today to the KCC Church at Home Service.

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We have uh I actually get to speak the fourth core value of our KCCs, of our seven core values that we have.

And this one is spirit-led.

And that spirit-led means the little bit that we have behind it says we want to live a contemporary, powerful life where we commit to pray first without ceasing.

And being spirit-led, uh, Pastor Brody actually, in our Fresh Wind series, if you had a chance to not see it, I would suggest you go back and you take a listen.

Pastor Brody broke down what the Holy Spirit is and how the Holy Spirit functions.

And so today, when I talk to you about being spirit-led, um the Fresh Wind series really gave us a really great start into that.

So my prayer for you today is that when you hear on the side of Fresh Wind that I'm coming from, that you're challenged by this and that you actually are encouraged to dig deeper into your relationship with Christ.

Really, that's my job is to push you a little bit further into your relationship with Christ, to maybe help shift your perspective into something that maybe you have never thought about.

This message is called living by the spirit.

And in the current environment that we're living in, the world that's really struggling at this point to find peace, finances look challenging, we need really to be connected to who Christ is even more than we ever have before.

We need to be living in a place of living out of the spirit and not of the flesh and the things that we can see, the things that we see on the news or the things that we see on Facebook and all of those things that are just things that may that have nothing that can that we can put our hope in.

But when we live by the spirit, we actually can have hope.

We can have joy, we can have peace moving forward into the things that God's called us to.

And so a lot of times when you hear a message about living by the Spirit or being spirit-led, it really talks to about the temptations and the sin and the things in our life that are maybe tough to handle.

And so we often hear this attitude when we're saying, well, I want to I want to depend on the Holy Spirit, but when the sin came up, I had to do it.

I just, I couldn't resist.

That's just the way I am, and I'm never gonna change.

Or I tried, I tried praying, and I tried really hard, and I gave everything of all my strength, and it just didn't work.

But 1 Corinthians, as our anchor scripture today, or as part of our scripture that we're gonna read, and this is what it says, and God is faithful.

If you don't get anything else out of anything that I'm gonna say today, I want you to get this that God is faithful.

He will not let you be tempted beyond anything that you can bear.

But when you are tempted, he will provide a way out so that you can endure it.

1 Corinthians 10 13.

So, with that being said, no matter what you're facing, no matter the worry that you have or the criticism that you're taking or the things that are going on in your life, maybe you're just straight up right now addicted to social media.

Maybe over COVID you just got an addiction to video games or to suites or to pornography or something that's happening, maybe you're feeling in every one of those things, God provides you a way out.

If we're spirit-led, God provides you a way out.

So here's the challenge is that so often we focus on the thing that we don't want to do.

I don't want to do this, and so I focus on that.

So this is what I want you to do, church.

You're watching me, I want you to close your eyes.

Honestly, I can't tell if you are or not.

I'm just believing that you are.

You can type in the message if you are.

Once your eyes are closed, you can't do that.

But I want you to not think of an orange rhinoceros.

I know you're not thinking of the orange rhinoceros.

Okay, so now I want you to open your eyes.

And what's the first thing that you're gonna see?

Is you looked, when I said don't do it, you saw an orange rhinoceros.

And here's what Galatians chapter 5 says.

Galatians 5 · chapter mention

It says, So I say, walk by the spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

For the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh.

They're in conflict.

They're in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.

Paul said in his writings, he says, I don't understand myself.

For I want to do what is right, but I don't do that.

Instead, I do what I hate.

He struggles, and this is the Apostle Paul.

He's talking about he wants to be led by the Spirit.

And here's here's here's an example.

I want to read my Bible every day.

So you make a plan and you start doing it.

Three or four days later, you stop.

Or you want to get out of debt, but you just couldn't pass up on that shoe sale or get your nails done.

But you want to be out of debt.

You want to exercise every single morning.

That's one of my things that I'm really struggling to do.

I want to exercise every morning.

I wake up, I look at the weather app.

Oh, there's a 10% chance of rain, I'm not gonna go for a run, or I'm not gonna go to the gym.

Or on the other side, that's what we want to do.

What about what we don't want to do?

Well, I don't want to lose my temper, but I got angry this morning at my kid and I slammed the door.

Or I don't want to eat so much, but I saw that cake and I just ate it all.

I didn't want to sleep with my boyfriend, but it just happened and I did.

And when we think about these things, why are they such a struggle?

And so here's here's something that I heard and I was like, this is just so good.

If you're taking notes, take this down.

What you feed grows, and what you starve dies.

Now you've probably heard this before, but in the context of what we're talking about in the Holy Spirit, think about a plant.

Maybe you have a green thrum and a green thumb, and whenever you water a plant to put the food in it, it actually grows.

So if you feed the plant, it's gonna grow.

If you starve it, obviously it's gonna die.

If you have dying plants, give them to my wife, she can make anything grow.

And she told me when I was preparing this, she actually will step over them and pray over her flowers and her plants because she doesn't want them to die.

She almost takes it personally when they pass away.

If you grow yourself, you will grow.

If you starve yourself, you're gonna die.

So if we feed our sinful urges, we feed those desires, they grow them.

If we starve them, they die.

And the thing is that when you feed your spirit, when you feed that spirit, you grow closer to Christ.

You build your relationship with Him.

Things change in your life.

You become and you hear His voice because you're being led by the Spirit and not letting your sinful urges rule.

So there's two thoughts that I have in this as we move forward.

One, you need to depend on the power of the Holy Spirit.

Now you've probably heard pastors say this.

Probably I'm not the only time you've ever heard any pastor say this, but you want to depend on the power of the Holy Spirit.

And think about it this way: the Holy Spirit is the greatest gift that God gave to us.

Jesus said before he went up, he says, God is dwelling in you.

Now think about it this way: the power that resurrected Jesus from the dead is the power that's in us.

That's the spirit that's in us.

And when we talk about the spirit, there's so many different ways and different characteristics that the Holy Spirit takes on.

One, he points us in the direction of truth.

And so if in our life we're experiencing something that's wrong or hard, or we're gonna make a bad decision, he's gonna point us in the right direction.

He's gonna point us towards truth.

How many in the last few months have just been down and out and you're upset or you're depressed, and you're looking at the world, and you're saying, they have nothing to offer me, and you just you're just feeling it, and all of a sudden you're just like, Lord, you gotta help me, and you felt this peace come over you like never before.

That's the Holy Spirit at work.

Sometimes that peace passes all understanding.

The Holy Spirit guides, it counsels, it prompts us, it's a helper who teaches and reminds us.

God's Spirit dwells in us.

The Spirit that resurrected Jesus lives in us.

That means that we don't have to live with those things that are bearing us down.

Now, this is a scripture that can actually change your perspective on all of this.

Romans chapter 8 says, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

I'm gonna say that again.

You have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do, for if you live by its dictates, you will die.

That's a really strong statement that Paul made.

You will die.

And here's here's I heard a pastor say it this way one time.

He said, sin thrills and then it kills, it fascinates and then assassinates.

It's like a sneeze.

It feels real good when it comes out, but sometimes you get a mess that comes out with it.

Sin, in its, when you're doing it, feels like it's a good thing, but always leads to destruction.

It's fun for a little while, and then it starts to wreck things.

I remember years ago when I was uh living in Prince George, I worked with uh drug addicts and alcoholics, and I had a friend, and he was a believer, he loved God with all of his heart, but he struggled with drugs.

And so for a few years that I was there, me and him developed a friendship, and I helped him through these things, and I could always see when the switch in his life made that change because he would go and he would start feeding the urge.

He would start feeding the sin instead of feeding the service or feeding the spirit.

So instead of starving that thing, he was always trying to feed it, and he would he would quit smoking, he would quit doing all these things, and then slowly you could see as the sin became bigger and bigger in his life.

Now, this had nothing to do with the fact that he loved God, he loved God with all of his heart, and still the sin is what won out.

He struggled with that sin to move it forward because he kept on feeding that sin.

And a lot of times when people talk about, oh, they just do this and this is, oh, it's just a little bit of that, like a little lie or a little bit of cheating or a little bit of stealing.

You can say that.

And that's probably not even what you're teaching your kids.

Just don't do it.

You can say that.

You can say that sin's a big deal, but I can tell you that sin destroys relationships.

Sin destroys marriages.

Sins can break that relationship you have with your kids.

Sin can break your job.

If you let your sin nature go and you're feeding that, it'll slowly eat away your life.

And that's what Paul was saying when you will die.

Parts of what you have in your life will die if you let sin rule.

So let's read this again.

It says Romans chapter 8, verse 12.

Romans 8:12

It says, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do.

For if you live by its dictates, you will die.

But, but, here's the really great scripture part.

If you, but if through the power of the Holy Spirit, now it's the power of the Holy Spirit, it's not your strength, it's not anything that you can do, it's not how much energy you put into it, it's not the oomph, it's not the I gave everything I had, it's by the power of the Holy Spirit.

You put to death.

Now that means when you put to death, you're starving the sin.

You're starving it.

It has no, it can't grab on anything.

The deeds of your sinful nature, you will live.

When you starve it, you will live.

When you starve the sin, you will live.

You're tapping into that Holy Spirit that God, that God provided us as a helper to move you forward, but the strength of the Holy Spirit, you're going to put to death all of those things that have been weighing on you, that you've been worrying about.

Again, when I was in Prince George, there was a, I would go to AA meetings with some of the people, and they had this saying.

Said, we admit we are powerless over alcohol, that our lives have become unmanageable.

We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore our sanity.

Now we're believers.

We're Christ followers.

The difference between having a greater, which is an understanding of something out there that could possibly have you, and having a spirit-led life because of what Jesus did on the cross for you and the Holy Spirit that he gave you and helping you into your life and helping you through the things that are going on is a stark difference between what they're saying and what Christ is offering.

And so there is, I saw a pastor Craig Rochelle change this into this.

He said it this way: I admit that I'm powerless over insert your sin here.

I believe that the power of the Spirit of God will heal me and make me whole.

So when we say, I admit that I'm powerless over insert here, what are you powerless over?

So maybe you're taking a minute right now and you're just playing that back in your mind.

And I really feel like someone's gonna experience the power of the Holy Spirit as they're listening to this.

And you're gonna be set free by something, but you name that thing and you say, I am powerless over food.

I am powerless over the worry about COVID.

I'm powerless over pornography.

I'm powerless over this crushing debt.

I'm powerless over these drugs, I'm powerless over the worry, over the anger, over the materialism, over the drugs, the pain meds, anything that, what are you, and you're giving it to Christ and saying, I want to be led by your spirit.

So the first one is we depend on the power of the Holy Spirit.

The second is we follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

Now here's what Galatians chapter 5 verse says that those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires, they're starving it again.

Galatians 5 · chapter mention

Again, we're starving it.

We're crucified the flesh and its passions and desires.

We're putting it to death.

So we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

So I will walk by the Spirit and not gratify the desires of the flesh.

So here's the visual.

I'm not a dancer.

There's no way that anyone wants to see this middle-aged white guy dance to any kind of fast techno or anything like that.

My wife decided one year we're gonna go to a New Year's party, and she happened to neglect to tell me that there was a dance there.

And so, me being the loving husband that I am, I had to do some dancing.

Um, it was horrible on the the uh no one wants to see that, but then we get to the part where I think I know what I'm doing, and we're doing the slow dance, and so I put my hands out and I bring her in close, and I like the proximity of the closeness with my wife, and we're starting to do the slow dance, and I'm horrible.

I'm stepping on her toes, she tripped and she almost went to one knee, and I'm trying to do this, but eventually she figured out my pattern, and she figured out which way I'm gonna go, and as we're dancing, she was in step with what I'm doing because we put time into knowing each other, and she wanted to be in step with what I'm doing.

She had to figure out what my steps were and what my signals were, and that's what the Holy Spirit can do for us.

It can prompt us.

We get to know him through his word, we get to hear him through his word, and through that time that we spend with him.

We get to constantly recognize that he's prompting us in something.

He's leading me, he's guiding me.

It's more than just something that's out there that I know of.

I've actually experienced Christ in my life, and his spirit is leading me.

What did that scripture say?

We're under no obligation to sin.

You have the power of God's Spirit.

When we come so close to the Spirit of God, you're not tempted to gratify the flesh.

Why?

Because you're so full of what matters that you are not tempted by the emptiness of what doesn't matter.

I'm gonna say that again.

We're not tempted to gratify the flesh when we're close to the Spirit of God because we're so full of what matters that we are not tempted by the emptiness of what doesn't matter.

You have no obligation.

That's freeing because we have the power, and it says the power of the Spirit of God in us.

It's not our strength that does this.

You don't have to be held hostage by worry.

You don't have to be held hostage by drugs.

You don't have to be held hostage by anxiety.

You don't have to be held hostage by any of these things that are holding you in place right now from stepping into a spirit-led life.

You feed your spirit, you starve your flesh.

The spirit's power in your life will help you move forward into something else.

And I heard this phrase a long time ago.

It's that God loves us the way we are, but loves us enough not to leave us that way.

His Holy Spirit can help us do these things.

And I want to leave you with just a couple things that I believe are gonna help you elevate your spirit-led life to go from a place of maybe not even engaging in who the Holy Spirit is and engaging that relationship with Christ into moving you and shifting the needle, like Pastor Brody always says, just a little bit more into that relationship with Him.

One, you feed your spirit with prayer.

You've heard us talk about prayer a lot.

We're a praying church, we love to pray.

You're gonna feed your spirit and have a spirit-led life when you activate prayer.

When you start to make prayer a part of your daily life and it's moving you forward.

It's just like an exercise.

When I hear of older Christians that woke up in the morning at six, like Pastor David, he's like, Oh, I spent a couple hours in prayer.

I desire to be able to spend a couple hours in prayer because I've exercised that muscle.

Number two, you feed your spirit with God's word.

Scripture is like, I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

I'm an overcomer by the blood of the Lamb, the word of my testimony.

When he's weak, when I'm weak, he's strong.

That's the word of God.

I'm an overcomer, I'm a conqueror because of what he's done.

Being spirit-led means you're an overcomer.

Three, feed your spirit with the right people.

There's a scripture in the Bible, I think it's in Corinthians, that says, bad company corrupts good character.

And I'm gonna make a really bold statement right now that includes your friends on Facebook.

You have people on your in your life right now that are on Facebook that are posting things, they're just wrecking your direction, that are taking you out of out of being spirit-led because it's just stirring up anger or frustration or or ignorance or whatever's going on there, you're being swayed by Facebook and those friends that are on Facebook.

And so today, being spirit-led means that we're feeding the spirit and starving our flesh.

And so here's a challenge.

I want you, I'm gonna make this a really bold challenge.

I want you every day this week to take half an hour out of your day, turn off social media, turn off the TV, move the kids to a different room if you have to, but I want you to spend half an hour every single day reading the Bible and spending time in prayer and asking God to show you what it means to be spirit-led, and he's gonna speak to you.

Spend some time with him and get to know what the prompting of the Holy Spirit sounds like or feels like.

Spend some time knowing his word and how he feels about you, and not necessarily what you feel about you.

And if you're watching this for the very first time, and something inside of you is just you want this, and you don't know who Jesus is, I want to pray with you right now.

I want you actually to say these words out loud for wherever you are, and I want you to experience the power of the Holy Spirit in your life.

So I want you to say this prayer with me.

Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I need you and need your forgiveness.

I believe that you died on the cross for my sins and rose from the grave to give me life.

I know you're the only way.

So I want to start living for you.

Please forgive me, change my life, and show me how to know you.

In Jesus' name, amen.

And if you watched this today and you said that prayer, if you watch this today and you didn't say the prayer and you're just you're a Christian and you're struggling with something and you want prayer, let us know.

Message us on Facebook or Instagram or through the website.

But if you gave your life to Jesus today, let us know.

We want to be able to celebrate with you.

But where our prayer is that you experience the power of the Holy Spirit and being spirit-led into relationship with Jesus deeper and deeper, even in the times of COVID.

So that you push further and you know more of what His voice sounds like for you and for your family.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

Appreciate you being here.