What the Spirit desires | Ps Rachel Eaton

Hey, welcome to the City Point Church podcast.

Thanks for joining us. Every day is an opportunity to

take hold of, so we hope this message inspires you and builds

your faith, but it helps you have more of the God perspective

for your day. Enjoy.

The time of the message this morning is what the Spirit

desires. So I'd love to open up God's

Word, His Holy Bible. We are going to read from Romans

85 and it says this. Those who live according to the

flesh have their mind set on what the flesh desires, but

those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their mind

set on what the Spirit desires, what the Spirit desires.

When we talk about what Holy Spirit desires, it actually

gives us insight into the fact into the the personhood of who

He is. Holy Spirit is more than a

feeling, He's more than a force, He's more than power.

He's a person, and he is a person who can be delighted and

offended. His desire is to glorify Jesus

and the Father in everything that he does and he does this by

working through us, on us and in us.

When we speak about Holy Spirit, this is not a light hearted

thing. We have the Spirit of God

Almighty. He's the Spirit of Jesus.

This is a age-old spirit. He was there hovering over the

waters as creation was formed. He was right there.

He is the Spirit of all wisdom, all knowledge.

He's very clever. He knows all things, and he has

the love of Jesus here to pour out and to reveal to us His

great love and purpose for you. He's the Spirit, the Spirit that

was there that raised Jesus from the dead.

He was there in that moment, and he's right here with us, the

Holy Spirit. He lives inside of us.

That's what the Bible says. And so when we engage him, a

good question to ask is what do you desire, Holy Spirit?

What do you want to see? Spirit of God, What do you want

to reveal in me? What do you want to reveal about

Jesus? What do you want to highlight in

His Word? What do you want to do?

What do you want to start? What do you want to stop?

What's your will? The Bible says that the Holy

Spirit, he's here to empower people to preach, lead, lead

people to give their lives to Jesus, be sent out, perform

miracles, see signs and wonders, speak God's word either in

testimony or prophetically. He wants to see people healed,

transformed, delivered, set free.

And He does this through you and I.

It is His desire to see these things established through you

and I. And so Holy Spirit is so

obsessed to be intimately in the process of our spiritual growth.

He's obsessed with us and our spiritual growth.

And he begins the trend of the process of transforming us more

and more and more into the likeness of who He is, of what

He desires. This is actually where Unity

begins. When he invites us into the

process to to understand what he desires, it's less of us and

more of him. And that's where Unity begins to

take place because we become more and more and more into his

desires, into his likeness, into his character, what the Spirit

desires as signs and wonders with crusades of thousands of

people with miracle working power.

It is a wonderful part of the Holy Spirit.

It is a part that this church does experience on some levels,

and I am convinced it is a part that we will see more and more

and more of. I know we will.

However, it's a part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on

what the flesh desires, but those who live in accordance

with the Spirit have their Can their mind set on what the

Spirit desires? What's your mind set on?

What's it think about? What consumes it?

Is it work, bills. Relationships?

When we talk about Holy Spirit, we can set our minds on what He

desires. What does He desire?

What does he want to do in you? What does he want to do through

you? I, I imagine this a little bit

like taking a walk with someone, you know, building a

relationship with Holy Spirit. It's not that unlike building

one with any other person that you have a relationship with.

It's time spent and it's taking a walk when I walk arm in arm

with my husband and we might go down.

You know, he, he never liked trees.

I don't think he ever noticed a single tree or a plant is his

entire life. And then he met me and we would

go on romantic walks together. I'd be like, look at this

amazing tree and look at how this plant forms and this one's

got flow and look at the texture of this.

And all of a sudden he starts to see things that he wouldn't have

otherwise seen because we're in relationship and we're going for

a walk. And all of a sudden your

perspective starts to change because you start seeing things,

you start valuing things that the person that you're walking

with is singing or or talking about.

Now when we go for walks, he's like, Rach, what do you think

about this tree? What about this?

And he's taking photos and he's Googling it in the right

environments and it can grow and how big it will get.

Not that one, Rachel, that's six feet.

No, it's too tall. And so we have these

conversations when I go shopping with my daughter.

Yeah. She pointed out that there was a

Sephora shop. I don't know what a Sephora shop

is. I'm sure Pastor Melanie does any

right. Some of you here know, some of

you don't. It's OK.

You need to take a walk with a younger person.

And we're walking. And she goes, oh, Mum, look at

this. I now see Sephora shops

everywhere because I've learnt to see and value something

because I've spent time with someone, right?

You start to see things that you didn't see before when you walk

closely with someone building relationship with the Holy

Spirit, it's not that unlike building a relationship with

anyone, one person that you desire to, we're actually built

in His image. He created and designed us in

his image. And so the key to relationship

with him, it's not that unlike how you would build a

relationship here when you spend time with Holy Spirit, walk with

him. Listen, lean in.

You're going to start to see what he values.

You're going to start to see things from his perspective.

You're going to start to understand what he desires.

You start to see what's actually important.

When we come, when we come to Jesus, sometimes we come a bit

broken. Now beautiful Jesus, when he

died on the cross, he said that while we were sinners, he died

for us and the Holy Spirit testifies this to us, why we

were sinners. The thing is, is that when we

come to Jesus, we're often a little bit broken.

We often have it's almost, I imagine, like wearing a a jacket

that's got buttons and when you you press certain buttons out

will come a different personality.

That's not always pretty right? We have triggers, we have hurts,

we have fast, we have filters that we process things through.

And so when we come and we just take a walk with Holy Spirit, he

kind of mellows out the buttons and will reveal to you what's

actually important. Sometimes you think that that

this particular circumstance or what that person said or the

fact that the church is black is the most important thing in the

whole world. And this is the thing that needs

attention on. This is what we need to pay

attention to. And then you just go for a walk

with Holy Spirit and, and he kind of mellows out the buttons.

Our buttons, they're not his buttons, They're our buttons,

our filter. And then our buttons kind of get

filtered. True Holy Spirit, and we start

to see things through his perspective.

We start to see what's really important.

I'll be honest, there's there's no shortcut in this process.

If you want to build a relationship with someone, it's

time spent. There's no person here that you

have great relationship with that you've had a 5 minute

conversation with over, you know, a telephone call, not even

face to face. You know, relationship is built

with time spent walking it out with Holy Spirit.

What the Spirit desires. He's here to transform us more

and more into His likeness. So one of the ways to understand

what Holy Spirit desires actually found in his word, He

tells us he's really, he's not shy, He's not discreet about it.

He actually wrote it all down for us in the beautiful Bible.

And so let's bring up the Bible in Galatians 522 to 23 where it

reads about the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

But the fruit of the Spirit is Lovejoy, peace, forbearance,

kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control.

Against such such things there is no such law.

It is Holy Spirit's desire to see these fruits developed in

our life and out worked in our life.

In other words, they are the result of taking a walk, walking

closely with Him. And these are the fruits that

start to feature. They're the fruits that start to

show walking things out with Him.

Holy Spirit might call for peace in your mind and it can be

racing and full of fear and worry and anxiety and stress.

And don't you know that the mortgage is due next week, Lord?

But as you walk with Holy Spirit, you kind of start to see

things from his perspective and faith comes in.

He's the great revealer of Jesus.

So you can't spend time with Holy Spirit and not have faith

come in and dwell on the inside of you.

You start to see things through a God perspective.

He need leads you to peace and you start to mellow out and

chill out a bit and go, right, You're so stressed and anxious

and then you come in and then go, OK, it's going to be OK.

The Spirit wants to bring joy into your heart.

But often your flesh will struggle with that comment, with

that, with that person, with that act that they did.

And so you want to sit here and boil in anger and then you go

for a walk, walk with Holy Spirit and you can be fuming.

And then he just kind of just starts pointing out, have you

considered this? Have you considered my word?

Have you considered the situation?

Have you considered it? And you start to see things

through his perspective and it brings this great calm and your

heart begins to soften. Holy Spirit desires for you to

understand and be fully convinced of the love of Jesus.

That's actually what He's here to do.

He is here to reveal God's love. And now I just pray over this

place that through this message and through leaning in and

through taking walks with him, that you would be fully

convinced and that you would know of the love of God that let

it fill your heart to overflowing.

I pray in this place right now that in the depths of those

spaces where you think he's abandoned you, where you think

he's disappointed, where you think he doesn't want to live, I

just pray right now that you would be convinced of the love

of Jesus that says that he died for you while you were sinners.

He still dies for you. That's for all time.

Just pray right now. Anyway, sorry, off tangent a

little bit. Holy Spirit desires, He wants

you to be fully convinced of God's love.

But you know, sometimes we want to sit in condemnation.

Oh no, no, no, God, I don't deserve it.

I know that you, you want to develop this in my life or you

want to see this come out, but I can't because of this.

I can't because I'm not worthy. I know I'm, I'm stuck here just

just and you put up balls to the Holy Spirit.

But he's here to, to minister and to reveal the love of Jesus,

what he did on that cross, what it means for you, what he wants

to bring you into. And we figured this out by

taking a walk, walking it out with him, bringing it before

him, let him start to crack through the filters of those

walls that we put up. But it can be a bit of a

battleground within us. So these things, they're not

things that we need to sit here and feel bad about.

They're not things that we need to sit here and go and just get

all heavy about. Just look up.

Holy Spirit is here to help you. He wants to help.

He wants to lead you to life. He wants to.

He wants God's love to pour out. He wants you to be fully

convinced. He wants to develop gifts within

you. He just wants to lead you

through. He wants to strengthen you in

your weaknesses. And He wants to help you with

all of it. If if you want help with all of

it, see, He's a person and he's not.

He's not controlling. He's not going to push his way

in. He'll wait to be invited.

He'll wait for you to come to him.

He's not controlling. He's not forceful.

He's not like, aggressively controlling over your life.

No, he'll wait. He loves you and he's obsessed

with your spiritual development and so he will.

If you desire, He will strengthen you with His power if

you allow him. Let's have a look at Acts 1/8 on

this day of Pentecost. Acts 18 reads.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you,

and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and

Samaria to the ends of the earth.

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.

Yes for miracles, yes for signs and wonders, yes for the large

crusades, but also to strengthen the weaknesses in your life.

Listen to this. In Ephesians 316 it reads, I

pray out of his glorious riches that He may strengthen you with

power through His Spirit in your inner being.

That word power is the same word, the same power that

performs the, the miraculous, the the, the, the, the legs that

grow, the backs that straighten the the eyes that actually open

that we saw last year at the miracle service.

That same power is the same power that works in us to

strengthen us. It's the same power.

He wants to strengthen you. He wants to strengthen you in

your weaknesses. Let's just have a sit down

moment here about that word strengthen.

What is it to strengthen something?

If something needs to be strengthened, it's probably a

little bit weak, right? I've got Stew in the audience.

The Stew, my good friend over there who's a bit of a gym

junkie. So if you're at the gym and your

instructor, what are they called?

Are they instructors, teachers? We need one person, Ryan.

Oh, it's Milena. What is it?

Personal trainer. APT.

Is that what they're called? OK, Stu.

Sorry, my friend. So a personal trainer, if a

personal trainer comes to you and says, Stu, this particular

area is weak, does that mean that we just ignore it and then

don't give it any attention? Is that what they do?

They train it like more intensely, so the weak spot has

to get more work done to it. Does that hurt?

I feel like you're lying. When there's a weak spot that

needs to be strengthened, sometimes it hurts.

OK, sometimes it hurts. It doesn't mean that we ignore

the area, doesn't mean you just cut it off and just go, oh,

don't worry about it. We don't need that arm.

It means that the weak spot now needs to get radical attention.

And sometimes that is going to hurt Holy Spirit by his power.

He won't always remove the the the weak areas in your life.

But He will give you power from on high to overcome, to

strengthen those areas what you were once couldn't do before.

By His power, you can now do what you were too weak to

overcome before. By His power from on high, you

can now overcome. And some of you might be sitting

here with some hard stuff and going, This is hard.

Where are you, Lord? Why is this here?

Some of you with the hard stuff have even come out with this

statement. It must be an attack.

It must be from the devil. I understand that the enemy

attacks. I'm living proof of it.

He attacks spiritual pests is what they are, and it's the same

antidote for them all as they come.

It's just the blood of Jesus. If you submitted to God and

resist the devil, he has to go. He has to go.

He has to go, friends, Not everything that's hard is a

spiritual attack. Not everything that hurts is a

devil. Do you know the devil?

He's he's not omnipresent. He actually can't be in more

than one place at one time. There's not a devil hiding under

every rock. Every time you experience pain

or if something's hurting, it's not necessarily an attack from

the devil. Let's have a look at this in the

Bible. Let's bring up a nice long

story. I'll just take a breath and

we'll come and read this. Matthew 16, three to 23.

Hold on. This is about Peter and it says

when Jesus came to the region of I can never say that word

Saraya. Thank you.

So what that word Philippi? He asked his disciples, people

who do say that the son of people, who do you say that the

Son of man is? Well, they replied, some say

John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say Jeremiah

or one of the other prophets. Then he asked them, but who do

you say I am? And Simon Peter, good old Simon,

he's got a great response. You are the Messiah, the Son of

the living God. And then Jesus gets out his big

Gold Star book and goes to plant one right on Peter.

And Jesus says this you are blessed Simon, son of John,

because my Father in heaven has not revealed this to you.

You did not learn this from any human being.

Now I say to you that you are Peter, which means rock and upon

on this rock I will build my church and all of the powers of

hell will not conquer it. And I will give you the keys to

the Kingdom of heaven. Whatever you forbid on earth

will be forbidden in heaven and whatever you commit on earth

will be permitted in heaven. And Peter's like I am like

totally teacher's pet at the moment.

I've had this amazing moment. I've had spiritual eyes to see,

to see what the what's going on in the Kingdom.

I've got spiritual eyes to see what Holy Spirit is, is, is

moving in and what he can do. And I've got my big shiny Gold

Star that Jesus just gave to me. This is great.

Then everyone say, then here we are.

Then he, Stanley warned the disciples not to tell anyone

that he was the Messiah. From then on, Jesus began to

tell his disciples plainly that it was necessary for him to go

to Jerusalem and that he would suffer many terrible things at

the hands of the elders, the leading priests and teachers of

religious law. He would be killed, but on the

third day he would be raised from the dead.

But Peter with his big shiny Gold Star that he got 5 minutes

ago took him aside and began to reprimand Jesus The Walking

living word of God to saying such things.

Heaven forbid Lord, he said, this will never happen to you.

And Jesus turned to Peter and said get away from me Satan, you

are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely

from a human point of view and not from gods.

Ouch Ouch. Peter was like I was just 5

minutes ago, commended for my spiritual mind and then snap.

He went from like 0 as a hero to 0 right from ducks to dunce in 5

minutes. His natural mind missed what was

going on spiritually. He said, Oh no, this is an

attack. Not so, Lord, I'm not going to

stand for this. This will not happen on my

watch. It wasn't an attack.

It was the plan. Our natural minds can miss what

Holy Spirit's doing. We got to just stop.

You know what happened in this story?

Peter was a very fast-paced man. You see that because he's always

talking or doing things before he has a moment to think.

He was fast. Slow down.

What is the Spirit desire? What is the Spirit doing?

Where is Holy Spirit in this? Go take a walk, right?

Not everything that happens is an attack from the enemy.

If I'm can I actually grab the muses up, please?

If I'm late for work, 10 minutes late for work because I've got

every red light, that's not a spiritual attack.

That's a time management problem.

If you have an argument with someone close to you and you are

angry, unkind and aggressive guys, that's that's not

necessarily a spiritual attack. Holy Spirit allows these things,

brings them to the surface. When you've got buttons on on

your jacket, he actually allows them to be pressed to bring it

out to the surface. So you can go take a walk with

him. Let her come out.

Let him let him just have a have a bit of a wrestle.

What's what's your desire in this Holy Spirit?

The Bible says that you will receive the the sorry, the

passage in the Bible says that if if we ask for anything in his

name that we will receive it. So I don't know where it is.

Look it up. Start in Genesis, get through to

Revelation. It's in there somewhere when we

ask for anything in His name that we will receive it.

Do you know what the last line of that paragraph reads?

It reads something like this. And how much more will I give

the Holy Spirit to those who ask?

You see, he's not forceful. He's not aggressive.

He describes himself in His nature as gentle.

He's a gentle spirit. And so when we come to him, He

will do it gently what the Spirit desires.

I wonder this morning if we could just ask the question even

in this moment. Feel free to close your eyes,

have a moment, take a walk with Holy Spirit.

What do you desire? Spirit of God in my life in this

season, what do you want to see? Holy Spirit in my language,

relationships, attitude. What do you want to do in and

through me? What do you want to reveal to me

about Jesus?