Pastor Tim Dunn "Stirred" part 3 (8-20-23)

Welcome to Life. Several years ago. This podcast was created to celebrate what

God is doing. What's our vision is to reach the hungry watching. God

has given us our head. Join us today as we listen to the word

and we pray that God speaks to you in this message. There was two

eggs. They hatched within a couple of weeks of each other. But the

time came within the first few months of those eaglets being born that they were

old enough and strong enough that the mother didn't want them staying in the nest.

Any mama's and daddy's say amen to that, Uh yeah, say I

love you, but goodbye. No, they were old enough and strong enough

that the mama did and let them stay in the nest. Why why wouldn't

this mama let these eaglets stay in the nest because she knew that they if

they stayed in the nest, they would never learn to fly. So she

begins this process called stirring the nest. And you know what that process is

about. It's about making those baby ecomfortable in the nest. That's great.

I love that on so many levels. The mama looks at those babies,

and those babies love all the feathers that make of a nice soft cushion in

their nest. And not only does do they have this nice soft cushion,

but they also Mama brings breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And they don't

have to work, and they don't have to search, and they don't have

to find it. They don't have to hunt, they don't have to chase

mice. Mama brings it to them. Amen. And that's a good setup,

right amen. And but the mama understands that in order for there to

be the maturation process that needs to happen, those babies have got to get

out of the nest. And so she stirs the nest by every once in

a while coming in and pulling out some of those feathers, and she starts

removing the stuff that makes those babies so comfortable. And her hope is that

as she removes the stuff that makes them comfortable, that they're fed up and

say, Okay, it's time to learn to fly. God is stirring the

church, not just Life City church, the church, the global church.

And I think that that is what he has been doing for us during this

series here locally, at least he has within me, but our tendency,

however, is so many times is to pray that God will change our circumstances.

Instead, God says no to that prayer. He wants to change you.

And so there are times where He wants to mature you and I.

He wants to change you and I. So instead of changing our circumstances to

make us comfortable, he begins to remove the comfort levels of our nest so

that we'll move and begin to walk in faith and walk by faith. Amen.

And So what happens is God uses the very circumstances that you want changed

to change you, and you, because of that change, become a better

Christian. You learn to walk a little stronger, a little at a little

better in Him. And so what we've been doing here at Life City Church

is we've been asking for the Holy Spirit to stir us. And I believe

that what the Spirit is beginning to do is remove some of the comfortable patting

that we have grown accustomed to. Amen, Because this is the deal when

it comes to God, be careful what you ask for. Anybody ever prayed

God, I want and know you in a brand new way. Yeah,

okay, buckle up. It's kind of what he does. Amen. Why

Because God doesn't just hit us with a lightning bolt of knowledge. He walks

us through process of learning more about Him. Amen. And sometimes see we

want the microwave version of the knowledge of God and the experience of God.

God just pata, you know, just hit us with a lightning bolt and

we wake up and whooo, we got superpowers? You know, this is

the Saint, the Saint? What's all the DC? What? What's the

other one? Marvel? Yeah, it's not this, That's not what happens

here. You don't wake up bitten by a spider and all of a sudden

be able to climb up walls and ceilings. Okay. God walks us through

processes to strengthen us. And some of those processes are storms. Anybody say

amen to that. Some of those processes are trials. Some of those processes

are battles. Amen. What makes you stronger is that He walks you through

the battle, but you still have to go through the battle. Now,

you don't have to go it alone. And you're not in the storm alone,

and you're not in the trial alone, and you're not in the fiery

furnace alone. But there's times where you still have to go through those things.

Why, so that your faith gets grounded and who God is in your

life. Amen. Because this is not about you and I being comfortable.

This is about you and I being the church and walking in the church to

be light in the darkness. Amen. Amen. This isn't about these comfortable

chairs, but so many times we make it about comfortable chairs and the measuring

stick of our Christianity as our church attendance, instead of what God is doing

through us when we walk out there. I mean, that's the true measuring

stick, you know why. Because I can come in here and I can

put on a smile, I can put on some nice clothes, and I

can jump, dance, shout out, shout, shout out all about and

all do all the things. Uh, and and make you think I'm spiritual

while living like the devil out there. Amen. So it's not just about

what happens here. It's not. And we don't forsake the gathering of ourselves.

We understand, and that's biblical. We do that. That's necessary.

This is strength. This we gain strength. We come together and and we're

two or three are gathered in his name. He'll he says, He'll be

there in the midst. Amen. Amen. But but this isn't This isn't

the measuring stick. You're attendance percentage at the end of two and twenty three

is not the measuring stick of your spirituality. It's what you've allowed the Holy

Ghost to stir you, to move you in. It's it's it's the people

you've reached, the people you've you've spread the gospel to. That's the measuring

stick. Amen, because that's why the church will start it in the first

place. Amen. Amen. And so the Spirit is desiring to reach into

your life and in my life, and what it does to stir us to

move us, to get us off of my dad, you say, sitting

there like a bump on a log when I wasn't doing nothing. And and

so the spirit wants to get you off of your log because it's it becomes

easy just to rest and just sit and chill. Amen. But the Spirit

says, no, I've got something I need you to do. I've got

someone that I need you to reach. I've got someone that I've positioned in

your life for a time such as this, and I need you to begin

to speak to them. I need you to have your relationship with me in

such a place where I can speak to you in a still small voice and

you hear me enough to where you can then go and the people I've placed

strategically in your life. Nothing happens by coincidence. Amen. Amen. Everything

has a purpose, an eternal purpose, not just an earthly purpose. And

what God is desiring to do is to speak to you, get you to

listen, and then move in you, maybe even if it takes making you

uncomfortable to get you to do what He's called you to do. Amen.

We read the scripture of reach for the prize of the High Calling, whoooo

high Calling, but we never get off our seat and move into action for

the high calling. Amen. And that's what the spirit has to stir us.

Our nest needs to be stirred, Amen, because you'll long as you

stay in the comfort level of the nest or your seat, you'll never reach

your full potential or walk in the promises that God has for you, because

they don't exist in the confines of your comfortable level comfort level. Amen.

Amen. This church is a testimony of that. Amen. Just asked my

wife. That's why she said Amen louder than anybody else, because when I

told her what God told me, she told me I was crazy. Amen.

She did. She looked at me like, you have lost your mind.

We're not moving to a town that we know zero people and starting a

church from nothing with me and you and our two little babies. And I

said, yeah, but you might want to take that up with the big

man because he kind of said it to me. So I'm just the messenger.

Don't shoot the messenger. And she took it up with him, and

he told her the same thing. He told me, Am, I glad,

Amen, But that we were You know, we come into a city,

a town, starting a church where you know nobody. That's crazy,

right with you and your wife and two little kids that could barely you know,

push chairs into place when they were just starting out. Amen. But

when you start asking the Holy Ghost to stir you, be ready for what

gets removed out of your life, to move you into action for what life.

Amen, Because you can't have one and the other. You can't be

comfortable and walk in his perfect will. It kind of doesn't go hand in

hand. You know. The three boys, we love it. Whoo they

stood up in the face of a pagan king. Yeah, they also had

to walk into a fiery furnace Daniel, pray like Daniel. Yeah, he

got thrown into a lion's den, yeah, David, Yeah, stand against

the giant. Yeah. He also ran for his life for thirteen years.

You catch the kind of the how it goes, Amen. Amen. And

so if you want the things of God, if you want the holy things

of God, you've got to allow the Holy Spirit to stir you and move

you into action. Why, because it's the Holy Ghost that creates holy things

in our life. You want the activation of the gifts of the Spirit,

you've got to be stirred by the spirits. You want the fruit of the

Spirit to be produced in your life, You've got to be stirred by the

spirit. Amen. That's just how it works. Don't shoot the messenger.

So when the mother eagle begins to push her little eaglets out of the nest,

it doesn't seem very nice, does it. Somebody, I'm sure in

this day and age, is offended by this process. It's kind of how

it is, Amen, even though it's been happening since that offendable person was

born. Just kind of the way it is, it doesn't seem very nice.

It's not very safe, you know. I remember in the seventies,

my mom and dad bought us a gift. It's called lawn darts. It's

great, it's great fun. It's these giant things that have real sharp points.

You throw them up and try to hit certain things and hit your brother.

But now they have these dumb rubber things on the end, so nobody

gets hurt. How dumb is that? I I mean, we didn't have

car seats. We slept up in the dash doing eighty down a highway and

Dad's asleep. No, I'm just playing. Yeah kind of was in my

story. Amen, So anyways, I digress. Yeah, somebody's phone is

going on Amber alert or something. Senior citizen went missing. When so when

the mother eagle pushes the eaglet out of the nest, it doesn't seem very

nice or very safe. And and and what happens is those as as this

process happens, those eaglets look real uncomfortable. They look like anybody ever done

even bird hunting? Have you ever done even bird hunting? And you know,

and this is gonna offend so many people, But I'm on a roll,

so we might as well just go with it. When you're bird hunting

and a dove flies up or a quail or a duck or whatever, a

pheasant, whatever you're hunting, and you you shoot that thing and it hits

it, and that thing is just kind of tumbling through the air, and

you're like yeah, And all the people that get offend, they're like,

oh, but when that happens, But that's when when when those when that

mama releases those babies in mid air, that's kind of what it looks like.

They're just tumbling, they're falling. And this is the deal. God's

not pushing you out of your comfort level for a desire of perfection. You

don't have to be perfect. Amen. Amen. What he's doing is he's

stirring you out of your comfort levels. So you'll learn to walk by faith.

It doesn't take a whole lot of faith to stay in the nest.

It doesn't take mountain moving faith to just sit in your comfort zone. Amen.

But when you get out there and you begin to sore, and you

begin there is faith that is required. And so the church has not been

called to be church dwellers, church house dwellers. Amen. Amen. And

so when we begin to grow comfortable with merely coming to a place of worship

instead of living a life as a worshiper, we stop being the church.

Amen. We are not just to come to a place of worship. We

are to be a worshiper. For the Father seeks such to worship him,

and they that worship him must worship him in spirits. And that's what we've

got to be. That's what the church is called to be and called to

do. Man. And so Moses wrote that this bring up thirty two eleven

Deuteronomy thirty two eleven. Moses writes that hovers over it's young. And when

when that mother eagle begins to hover over her young, it means she's refusing

to feed them any longer. But what she does is she settles down in

the nest and she spreads her wings out over them to protect them. Amen.

And at first this probably seems cruel and unfair because she's not feeding them

anymore. But this mother eagle knows that her young eagles need to mature in

order to survive. In order for you to walk in the perfect will of

God, there has to be there has to develop a hunger and thirst for

His righteousness. Amen. You've got to be hungry for the things of God

if you want to truly walk in His perfect will. There is a calling.

I don't know all of you, and I don't have to to say

this. There is a calling on your life. You have breath in your

body because your God, your creator, has something for you that is specific

to you, that is going to reach people that nobody else in this building

can reach but you. And that's why God has moved in your life.

That's why he's moving right now. And so she goes about to create this

hunger within them so that they'll leave the nest and they'll go out and hunt

for themselves. And Moses describes the mother eagle as carrying her young on her

wings. And so what she does is she'll get them on her wings and

she mounts those young eaglets on her wings. She leaves the nest and hundreds

even thousands of feet into the air, and she gets up to this height

of soaring, and she gets up to a certain altitude, she'll begin to

flap her wings, almost like pulling the rug. I never could do that.

Have you ever seen somebody do that? You got stuff on the table

and they reach up and put them grab it and stuff doesn't move. Yeah,

I break everything. Everything comes with it. I don't know, I

don't know the trick. But she begins to flap her wings, and as

she flaps her wings, those baby eagles begin to fall and they go into

this free fall. And as that eaglet begins to tumble downward, it'll start

flapping its wings in order, and it's trying to learn to fly. And

just when it looks like this baby eagle is gonna hit the ground, the

mother does something. If you've never seen it, it's truly incredible. She

goes into a swoop dive. And they say, these eagles, because these

are some big birds. They say, those eagles can reach crazy speeds when

they go into this swoop dive, and she becomes like a missile just and

she gets to where that eagle is, that babel, and and she swoops

underneath it, opening its wings and allowing it to land back on her back.

And it this image hit me. There are times in your life when

you took a step of faith that you felt like the rug had been pulled

out from under you, and you felt like you were in a free fall

and everything in it was it was you were just gonna burn and crash.

A remember, I want to tell you something. The hand of God is

always there a man. And when you begin to step out in faith and

begin to do something for the Lord, he will never leave you alone.

He'll never leave you to fall. And there may be some trip ups,

there may be some chaos, and there it may seem like all you're doing

is flailing about in the wind as you fall to your death. But there's

gonna be a moment where the hand of the Lord reaches under and he holds

you, and he grabs you. And that's what this mother eagle does.

Just before they hit the earth. She swoops down and catches her young and

she begins to climb back up into the sky again. This painful process is

repeated until the eagle it learns to fly. And just as the mother eagle

allows her young to struggle, in order to increase our faith and trust,

God has to stir us from our comfort zones and are places of familiarity,

because as long as we remain in the nest of our comfort, come complacent

and indifferent, and we stay stagnant spiritually. Amen. So God, in

his infinite wisdom, brings change into our life. How many love change?

Yep, that's what I thought. Why because we're creatures of habit. We

do the same thing every single day, and we grow comfortable in it,

even if we complain about it. I ain't lying, am I. You're

laughing be You're like, oh wow, yeah, I kind of do.

I can't believe I have to do this again. But you let somebody change

it. My routine is all messed up. Amen. We're creatures of habit.

And so what God does, in his infinite wisdom and his desire to

mature you, Amen, he brings change into your life, and he begins

to remove some of the comforts so that we have to rely on him more

than anything else. Amen. This is our spiritual maturation process. James in

James Chapter one, verse two through fourth, he makes a crazy statement.

He says, consider it all joy. Everyone, say joy, my brethren,

when you encounter various trials. What how many of you face the trial

and you thought joy, joy Joy? No, James said, consider it

all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the

testing of your faith makes you strong, and let endurance have its perfect results,

so that you may be perfect and complete in Jesus Christ, lacking in

nothing. How many of you know he's everything. How many of you truly

believe that He's everything to you? Amen? You don't need to look for

anything else in this world. There's nothing this world can offer you that Jesus

doesn't trump heat what you need in your life. Amen, hallelujah. Amen.

So the effort by God is not to just simply make you uncomfortable.

He doesn't. He's not that kid with the magnifying glass burning the ants.

Okay, that's not what he is. I've been that kid. Amen.

He's not that I know I'm telling too much. A night, Cheryl.

Amen, he's not that kid. He's not out there just trying to make

you uncomfortable for giggles. Amen, Like watch is watch him squirm. No,

there's a process, there's a goal, there's a purpose to everything.

His hope is that you and I become and receptive to the move and the

voice of the Holy Ghost. That's what it's all about. Because in my

experience, in my experience with God, as the heavens are higher than the

earth, so are his ways higher than my ways, So are his thoughts

greater than my thoughts. Hand, that's what I can't see what he sees.

I don't know what he knows, and so I have to trust him,

even in the stirring, even when it gets difficult, even when it

gets uncomfortable, I have to trust him. I walk by faith because I

know God sees the end from the beginning a man. I know that God

has a plan for your life. He has a vision for your life.

He has something that he wants to do in you. And so I choose

to trust him in the stirring, I choose to be stirred by the spirit.

It's football season. We're getting close to football season, right, I

mean football fans. Okay, So you know what guys are doing. They're

coming to camp and they're out of shape. They've been eating hamburgers all off

season, and they walk onto the field that first day of camp and they're

like fifteen pounds overweight, and the coach looks at them like, hey,

butterball, Yeah, you're not even close to being ready to play that you

need to play. And so you know what the coaches do, because the

coaches they start getting these guys in shape because they have a plan. They

have a vision of what it's gonna take to get this team to win on

the field, and so they start making these guys work, They make them

uncomfortable. They sweat until they feel like they're gonna die. Amen. And

these guys willingly go out there twice a day at the hottest part of the

year and sweat their guts out. Why because of a plan that a coach

has. Yeah, God has a plan for your life. He sees things,

he knows things. He's got a purpose. And the vision for the

church has always been to be empowered by the Holy Spirit. Amen. I

mean we're told that in the Book of Acts, chapter one, verse four.

Bring this up real quick. And being assembled together with them, commanded

talking about Jesus commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait

for the promise of the Father, which saith he you have heard of me

Verse five. For John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized

with the Holy Ghost not many days, hints verse six. When they there

or were come together, and they asked of him, saying, Lord,

wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? And he said,

unto them, it is not for you to know the times or the

season which the Father hath put in his own power. This is where trust

comes in. See because sometimes God keeps secrets a man because he knows what's

best for you. He knows what he wants to do. And in verse

eight it says, but you shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has

come upon you, and you shall Jusalem and in Judea and Samaria until the

uttermost part of the earth. What Jesus was telling them is you're asking the

wrong questions. He says, I'm not going to give you the exact time

or season of my return. What I am going to do is empower you

with my spirit in order to carry out the calling and the vision and the

purpose I have for you. The Holy Ghost produces holy things in our life.

And so just as you chose to get up this morning and come to

church, my hope, as my wife and the worship team comes, my

hope is that you would allow the Holy Ghost to move and speak into your

life this morning. That's my hope, that's my desire for you today,

is that you would allow the Spirit of the Lord to begin to move and

speak in your life. I want to take you to an Old Testament.

Verse Second Chronicles, chapter five, starting in verse eleven, says when the

priest came forth from the Holy Place. Everyone say, Holy place. You

know what that is. That's the presence of the Lord. When the priest

came fourth from the Holy Place. For all the priests who were present had

sanctified themselves without regard to divisions. I want you to see something here.

That's what has happened here today. Amen, that's what has happened here today.

We have been in His presence, and we have come, and we

have set, and we have worshiped, we have saying, we have clapped

our hands, we have heard the word of the Lord. We have come,

and we have sanctified ourselves in His presence. Maybe today you spent some

time repenting, maybe you called on God for something in your life. And

we did all this without regard to division, because we gather together without worrying

about where you came from and where I came from. Your background versus my

background. We put all that aside, wine, because that's not what it's

about. It's not about what your upbringing was versus this other one's upbringing was.

It's about what we do here today in His presence. And so this

fits in verse twelve, and all the the vitical singers a saff Hayman and

their sons and their kinsman clothed in fine linen, the best duds with symbols

harps leers standing east of the altar, and with them one hundred and twenty

priest blowing trumpets Verse thirteen in Unison, Everyone say unison. Now, if

we busted out in song right now, there's a part of singing. My

wife, I've lived with her long enough to understand that each song has different

things that you're trying to do to make it sound beautiful. Okay, some

of its unison, some of its harmony. I can't do either. Okay,

people can. That's why they're up here. And she don't let me

sing except at home. And then she turns the radio up loud Verse thirteen

in Unison. When the trumpeters listen, When the trumpeters and the singers were

to make themselves heard with one voice, everyone say one voice to praise and

to glorify the Lord. And when they lifted up their voice right there.

There's other verses in the Bible, but right there tells me we cannot remain

silent, Amen, we cannot remain silent. They lifted up with one voice

to praise and glorify God. And when they lifted up their voice accompanied by

trumpets and symbols and instruments of music, still He indeed is good, for

his loving kindness is everlasting. When they did that, then the house,

the house of the Lord, was filled with the cloud, so that the

priest could not stand to minister because of the cloud. For the glory of

the Lord filled the house. A man, I want you to stand with

me. I'm not interested in trying to manufacture anything today. I'm not interested

in trying to put on some reenactment of an Old Testament event. All I

want is for everyone in here that desires to to allow the Spirit to move

and stir your heart and your mind and your life today. And so we're

gonna end this service with worship. We're gonna end this service with the voice

of praise, and I hope you'll sing with us, and I hope you'll

worship us, not to fill the house, but so that you give an

avenue, because that's what worship does. Worship opens up an avenue in your

life for the Holy Ghost to begin to move. Amen. And they're gonna

lead us, and this altar is open for anybody that feels like they are

in the midst of the spirit stirring them, and they feel it's time to

step out from where they're at and come and make God make a declaration and

a covenant with the Lord that I'm ready to walk by faith. I'm ready

to walk after the spirit and not after the flesh. I'm ready to follow

you, Lord, wherever you lead. I'm just gonna choose to trust in

you. Amen. Amen. So, as they begin to sing, I

wonder if you would again, if you're comfortable lifting your hands. We believe

and lifting our hands here at Life City Church. If it's a farm of

worship, it's a form of praise. Not only our voice, not only

our heart, but our hands lifted in dependence of Him. Hallelujah. I

wonder if today, as we wrap up this series, if you would just

allow the voice of the Spirit, the power of the Spirit of God to

begin to move in your life as we begin to worship Him and soul.

Thank you so much for being with us today. We hope you were blessed

in some way by the message. To learn more about us, check out

www dot my Life City Church dot org, or you can contact us at

info at my life City Church dot org. Thank you once again for joining

us and we hope you have a great week.