ON FIRE: Walking In The Holy Spirit - A Sunday Conversation with Pastor Emily Holverson

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 Stackhound.

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 now with the

message on fire walking in the spirit is Heaven Earth Church Pastor

Emily Halverson.

All right, well, let's pray and then we will continue with our

conversation.

God, I thank you for just space to pause and reflect and the

busyness of our world, Lord.

And I just recognize today that we're coming here from all kinds

of different places.

Some of them from a place of rest and just enjoyment, some from

just heartache and distress, some from worry and concerns about

so many different things.

God, I thank you that you're at work.

So that I just ask, Lord, you help us to sit, sit with you this

morning and that you'd speak to our hearts and our minds and just

help us to be open to your spirit.

We just pray this in your name, Jesus.

Amen.

All right.

Well, a couple weeks ago, my family was in Maine.

Long.

It was a long ways away.

It was like 20 hour drive.

It was a long ways away.

But we were in Maine.

And on Tuesday morning, it was a Tuesday morning, I woke up and

it was really rainy and misty and foggy.

So if you kind of imagine what like northeastern weather, if you

have a picture of that in your head of like misty, foggy, rainy,

that's what it was.

It was very much like that.

And I was sitting in a cabin looking outside at this mist and

I was just.

It was just quiet.

I was the only One awake.

And I was really thankful for this space and this time and just

to be still for a little while, because I'd had a lot of things

racing around.

And after that, we were supposed to go.

We're supposed to go hiking.

And I kept thinking, like, are we gonna go hiking today?

Like, it's all misty and wet, and who wants to hike in the rain?

But as people kind of started waking up, that, no, we're still

gonna go.

And so we found this hike.

And I want to show you a picture, actually, so.

Jk, thank you.

So this is actually Jordan Pond in Acadia national park, and

so you can kind of see some of the mist there.

But I just want to ask you first, what do you see when you look

at this picture piece?

Okay.

A piece of artwork.

Okay.

Stepping stones right underneath the water.

Lord of the Rings vibes.

Okay.

Adventure.

There's a moose.

I didn't see a moose that day, but there might be hiding one in

the mist.

Yeah.

Say again?

The light, the shading is wonderful.

It was a good picture.

It was a good.

It's a good moment, a good capture.

Maybe it's not edited.

It is not an edited picture.

Yeah.

So there's a.

There's a lot walking around that pond that day.

When I.

When I look at this, I see potential.

Like, there.

You can see stuff in the distance, but it's like it's covered

in the.

In the haze.

Later on, on this hike, we actually.

We hiked up above, kind of above the mist.

So you were, like, looking down on the mist, and it just.

It is a different perspective.

But one of the things that this evokes and this picture's kind

of haunted me a little bit, and I keep.

I keep thinking about.

We've been in this spirit in this series about the Holy Spirit.

And there's this verse right at the beginning of the Bible that

says, at creation, the Holy Spirit, God's spirit, hovered over

the waters of the deep.

And.

Damon, could you actually go to that?

Actually, no, stay in the picture.

Stay here.

So in the beginning, God created the world, and his.

The world was formless and void, and the spirit of God hovered

over the waters of the deep.

And that word spirit shows up all over scripture, all over the

Bible.

In the Old Testament, it's.

It's ruach.

It's ever.

It's.

It's error.

It's like, over.

It's like 300 times.

And in the New Testament, there's this word pneuma and this,

and they get.

They get used.

Both places well, Numa, whatever.

Anyways, they show up a lot in the Bible.

So there's this idea that the spirit of God is in a lot of things,

is moving in this world around us, is moving in us.

Sometimes the spirit of God is.

Is influencing.

Sometimes the spirit of God is creating, like, a creation, like

here.

Like, there's all this potential.

And the spirit breathes, like his wind moves and life happens.

And so we.

We see these different nuances of who the spirit is.

And so we've been talking this whole thing back here, right?

This like, little flame inside each one of us that, like, gets ignited

on fire and, like, burns bright.

And this is a spirit of God living inside each one of us.

The thing.

The thing about the spirit is it's a little bit mysterious.

Like, I see that in this picture too.

Like, what's in the mist?

I don't know.

It might be peaceful.

It might be a moose.

It might be a bison, you know, but there's the mystery to the spirit.

And we can walk with the spirit a long time or be brand new

with Walking with the Spirit and be like, there's some mystery

here that I don't totally get.

But one of the things that you see is that the spirit of God is

not some, like, impersonal thing that's just out there moving.

It's like a person who wants to be in a relationship with us.

And there's this personal element of interaction with the spirit.

Like, we walk with it.

So it's.

It's almost like.

It's not like.

But kind of, if you're to think of the concept of love, love

is an idea that's really big and it gets used in lots of ways.

But there's like.

When you experience love, like, your understanding of it changes.

So like, sometimes you can be like, well, love is not this and

it's not this, but it kind of feels like this.

And I think there's some truth to that with the Holy Spirit that

we're like, that's not the Holy Spirit and that's not the Holy

Spirit.

But, man, there's something about this thing right here that

just is the Holy Spirit at work and moving in us.

And the Spirit.

The Spirit is really important to Jesus.

There's this passage, Jamie, you can go to this next scripture,

the one that starts with John 14.

Yeah, that one.

So John 14, 15 and 16 are kind of like Jesus saying goodbye to the

disciples.

So Jesus has walked with these guys for three years.

He's talked with them, he's eaten with them, he's done all kinds

of things.

He's sent them out on missions and come back.

And they've come back and they've kind of recapped and said,

what are we doing?

What are we missing?

Why isn't this working?

And Jesus is saying he's getting ready to send, say, I'm.

I'm leaving you.

And they're at the Last Supper.

And so there's these three chapters, and he talks a lot in them

about the Holy Spirit.

So it's this, like, goodbye message before he goes to be arrested

and crucified.

And in it is a lot about this thing known as the Spirit.

So I just want to read these to you.

And the thing.

The words in yellow are words I highlighted that just kind of give

an idea of some of the different roles that the Holy Spirit

plays or some things we can learn about the Holy Spirit.

So if you love me, keep my commands, and I will ask the Father,

and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with

you forever.

The Spirit of truth.

Keep going, Jay.

So yellow.

It doesn't look yellow.

You guys, look at that screen.

It's yellow on that screen.

Rude.

All right, fail.

Okay, well, it's yellow on that screen.

Okay, well, just so you don't get the help, then you can just pay

attention and figure out which things, which words tell you about

the Holy Spirit.

So you can guess.

Yeah, Jamin.

Oh, good.

See, online, folks, you win today.

You get the yellow words.

Excellent.

Thanks, Christy.

It's yellow online.

All right, well, sorry, everyone in here.

You just have to figure it out for yourself.

So, all right, so this is Jesus talking again.

Here we go.

We're going to keep going.

The world cannot accept him talking about the Spirit because

it neither sees him nor knows him.

But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

I will not leave you as orphans.

I will come to you.

So, like, Jesus again is getting ready to leave, and he says

this thing to his people.

He's like, but, guys, I'm not leaving you alone.

What?

What does that mean?

I'm leaving, but I'm not leaving.

Okay, so we're keep going.

He's going to live in you.

Okay?

All right.

Before the long, the world will not see me anymore.

Again, he's leaving.

But you will see me because I live.

You also will live.

On that day.

You will realize that I'm in the Father, in my Father, and you

are in me, and I am in you.

What does that mean?

Okay, keep going, Jamin.

Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me.

The one who loves me will be loved by my Father.

And I too will love them and show myself to them.

Keep going.

Peace I leave with you.

My peace I give you.

I do not give to you as the world gives.

Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

And then he says this again a few chapters later.

So this verse is after he comes back and right before he leaves,

he says, peace be with you.

As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.

And with that, he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit.

There is something to this Spirit of God in us, moving in us,

living in us, knowing us, teaching us.

That's really, really important for Jesus, that his disciples

understand and learn to walk in.

There's this, like, experiential knowledge that they

have to learn to do the things that he's asking them to do.

He and one of the other gospels, kind of we see him say to

his disciples, do not leave Jerusalem.

He says, you're going to go out and you're going to do all this

stuff, but.

But don't leave before you receive the Holy Spirit.

Is how it shows up in one of the other, other Gospels.

There's something to this life in the Spirit that's so important

for us because this walking with Jesus thing is kind of hard.

This walking this life, this kind of.

How do we love people when they don't love us?

How do we show grace when we want to be hostile?

How do we keep choosing Jesus when it might feel like there's not

much in it for us in a moment?

That's hard.

And he says, you're going to need the Holy Spirit to do that.

And there's something about that that brings a different kind

of peace.

So I'm going to pause there for a minute.

What is.

What does that stir in you?

What is that?

Yeah, what does that stir in you?

What does that evoke?

What does it make you think?

He wants us to be peaceful.

Okay, so you said he wants us to be peaceful and then experience

peace.

Okay.

How would you differentiate the two?

Okay, so join us.

Talking about kind of the difference between being peaceful

and experiencing peace and kind of just that saying that, that's

kind of hard to articulate.

But there's something about, like, experiencing that peace rather

than like, just like, making yourself calm down.

Yeah, yeah.

What else is it stirring?

Yeah.

P.T.

thank you.

So.

So P.T.

just says it's.

It's a powerful thing to realize, like, the Spirit of God

was present at Creation.

Like it wasn't.

He didn't come later.

Like it was.

He was there.

He's been there all along.

So Rhonda shares about how.

How most of us wish maybe that we have this experience similar where

we've been breathed upon and where we.

Because maybe we all would like to experience the Spirit more

and there's something kind of tangible in.

In the scripture that the disciples.

Yeah.

That they experienced.

Yeah, Mikey.

Yeah.

So Mikey sees it as a call to action, like he's receiving peace.

But then, like, he.

Now you need to go out and like, be peace to other people.

So Dina talks about how to engage an angry person and when.

When we come across an angry person, kind of a.

Kind of praying for that person and kind of taking that approach

to interacting with them.

Yeah.

Online.

Jamin Mike, can you relay a summary for me?

Thank you.

I could.

Thanks for helping the hearing.

Yeah.

So.

So online we have this idea that, like, as she keeps growing,

like, being able to engage with people in a different way because

real.

They're a child of God too.

And so I'm not going to relay that part.

Yeah.

Lucy.

Yeah.

So Lucy shares kind of about this idea that the Holy Spirit has

always been present.

And we see it a lot in scripture.

And if it's repeated a lot, generally that means it's important

if we see it over and over again.

But somehow when Jesus was here, he had to.

He had to emphasize in a different way what was going on so

people could really grasp it.

Even though he's always been.

The Spirit has always been present.

That's actually a good kind of point to transition on.

So there's this whole idea of how do you recognize the Holy Spirit?

Right.

I said, like, it is kind of mysterious, but there are some things

about the Holy Spirit that we can recognize and be like, oh, yeah,

that's the Holy Spirit.

There's a verse in First John actually, that says.

It says, test the spirits.

So it's kind of this idea that not every voice in my head is the

Holy Spirit.

I can love Jesus and I can follow Jesus, but it doesn't mean

that every voice in my head is Jesus.

So I have to kind of learn to separate and figure out, like, when

is it the Holy Spirit and when is it me?

When is it maybe my insecurity that's speaking, when is it my anger

or my emotion that's speaking?

So there's kind of this, how do I learn to discern the spirit

element?

And so there's a couple of different.

There's a Couple of different things that I would just throw out

there.

The first one is like, is.

And these are all, these are all in various places in scripture.

But the first is, does that voice, does it, does it confess Christ?

That's a phrase that gets you use.

So it's.

Is it recognizing who Jesus is?

Basically like that, that Jesus is the son of God?

Like that, that Jesus is it, Is it in alignment with that?

Right.

So if I have my husband, but I say, well, that's not my husband,

I'm not.

That's not really honoring our marriage, right?

So if the Holy Spirit is part of the Trinity, part of God, right.

The Holy Spirit is acknowledging who Jesus is and pointing

things towards Jesus.

That's kind of that idea.

Secondly is like, does it align with the heart of God in scripture?

We talk a lot about that in here.

Is like, what is the heart of God that we see in.

In scripture?

So, like, is whatever that voice in my head saying, is it.

Is it in alignment with that?

Is it consistent?

So is it something that, like, seems way out of left field and totally

different that I've.

Than I've ever heard before?

Okay, well, that might be the Holy Spirit, but is it consistent

with itself?

Is it leading me in a trajectory that's pointing me consistently

towards Jesus?

Does it bring life?

And that one, I feel like is really important.

That one relates directly back to creation.

Is that spirit speaking something that's like life giving

and trying to weed out some of the things that are maybe clouding

up my thoughts or my emotions?

Or is it actually like planting thorns in there?

Because the thorn planting isn't from Jesus.

The thorn planting is not the Holy Spirit.

So it's like, is it, Is it kind of trying to draw that stuff

out and breathe new life into my spirit?

And is it loving, like, really simply?

We see so much in scripture.

There's, you know, Jesus is talking about obeying his commands,

and it has to do with loving each other.

That's what John 15 is all about, is being connected to God

and remaining in his love.

And so is it loving?

So all of these things are like little, almost like a litmus

test.

You guys know what a litmus test is?

Joey knows what a litmus test is.

And you have a, you have a piece of litmus paper and you're

like, is it, is it an acid or is it a base?

And you stick it in a solution and it turns one color for an acid

and one color if it's a base, if it's basic, right?

But it's this idea that, like, I can test it and I can see a result

and be like, oh, yeah, nope, I'm looking for an acid, but, nope,

it's a base.

Right.

So is it the Holy Spirit?

Is it loving?

Nope.

Well, it's probably not the Holy Spirit.

It's probably not the movement of God.

So all of this, like, kind of gets to this idea of, like, so what?

Like, why does any of this matter?

Like, why.

Why was this so important to Jesus?

Why did he have to bring it out again for people?

So I'm going to ask you that question.

Why do you think.

Why do you think there's this emphasis on the spirit of God in

scripture from Jesus?

Why?

Why spend several weeks talking about the spirit?

Why.

Why are we doing that?

Say it again, Jim.

To keep us in line.

I thought you said to keep us alive.

Oh, so to keep us in line.

To keep us alive.

To keep us aligned.

Okay.

Okay.

A little bit.

Everything.

I think I need all three someday.

It's hard to believe it's there.

Why is that, Patty?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So sometimes we can convince ourselves it's not there because

we're not good enough to experience it.

Jamin speak really loud, man.

Christy says, because he desires to have a relationship with

all of us, and this is how he gets through to us.

Yeah.

Okay.

So Lucy said, well, it's part of God.

So it's kind of an element of understanding a piece of God and

who he is.

Yes.

Yeah.

So Nick just laid out a lot there.

So that's awesome.

So the.

So the whole it.

It used to be kind of seen as, like, the Holy Spirit is in one place.

So you have, like, the idea of the tabernacle or the temple, and

you have to go to this place to experience the temple of God.

And what Jesus helped the disciples understand is, like, the

Spirit is in you, that you are the temple of the Holy Spirit.

First Corinthians talks about that.

Paul writes about that in First Corinthians, that our bodies

are the temple of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit lives

in you.

That's like, a revolutionary thing that, like, changes it from,

like, I have to go to church to experience God.

We.

We don't actually have to go to church to experience God, but

because we can experience God forever because he's with us, because

he's in us.

Because when we're seeking him, like, he meets us.

But there's something about coming together as people who are

seeking that to together, that where I think there's benefit and

value and goodness in being together as the people of God, seeking

God.

But we don't have to be here, because if we had to be here, that

would mean that when we walk out those doors, the Spirit stays

here, but he doesn't.

He goes with us wherever we're at, inviting us to be in this work

that he's a part of, to be these people of peace, to show love,

to be companions in this world, to fight for justice in a

world that doesn't want to hear it.

He's with us, calling us to be people who create life as we go.

Some days it's really hard, and some days it's really discouraging.

And I just want to kind of give voice to that.

Yeah, it's.

Some days it's just really hard.

And sometimes it can feel like we're taking two steps forward or

one step forward and two steps back or two steps forward and four

steps back.

Whichever math equation you would like to use this morning.

Yeah.

Okay, go ahead.

Yeah.

So Ron talks about the advocate, that whole idea of sometimes

we need somebody to stand and advocate for us and help us to understand.

I said yesterday to somebody that sometimes we extend grace to

other people, but it's not for other people.

It's actually for us.

Sometimes if we feel like we've been wronged, that, like, tendency

to want to, like, lash out, sometimes that erupts and that doesn't

change, like, whether or not we have been wronged.

Like, that's a different question.

But that grace I can extend to that person and how I think about

them actually is more about my own heart and about how I want to

posture myself.

And I can acknowledge a wrong while still also choosing grace.

But, man, I need the Holy Spirit's help to do that because

I tend to not want to do it.

Yeah.

Paul.

So Paul just says he just had that experience where he had to extend

some grace to somebody he got a message from he wasn't expecting.

Expecting.

Yeah.

Ralph.

So Ralph shares about the idea of pneuma and spirit and wind, it's

the same word.

And that kind of.

That wind as it moves, it's just a reminder of that.

Of that rejuvenation.

Yeah, there's some.

There's some.

There's three things that I.

That I was thinking about this week was I was reading through Romans

8 and this whole idea of the spirit and the.

The first one is about attitude.

So this kind of, like, ties into exactly what we're talking about.

Jamin, you want to go to the next slide?

For me, when I'm Selfish.

When Emily is living in selfishness, thinking about selfish

things, I'm not basing my life on the Spirit, and I'm not thinking

about things related to the Spirit.

I'm thinking about myself.

I'm thinking about my pain, which is valid.

Like, it's valid, but it also means I'm focusing in a different

place.

Go to the next one, Jamin, please.

That attitude, my.

My bad attitude comes from selfishness, and that leads ultimately

to death.

But when I'm focusing on the Spirit, that's the life that leads

to life and peace.

Like, when I'm stuck in that place of, like, anger, frustration,

or bitterness, or, like, dude, you wronged me.

Like, and sometimes.

And I need to acknowledge that.

So I want to be careful here because the acknowledgment is important

for me.

Like, I need to be able to say that was not right.

Like, I was wronged.

And then I also needed to be say, man, Jesus, help me keep my

eyes on you.

Because that's not where they want to settle right now.

So there's this promise of, or this acknowledgment of, like, life

in the Spirit affects our attitude.

The second one is that it brings life.

Right?

I keep coming back to this because I think it's really important

that the Spirit of God is at work all around us, creating life,

restoring life.

And that doesn't mean that everything that happens is good.

And that doesn't mean that everything that happens in this world

is God ordained or that he planned like, that he did it all,

or he's creating it to teach us a lesson.

I actually really firmly believe that our God is a God of

redemption.

And.

And so there are things that happen that he doesn't like that

make him sad, that grieve his heart.

But then his Spirit that's constantly at work all around us

has the ability to create new life from those death, those places

of death and hurt and bitterness and pain.

And that's kind of.

This last one is this, like, this promise that, like, the Spirit

is always going to be with us, that he comes to help.

This is the idea of the advocate again, that he works things

together in a way that brings this redemption and this new life.

So my question for us this morning, and we're going to kind

of.

We're going to close with this.

In your life, where do you see the Spirit hovering?

Where is the Spirit brooding over the waters?

In your life, where do you need the Spirit to create some new

life in you?

Jay, you can go to that last slide.

Thanks.

Where do you feel that nudge?

That's like, just let me get in there and weed some things out.

Maybe that's in a relationship.

Maybe it's a damaged relationship, kind of like Paul was

talking about.

Maybe it's in an attitude or a mindset of how I view somebody.

Where is the spirit whispering and breathing and saying, just let

me breathe on that.

And you, when you can't.

I'm not asking you to respond, actually, to that one.

Well, I am, but not out loud.

Did you want to say something, Patty?

Go ahead, say that one more time.

Through the hard times, you feel the spirit the most.

Is that right?

Yeah.

When you guys came in this morning, people online, you can also

do this at home, but when you came in this morning, you tore off

a piece of construction paper.

Yeah.

Oh, look.

Look at all your pieces of paper.

If you didn't get a chance to grab one, there's some in the back,

but Adam and Joe are going to kind of come back up.

But here's my invitation for you.

This morning.

We, like, God is a creative God.

The Holy Spirit is creating.

He's at work.

So wherever you need the Holy Spirit to breathe new life on, wherever

you need, like, him to touch and just be like, can you bring some

new life here?

I'm just going to invite you that, like, that's what that paper

in front of you, that's what it represents.

And I'm going to invite you if you want.

You don't have to, but if you would like to.

To bring it up, and there's some glue sticks and there's some

glue bottles up here, and I would invite you to glue it, actually,

to this board.

And thanks, Joe.

And so as you come and place it on the board, just have that in

mind that this is a chance to just give it to the Lord and be like,

man, Jesus, I just.

I need you to breathe some life into this place, into this space.

And the thing about, like, church, right, is we're all kind

of walking these individual journeys, but then we're on this

collective journey together, too.

So that's kind of what this is representing, is that, like, we're

coming and we all need.

We all need the Spirit in different ways, but then we need

them together to keep moving in us as a body and just keep seeing

and saying, where are you sending us?

How are we to be peacemakers?

How are we to be life breathers this week in all of these

different places that we go?

So let me pray for us, and then I invite you if you would like

to come do this and then we'll close with a song in a minute.

Jesus, I thank you that you keep teaching us and there's always

more and more that we can learn about who you are and how your

spirit moves.

And I thank you that you want to walk with us and be near and that

you want to breathe peace and life into our spirits.

Lord, I pray that you would help us to see and let you into those

places when we're ready, as we're ready.

But Lord, I thank you that you invite us to do that.

God, I just pray that over our church that Heaven Earth Lord would

just be full of your spirit, that we would see where you're leading

us and not be well, even if we are afraid to take steps following

you and in alignment with you.

Lord, But I pray that you would help us to move toward life

as a body and as individuals.

God, would you just breathe on us today?

Thank you for participating in the conversation happening at Heaven

Earth Church.

Your next opportunity to do so live is this Sunday morning, 9:30am

Eastern Time, either at the main campus at 309 East Main in Whiteland,

Indiana or online at YouTube Live.

That'[email protected] heavenearth church.

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You can always find out more by going to the church website heavenearthchurch.org

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.