On FIRE!: The Holy Spirit in Each Person

Welcome to Heaven Earth Church.

My name is Ross Stackhouse.

I'm the founding pastor of Heaven Earth Church.

From the beginning, our heart was to be a church for people who

don't fit neatly into church.

Our heart is to meet people where they are, to learn their stories,

to honor their stories.

Because in every human story is God's story.

In this podcast, you'll hear more about the people who now call

Heaven Earth Church home.

Their stories, in many cases of misfits who are discovering or

rediscovering faith.

If you want to know more about us, you can go to heavenorthchurch.org

Otherwise, we invite you now into the story.

Hello, good people.

Brad Miller here, the producer of the Heaven Earth Church podcast.

One of the main benefits of being a part of the Heaven Earth

Church community is our Sunday morning conversations taught by founding

pastor Ross Stackhouse.

You can watch and participate in the Sunday morning conversation

this Sunday morning, 9:30am Eastern time at YouTube.com heavenerthchurch.

The audio version of the Sunday morning conversation is available

here on the podcast, which you can find at Apple Podcasts, Spotify

and on the website, which is heavenarthchurch.org Here is heaven

Earth Church Pastor Ross Stackhouse with the message the Holy

Spirit in each person from the Message series on fire.

Lord, help us to receive the life that you so eagerly want to

give us in Jesus name, Amen.

So yesterday, Saturdays are my Sabbath day.

So I try to carve it out as a day of rest where I try not to have

productivity, accept productivity of a certain kind that

is allowed.

And I'm wondering if my kids are starting to tap into what that

means, because sometimes my kids are.

IVA specifically is asking to have a yes day.

Do you know what a yes day is?

Okay.

Yes.

Yes, sir.

On October 30th.

Yep.

Well, so they said, daddy, can you build us a lemonade stand so

we can have that today?

And parents, can you can you relate how I thought, I don't have

time for that, but I said yes.

And Josh Harris, do not look at the integrity of this table, okay,

bro?

Josh Harris is professional woodworker.

So I can't go into all the details of this, but recently I have

really felt God nudging me to be still and to listen to the ways

of all the subtle ways that I'm resisting the life that God wants

to give me.

And so because of that, recently, when my kids said, hey,

can we do this today?

I didn't even think.

And I said yes.

And I gave a chunk of my day to This.

I just found whatever scraps of wood I had lying around and started

getting to work on doing this thing.

They didn't want any existing table in the house.

Okay, not good enough.

We need to build a lemonade stand.

So we did it.

And it was just so joyful, you guys, to just go around the house

looking for the extra scraps out in the shed and like, hey, that'll

work.

Old fence.

Old fencing.

The sides of the tables are old.

Just fences.

Fence.

Kind of.

What's the word?

Not posts, but the things themselves, like slats.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And then there was this plywood tabletop that I had.

My dad gave.

Gifted me from that he had laying in his house.

Because men just keep wood.

You'll never know when I need it.

Yeah.

Well, guess what I won today, that day.

Because this piece, big piece of plywood that's just been sitting

in the shed, I finally needed it, chopped it up, made this thing,

and we all went in to do this and we had such a blast.

And we.

We.

We also taught a little business, sedject.

We had to move it to get it closer to the construction site.

Then the business started rolling in.

So I have an overly simple yet very important point that I hope

that you will wrestle with.

No, actually, that you'll just receive today.

I don't know if it's up there yet.

We were having a little trouble getting it.

This is it.

This life wants to grow in us.

And I'll spoil.

I'll give you the practical takeaway.

So let it.

Once we were finishing up the day, I went over to my fire pit.

And we haven't had a fire in there for some time.

And I look in there and amongst the ashes, wildflowers are

growing up, a maple tree is growing up, and some weeds.

This life wants to grow in us.

It just wants to.

By this life, you probably already know what I mean, but it's

the life that Jesus embodied.

Every minute of every hour of every day that he was on earth, he

came to give it to us.

He said things like, I have said these things to you.

So my joy will be in you, and your joy will be complete.

Abide in me.

I'll abide in you.

Those who abide in me.

The Father.

Prunes, so that they bear fruit.

In other words, let it grow.

You can't force it to grow.

You let it grow by abiding in me.

By saying yes, not just once.

We celebrated some amazing baptisms in a pretty murky pond last

week, didn't we, Dina?

But it was wonderful.

And we talked about how baptism is a beginning, not an end.

We talked about how, you know, when you go to Indianapolis Airport

and there's a point where you can choose the arrival lanes or the

departure lanes.

Well, sometimes in Christianity, we've taught that baptism

is driving into the arrival lanes.

It is not.

It's driving into the departure lanes.

We're beginning something.

We're saying one yes, followed by a series of A bunch of small yeses,

like saying yes to being present with your kids and building

a lemonade stand from scraps.

So here's what I want to ask of you to start today.

What does your resistance look like?

Step back to a minute.

For a minute.

If this life wants to grow in us.

If Jesus is just saying, I just want to give this life to you.

I want to.

I want to teach you this.

I want to cultivate this in you.

I want to give you the very spirit that raised me from the dead.

I just want to help you grow up in this life.

What does your resistance to that look like?

I'll hang up and listen.

Too busy.

Great.

Thank you.

I plan to, Josh, to say that to start today, because next week

we're going to start a series of conversations inspired by a book

called the Ruthless Elimination of Hurry Exhaustion.

Yeah.

Not finding or getting the rest that we need.

Yeah.

How do you resist this life that wants to grow in you, that Jesus

wants to give you?

It's not always the easiest choice.

It's maybe hard or difficult.

There's always an excuse.

There's always a distraction.

What was that, Kevin?

Procrastination.

I can come back to this later.

Right now I gotta tend to some other things.

Yeah.

What else?

What's your resistance look like, Natalie?

Anxiety and what ifs.

Yes.

What was that?

Control.

Oh, man.

Yes.

Control as a form of resistance, defiance, commitment

to things that are no longer fulfilling.

If I could add to that.

PT we're just doing what's worked.

It may not be working anymore.

We kind of know that deep down, but it's still comfortable.

And so it's comfortable.

It works.

What's your resistance look like?

Being uncomfortable.

Yeah.

Fear.

Fear of change.

Fear of the unknown.

Yeah.

Here's what has been what I've noticed.

I told you last time, I felt that God has been challenging me

to practice a lot of stillness and silence all the time.

Now, don't go away today and say, the pastor told us to not read

the Bible anymore.

That's not what I'm about to say.

But even recently, I felt in My alone time with God.

Recently, this happened to me.

Was it my mind?

Was it God?

I don't know.

But I start to reach for my Bible app, what I do every morning

to wrestle with the scriptures, to find God's heart through

them.

And God said, whoa, whoa.

I said, be still.

Know that I'm God.

When I try to speak recently in prayer, I feel like I'm being

muted, like Zachariah in the story of Luke, chapter one.

Like, hey, no talking.

Enough talking, Ross.

Enough doing.

It's been really frustrating.

I'm not allowed to talk.

I'm not allowed to read the Bible.

I'm just supposed to sit still and be still and listen and feel

like you're not hearing anything and struggle with the distractions.

And it's working.

I'm seeing all the resistance in me.

I'm noticing I said it out loud to God.

I was allowed to say this.

The ego is still driving.

Wow.

It's still driving a lot.

Fear and insecurity still grip me terribly.

And this ruthless ambition, this need to be productive, this

need to get results and then be admired for my results is still

driving so much.

That is my resistance.

And God is trying to teach me right now.

Just let this life come to you.

All these things are resistance.

All these things are resistance.

I told Emily, for me, by ego, I define it as this.

In me, ego, it sounds like a bad, dirty word kind of, right?

Like it means you're arrogant.

That guy's an egomaniac.

More generally, I mean, more perhaps in a psychological sense.

The ego is what we build to survive or make it through hard times.

As human beings, we've talked about this.

We are wonderfully wired to survive.

We are incredibly resilient.

So after we have passed through trauma, terrible trauma,

adverse childhood experiences, failing loss, we will figure out

how to survive.

And sometimes, coming out of childhood or adolescence, the way

that we learned to survive was to build this false self, call it

the ego, to make it through.

And that ego is great until it isn't anymore.

The ego is what we use to resist the pain that precedes thriving.

I'll say that again.

The ego is what we lean on to resist the pain that precedes thriving.

So we know deep down somewhere, we know it deep, deep,

deep, deep down, there is something else besides the routine

we've been in.

There's a voice that cries down, cries out from deep within

us, saying, there is more.

There is more.

There is life.

There is fruit.

And we know that that voice is calling us somewhere else.

But, or maybe Right.

Exactly where we are.

But to just be different.

Exactly where we are.

But what comes between us.

That surviving here and thriving over there is some pain

and discomfort along the way.

So the ego is what we lean on to resist the pain that precedes

the thriving.

For me, I become ruthlessly ambitious so I can produce and get

results that get me admiration that I think I need to be validated.

Anybody else with me on that?

You're in any achievers in the room?

Sometimes the inverse of that is shame.

We don't even try to achieve anything because we think we're completely

worthless deep down.

So I say again, what does your resistance look like?

This life wants to grow in us.

Here's what I want to say to you really quickly.

Two things on today's church and then something on the ancient

church.

And then we're going to end back with a.

So what?

Are you still with me?

You still good?

I'm trying.

Even right now.

I'm gonna say an honest thought to you right now because

God's teaching me right now.

My resistance is needing to be admired.

So right now I'm even trying to share this message without you

needing to like it.

Good God help me.

How was Jesus able to teach in riddles?

No resistance.

He didn't need people to like it.

He did not need people to like it.

And I said before, he sure as heck wasn't Midwest nice.

He didn't need people to like what he was doing.

He already felt as liked as he needed to be.

So I'm trying to say this today and not need you to like it.

That's what I want to tell you, is that the church.

I have thought the church is the resistance.

Today I'm seeing it differently.

I'm thinking that church sometimes has been part of the resistance

in a bad way.

Sometimes church is teaching us.

It's actually fanning kind of the flame of the resistance stuff

in us.

So maybe we go to a church that's got a big fat ego.

It's shiny.

There's a lot of performance in it.

It looks great.

It feels great.

What's that?

Fog machines.

Right?

That's a way that the modern church can be a part of the resistance.

That's not good.

It makes us feel good.

We walk away with a good feeling and we're resisting the pain

that precedes thriving.

Or maybe the modern church is just yoking up with some political

party and it's hijacking the good life of Jesus and yoking it

to some political agenda that's killing People.

It happens on the left and the right, folks.

When churches align with certain harmful political agendas,

that keeps us asleep and sleepwalking for some of us.

Our scriptures are the words of our political party with which

we affiliate ourselves.

To hell with that.

This life wants to grow in us.

He won't force you.

He doesn't work that way.

I'm learning.

He invites you.

He talks to you in riddles.

So you have to really show up and listen and think about it.

He doesn't spoon feed you.

And even if he did, we wouldn't do it anyways.

I love it when folks are like, if he just give me a list, I'm like,

he did.

It's called the Ten Commandments.

How you doing?

If he gave us a list, we wouldn't do well with it anyways.

So he becomes friends with us, has conversation with us, invites

us to a daily companionship where sometimes it comes to us in

riddles, but sometimes you gather way more from a riddle that

confuses you than something that's spoon fed and clear and simple.

He's not so interested in whether you like it.

He's interested in whether you realize how loved you are.

And sometimes to do that, he's got to say something that unsettles

you or do something that pierces the fog or pierces the hard

shell that's part of your resistance.

When I look at the ancient church again, I used to think of

that as the resistance.

I'm seeing it differently now.

I'm seeing it as the people who just allowed this life to grow

in them go.

We talked about Paul's story last week.

Can we go back to it real quick?

Are you still with me?

No.

Wait.

I'm not concerned whether you like it or not.

Of course I am.

That's not gonna die in me.

Remember Paul?

His name was Saul.

He was resisting this so hard.

There was this new way.

It was literally called the way.

The Greek word for it means the road, or the way.

That was what the first movement was called.

Paul was resisting this, Saul, with everything in his body and his

soul.

He was.

He was religious.

Remember when I said the church can be a part of the bad resistance?

Hello?

This guy was.

Was trying to throw people in prison and murder people who are

part of this way because they were doing such threatening stuff.

They were getting together and eating supper.

They got to be killed.

But when your ego is running the show, weird things look threatening

to you.

Honest, loving feedback from your friends, that's a threat.

They're gaslighting me.

When your Friend comes to you and gives you honest, constructive

feedback.

When the ego's running the show, you won't receive it well.

You'll resist it.

The life won't grow.

He's resisting.

Paul is in a bad way.

Why?

Because he's tip top in the religious world.

He's got status, he's got education, he's got power.

He's got wealth.

He's got it all, man.

And then we talked about this last week.

The risen Lord shows up, as he does.

Sometimes we don't see it because why?

We're so busy.

We're in a hurry to get our list done.

To be productive, to achieve God never shows up in my life.

Oh, well, how have you been watching and listening for it?

Tell me that.

Well, I mean, I haven't had a lot of time.

I mean, my work schedule and everything's been so hard, and I'm.

Oh, so you're certain God hasn't been showing up?

Well, in this case, Jesus really shows up.

He says, hey, why are you harassing me?

We talked about last week.

Jesus.

Jesus says, when you've done it to one of the least of these,

you've done it to me.

In this case, Paul's arresting people.

And so he's doing it to Jesus.

Jesus says, hey, wake up.

And he invites Saul on a mission.

Jesus says to this guy by the name of Ananias.

So Saul becomes blinded by this vision.

He doesn't eat, he doesn't drink for three days.

This is from last week.

And he goes to this guy named Ananias, and he says, go.

You need to go relieve this guy.

Help this guy.

And Ananias is like, isn't he the murderer guy?

Isn't he the bad guy?

But what.

What does Ananias do?

No resistance.

He says, okay, I'll let this life grow in me.

I'll go where you send me.

Let's go.

And so Ananias shows up and says, look at this.

This is what happens when you let this life grow in you.

The enemy becomes your brother.

Say it with me, Brother Saul.

On the count of three.

One, two, three.

Can you imagine that some of your enemies could be your brothers

and sisters?

Yuck.

He helps him out.

He sends him on his way.

Paul stops the resistance.

He stops.

He surrenders.

He eats.

He regains his strength.

And, buddy, he goes on the mission.

And look at this.

What I'm seeing is, I'm noticing how actually this is this

first movement.

And us, we're not the resistance.

We're the people who just let this life grow in us by being present

with Jesus daily, by being still and being aware.

How is the ego still driving me?

How is fear and insecurity still ruling my life?

How is my need to be admired, my idol, my God, or whatever your

resistance is?

You won't know your resistance if you're not still and noticing

it.

If we're going to let go of the resistance, we first must be

aware of it.

So then we can turn and say, yes, let this life grow in me, Lord.

Yes.

My kids are always wanting to have a yes day.

God is teaching me, Ross, make every day with me a yes day.

Make every day with me, Ross, a yes day.

Say yes to stillness and presence and companionship and following

and trusting.

And together we will kick your fears in the teeth.

We will put your ego in its right place.

All that ruthless ambition will be seen for what it is.

And you'll realize and you'll live from this rest, from this fullness

of love and this desire to love people out of that center.

You're not going to love people, Ross, as a transaction.

So you love them and they give you admiration in return so you feel

fulfilled.

There's another fancy word for that, codependency.

Any codependent folks in the room.

You get your sense of worth from being fused with other people

and helping and serving them.

Even that is resistance.

Isn't that weird?

You're running around furiously.

Are you okay?

Do you feel better about how I've helped you?

Did it make you feel good?

Did you like it?

Did you like it?

That's resistance.

Weirdly, that's not letting the life of Jesus grow in you.

That's ego still driving insecurity, fear.

The Lord is yet teaching me how to love others because I'm already

loved.

First John 4 says it, we love.

Why?

So we can get trophies.

We love so we can get awards.

We love so we can be influencers.

On Instagram, it says, we love because he.

If you don't know it, it's okay.

I need to relearn it as if I've never heard it.

The line goes, because he first loved us.

We love because we love.

Because Jesus is inviting us to let that truth grow, to let the

ego.

You can thank your ego for how to help you survive.

Sometimes if you hear me talking out loud and you think it's

because I'm a weirdo, I literally might be having an out

loud conversation with my ego sitting, saying, hey, thanks for

everything you did for me, but I'm going to go ahead and drive Today,

Let this grow in you, my friends.

Look at this.

I'll just show you one more thing from the scriptures.

All these people were just.

When you look at it through the lens of, they were not resisting

anymore.

Look at this.

Paul goes to Jerusalem.

Saul goes to Jerusalem.

He's just letting this thing happen now.

And he's leveraging.

All these people are like, this guy.

It's him.

He's doing it.

And he grows stronger and stronger in the good stuff.

And he's confusing everybody.

Cause now he's leveraging all of his skills that he was using to

build his portfolio and resume.

He was using all those skills, saying, I got skills.

Look at me.

And now he's leveraging those skills to be like, I need to tell

you something that.

That is weird to feel coming out of my mouth.

Jesus is the Christ.

He's leveraging all of his skills for that now because he's

letting it flow.

And then there are people who are.

Now they're still resisting.

Now he's on the other side of it now we got to kill him.

He was killing these people, but now we got to kill him.

Gosh, our egos are so weird.

They liked Saul, who was literally violating one of the Ten

Commandments by getting people killed.

But now they're like, we got to kill him, man.

We're odd.

So he finds out about their scheme.

He sneaks out.

They take him to Jerusalem.

The disciples are afraid of him.

And look at this.

I want you to notice how, like the heroes that are in between, the

people that we don't notice, in the history of Christianity, sometime

not resisting looks like this, too.

All these people are afraid of Saul because why are they afraid

of him?

He's just been getting people stoned to death.

But then this guy Barnabas, I want you to remember Barnabas.

Say, Barnabas, I hope you think about him this week and go,

who the heck was Barnabas?

Why did we say his name?

And then maybe you look it up.

Barnabas doesn't get a whole lot of fanfare, but he steps up because

he's not resisting.

He's not afraid about needing approval of people.

Everybody's like, I don't know about this Saul guy.

Barnabas is centered.

He's full of the spirit.

He's got the love of God so richly dwelling in him.

Jesus, he is abiding in him.

Jesus is abiding in Barnabas.

And so what does he do?

He brings Saul to the apostles and vouches for him.

He bears witness to him.

He stands up for Saul.

The murderer.

And so Barnabas is behind.

Is Barnabas doing this to get a trophy?

No.

Is he doing it so he can get a promotion in the Jesus movement?

If anything, he's going to lose his space.

He says, hey, this guy, he's the real deal.

We need to get behind him.

And so they get behind him.

And like I said last week, Paul plants churches all around the

Mediterranean Sea and we exist in their legacy.

So I am finished.

Say yes to the lemonade stand.

Say yes.

What's this stirring in you?

This is making you think, feel, Andrea.

Yeah.

You're thinking of spoon fed.

Like things may go down easily, but maybe that's not what

you need.

Yeah.

What else?

What's this making you think, feel, wonder, hope for, desire, the

yes day.

What's this making you think?

When I know it's coming from God.

Now PT didn't say this part, which can be hard, but when I know

it's coming from God, I need to be like a kid and convince the

adults.

I was just talking to a friend.

Watch how kids have very little resistance.

Kids have like when they come in here in a minute, watch them very

little resistance in their way.

We learn resistance, we learn ego, we learn fear.

We're kind of on a path towards unlearning and releasing

it.

Let's pray we'll be still and silent again.

Listen for your resistance.

Lord, help us to receive the life that you so eagerly want to

give us.

In Jesus name.

Amen.

309 East Main in Whiteland, Indiana or online at YouTube Live.

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We want to thank you for.

Spending time with us today.

My name is Ross Stackhouse, the pastor to Heaven Earth Church.

And you may think out there that your story is over, but in fact

your faith story may just be beginning.

If you want more information about our church or you're interested

in the next step, you can go to heavenorthchurch.org otherwise

we look forward to being with you next time at the Heaven Earth

Church podcast.

Sa.