Four Passages I Want To Shape Our Church - Luke 11:11-13 - Coleton Segars

Lots of new faces.

It's good to good to have some space here.

But thank you all for being here.

Over the last couple of weeks, we've been looking at different passages that we hope to shape the life of our church moving forward.

And so the first week we looked at Jesus saying, Come to me and I will give you rest.

And then we looked at the cry of Habakkuk and the Old Testament saying, Lord, I have heard of the cool stuff you did and all the famous things that made you glorious in the past, but I'm just not seeing those in my time.

And we'd love to see those things.

And so we were encouraging you and us or and me to cry out and to join that cry of, Lord, I have heard of the great things that you've done.

I just I want to see those things in my time.

And then last week we looked at uh just the early church and their community together and what they uh shared and really wanting that for ourselves as well, and wanting a rich community and not just a gathering of people, but an actual thing.

And so this week we I wanted to look at um Jesus' words uh about the Holy Spirit and talk about that as well.

So this is Luke 11, verses 11 through 13.

Luke 11:11–13

This is what Jesus says.

Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead?

Or if he asks for an egg, we'll give him a scorpion.

If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?

This is the word of the Lord.

Um talking about the Holy Spirit in different contexts, I've worked at different churches, I've worked at churches in New York City, I've worked at churches in Wisconsin, Chicago, and Georgia and Tennessee.

Uh talking about the Holy Spirit is um one of those things where in whatever context context that you're in, uh can can be a little bit of like dodging landmines as you walk through the conversation of the Holy Spirit.

Uh, because in my experience, when I talk about the Holy Spirit, what most people think of is is something like this video that I saw that I think is hysterical.

But when I when I talk about the Holy Spirit, lots of people think, oh man, you gotta play that audio.

I just thought this was so funny.

So when I talk about the Holy Spirit, I think sometimes what comes into people's minds is like, you know, just people falling out and that kind of thing, which I don't want to throw shade on that or anything like that.

That's not my experience with the Holy Spirit.

Um, but I do know that there's this space that exists, it's like, oh, we're gonna talk about the Holy Spirit today.

Someone's gonna speak in tongues.

Like, and they like start jumping into all these different things.

And I believe in the gifts of the Spirit.

I'm not a cessationist, I believe that all the things that were available then are available now.

Um, but I think in our culture, especially in 2023 and in our particular time, um, the Holy Spirit has become become weird to talk about, weird to experience, weird to uh ever preach on.

And so I don't hear a ton of preaching on it, and so you know I wanted to preach on it for us because I want our church to be shaped by um the Spirit of God.

I want that to be a truth for us.

I was meeting with Edgar, uh our missionary uh that we support from India, and he said that um the tragedy of like Holy Spirit excessivism in in different branches of Christianity has led to the other side of that, which is no one talks about the Holy Spirit at all in any way.

Because of the excessivism of it, it's like that's kind of weird.

And so let's just not say anything about it.

And he was like, it's such a tragedy because the Holy Spirit's not weird.

People are weird, um, but the Holy Spirit's super normal.

Like Jesus was Jesus was very normal to be around.

I mean, he did some crazy stuff, but like people love to be around Jesus, and it's the spirit of Jesus that we receive, and so the idea is we shouldn't be weirded out by the spirit of Jesus if we weren't weirded out by Jesus.

Um, we should actually be drawn to this thing.

And so people are weird, but the Holy Spirit isn't.

Um Paul says this about the Holy Spirit.

He says, the glorious riches of the gospel is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

And so to think that the Holy Spirit is weird when Paul says, hey, the the riches of what Jesus has done, what the riches of what the gospel has accomplished for us, is Christ in you.

The Holy Spirit is the riches of the gospel.

Um, it's the hope of glory.

And so I want us to like return to that vision of the Holy Spirit, of having it be this space where we look at the Holy Spirit and talk about the Holy Spirit in a very normal fashion versus saying, like, I'm gonna talk about the Holy Spirit and make sure I'm saying, like, are you gonna be slain in the Spirit?

You can be like, like, forget all of that.

Jesus just says to ask for the Spirit.

Like, just ask the Father for the Spirit.

And so if you come in with a background or a context, if you could just hold on to that, um, because I just want to spend some time explaining uh why I want this passage and why I want the Holy Spirit to shape the life of our church.

I think if you look at the scriptures, the enemy has always tried to get the people of God to miss God in their time.

And so if you read the Old Testament, they missed Yahweh because they just rejected him.

Okay, that's the Old Testament.

Then you get to the New Testament, and we're presented with Jesus, the Son of God, and they reject him and kill him in anger and self-righteousness.

And now we're in the church time, the Old Testament, the New Testament, and now we're in the church testament, the church time.

And I think the enemy has convinced us that the Holy Spirit's weird.

And so reject him, not out of anger or anything like that, reject him out of apathy and out of weirdness and just miss him.

And I think every time you see the people of God in the Old Testament or the New Testament, or for us, every time they miss who God is and who he's presenting themselves to be, every time they reject him for whatever reason, they miss out on what is actually available to them.

And so I don't want that for us.

I think if there's if God, if God among us was supposed to be this beautiful thing, God within us is supposed to be the hope of glory, this really, really beautiful thing.

And I don't want us to miss out on that because some people do weird things when they talk about the Holy Spirit.

Um, and so I with all of that intro, I want to just talk about three things very quickly of why I want the Holy Spirit ultimately to uh and why I want this passage to shape the life of our church.

The first one, the first reason why I want it to shape the life of our church is that we as people uh were meant to live by a power beyond ourselves.

We were just supposed to live with a power beyond ourselves.

Uh Teddy and I uh and my family went to the beach uh last summer and he brought his kite and it was awesome to bring his kite and it was like a it was like a fighter jet.

It was really cool.

And um the only issue was there was no wind on the day you took it to the beach.

And so I was like, man, you can still fly this kite.

Like you can still do it.

Um but here's what you'll have to do.

I was like, one, you'll have to run really fast.

You'll have to keep your arm up, like hold it like this and do like that.

Um don't go to the slide yet.

Sorry.

Sorry.

That's when it was working.

Um sorry, he jumped ahead.

Sorry, Colin, you're the best.

Um I was like, don't don't keep your arm up, don't slow down.

Keep watching the kite to make sure it doesn't hit the ground.

So keep your eye back here, making sure while you're running, but then also make sure you're checking in front of you so you don't run into random people or into the water or plunge into anything like that.

Uh, and then make sure that you don't slow down, make sure that uh you're making sure it you know it stays higher and all the rest of it.

Um but don't you know let the let the string out a little bit, but don't let it out too much.

Like all these rules, like if you want to fly the kite without wind, you can do it.

It's just gonna take a lot of energy.

And so we did it for like five minutes and then just threw it down.

I was like, kites are the worst, I quit, I don't want to do this ever again.

Like wanted to burn it on the beach or something like that.

And I was like, yeah, it's just harder without wind.

And then the next day, I'm like, hey, the wind's blowing, let's pull the kite out, and we can do the thing.

He's like, no, I've tried it, it doesn't work.

And I was like, no, the wind's blowing, just pull the kite out and we'll do it.

And like up it went, like immediately, the wind was blowing.

Now you can go to the slide, the slide here.

Uh and you can actually see that he's actually sitting down.

He's not even, he doesn't have to run, he doesn't have to hold the thing, he doesn't have to let loose the string.

It's doing that on its own because the wind is just naturally sucking that thing up into the space like that.

And he was like, Oh, I actually really love flying a kite.

It's so much easier this way.

And actually, what he said I thought was really interesting.

He said, now that the wind is blowing, I don't have to worry about any of that other stuff.

I don't have to run, I don't have to do that.

And I think in so many ways, like when I heard that, I was like, this is a perfect example of what it's like with people trying to live the Christian life without the Spirit of God.

Like, I was like, I gotta, I gotta do, I gotta be a good husband, I gotta be a good student, I gotta be a good employee, I gotta be this, and I gotta also gotta resist temptation, I gotta fight sin, I gotta do all these different things.

And it's like, yes, that is true that all those things exist, but the idea is that you're supposed to be doing those things from a power, not just your willpower doing that stuff.

And I feel like as Christians, we can start trying to do this stuff by ourselves in our own willpower and wind up in this space going, Christianity doesn't work.

It might work for them, but it doesn't work for me.

And the reason we get to this space of wanting to quit and toss it aside and all those different things is because we're trying to live out this thing in our own strength, and we were never supposed to do that.

We were supposed to live with power beyond ourselves.

Paul talks about it this way to the church in Philippi.

He says, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good pleasure.

And so his idea, Paul's idea is like you should something has happened differently for you.

You have entered into a space where Jesus has purchased something for you, and now you need to learn to live dependently on the Spirit of God that lives in you because it is Him who will eventually work through you in order to will and to act.

But you have to figure out how to do that.

You've lived so long trying to be dependent on yourself and do everything for yourself, and now something has happened and changed, and you need to learn to work out what's been purchased for you and your salvation.

Learn to live dependently on the Holy Spirit because it is Him who works in you to will and to act.

And it takes some work to learn to be dependent on somebody else.

And if we choose not to do that, if we choose to stay like, no, I'm gonna, I'm gonna figure this out on my own, then we're gonna run ourselves ragged trying to be good Christians and trying to love people and trying to forgive people and trying to do all this stuff on our own.

And it's like, man, you just weren't meant to live that way.

The whole point is that you've been gifted power beyond yourself so that you are enlivened and built up by something that's not from within.

I heard a story of a missionary who went to um, I don't know, some third world country, and uh at some point someone had brought a car, but didn't tell them that you're supposed to turn the car on.

And so what they were doing with the car was they were still carrying stuff in the car, but they were pushing it.

And they were using it like that, and they were just pushing it, and then they would attach like animals to it to pull it and do that kind of thing.

And the missionary got there and was like, it just cranks it up and was like, you guys know that y'all can just this thing runs with the source beyond itself.

Like, you don't have to push the car, you can just, it's got gas in it, you can just do that.

And they were like, no, we had no idea.

We didn't know what we could do that.

And it's like, man, there's something to that for us too.

It's like, y'all did y'all know that you can just crank this thing up and run with fuel beyond yourself.

You don't have to push the car, you can just turn it on.

And I think in so many ways, like the Holy Spirit is meant to be this person in our lives that does in us what we can't do for ourselves.

I love what Francis Chan says.

He says, the Holy Spirit was given to us to empower us to do the things that are impossible for us to do in our own strength.

It was given to us to empower us to do the impossible things for us that we just can't do in our own strength.

And so the idea for us is like you were never supposed to deal with your fears and your anxieties in your own strength.

Like you were supposed to have the Spirit of God in you helping you navigate those things and to help you actually bring peace.

The fruit of the Spirit is it's supposed to bring you peace that you cannot find on your own.

And so the idea is as you learn to depend on the Holy Spirit, peace wells up and grows in you that you just would never have been able to find on your own.

The idea is that you were never supposed to try and be obedient to Jesus and follow Jesus and resist temptation and put your sin to death.

You weren't supposed to do that on your own.

All of that stuff was supposed to be powered to you by the Spirit of God, by a person.

And we would know this if it was like there was this, if there was another person in your life that was helping you carry your luggage or move in a house.

Like you would realize it's so much easier when there's another person help pull the load or carry the weight.

And because the Holy Spirit is a spirit and not this visible thing that Jesus talks about, it's like a lot of people reject the spirit Jesus says because they don't see him.

And because that's the way that it is, we think that, like, oh, I need to do this on my own.

It's like you're not.

You are empowered with something within you that's supposed to help you, lead you to a space where you're ultimately living out all of these things that you're supposed to do, but not in a way that crushes you and drives you to despair and drives you to be tired and like, I just don't know.

It's like he wants to help you do things and do things in your life that you can't do on your own.

You weren't supposed to try and figure out life on your own.

You're supposed to have the Holy Spirit to help you.

Jesus says he is your helper, he is your advocate, he is the person that's there to help you.

You were never meant to battle temptation on your own.

You were never meant to lead your kids to Jesus on your own.

You were never meant to make your marriage healthy on your own.

You were never meant to do any of that stuff that you're supposed to do to in order to thrive in life.

None of it was something that's like, I gotta do this by myself.

I gotta just grind at it and figure it out.

Like I was never supposed to do that.

It was supposed to be this wonderful gift that Jesus goes, thank you for believing in me.

Now I'm gifting you power beyond yourself to do things in you.

That yes, form you into my image, but also allow you to take a rest and a break from the fact that you've been grinding and trying to do this by yourself the entire time.

You've lived life doing it by yourself, and now you have an advocate.

Now you have somebody.

And so the idea is that the Holy Spirit isn't supposed to be weird, it's supposed to be like, what a gift that we have this person.

And as we learn, as Paul says, to depend on the Holy Spirit, we ultimately experience him doing the work through us and not us like trying to conjure it up on our own.

Dallas Willard, I've read this quote before, uh, but I added a little bit to it uh from his book, The Great Omission.

But he says this, however, we may understand the details, however, we may understand the details, there can be no doubt that on the biblical picture of human life, that we were meant to be inhabited by God and to live by a power beyond ourselves.

Human problems cannot be solved by human means, and human life can never flourish unless it pulses with the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe.

We were meant to experience the reliable exercise of power that is beyond us for dealing with the problems and evils that afflict earthly existence.

The idea is that we are supposed to be an archetype of person.

There's a wasp.

We're supposed to be to live in such a way where like what we reveal to people is like, hey, there's an easier way, there's a more restful way, there's a way to even walk through difficulties and tragedies and all those different things in a hopeful way.

Because the idea isn't like, oh, now I have the Spirit of God in me, I'll never struggle ever again.

That's not what he's saying.

But it is true that you can walk through those things in a very different way than other people without the Spirit of God in them that has to walk through them.

And so for you and for us, like the idea is that you are meant to have this power.

The Holy Spirit is there, given to you, so that you can learn to depend on him to experience life through him.

And so you were meant to live with power beyond yourselves.

And so I want us, one, just to believe that about the Holy Spirit, not see the Holy Spirit is something we keep out there, but something was like, Jesus says you should ask.

Ask for the Holy, just ask the Father.

He is more willing to give you the Holy Spirit than you are to give gifts to your kids at Christmas time.

Like he is so willing.

And the reason he's so willing is because he's like, you need this.

I I died to purchase this for you.

You will not thrive or flourish.

You won't love me and what I've done for you.

You will never fully accept and praise me for the wonders of what I've created for you unless you realize that, like, oh, there's someone dwelling within with power beyond myself to actually stir me to do these things and to help me in spaces where I need help and I can't find it.

And so that's the first one.

You were meant to live with power beyond yourself.

The second, you were meant to hear God.

You were meant to actually commune with God where you're hearing him regularly.

And I recognize that people have done this terribly and done this incorrectly.

And people have been like, I heard God, and they told me to kill so and so.

I was like, Well, did you hear God?

Or like, are you just a crazy person?

Um, like I know that people have done that incorrectly, and it's led people to go like, I don't I don't want to say that God spoke to me because that might sound strange and that kind of thing.

And I know that people have done it incorrectly, but uh people have made food incorrectly and we still eat food, and people have done their marriages incorrectly and we're still married, people have raised their kids incorrectly a ton, and we still, you know, actually, the if they raise their kids incorrectly, it kind of leads us to be like, we should really correct how we raise our kids because they're doing it so badly.

Uh like, you know, there's just just because somebody does something incorrectly doesn't mean that we shouldn't do it at all.

And so I think for us, like we're supposed to hear from God, it's supposed to be our normal experience, it's supposed to be this space where we actually walk in that and hear from Him in a way that shapes and guides us and all those different things.

Um I have this video that I want to show in just a second, um, where when when Teddy was um you know zero to three, he really didn't talk.

Really, all he said was like, a gh?

Aga, aga.

He said it all the time.

Um, and uh it was this space where it was like uh we wanted him to talk and he just wouldn't.

But we were able to decipher what the agah's meant based on context and just getting to know him and stuff like that.

And so I wanted to show this is a video of him doing that.

One, that's just very cute.

Uh but two, like, I I knew what he was saying.

Like, I he was saying, me and mom are gonna read that book l again.

We're gonna read it again, but we're gonna read it tonight, and I need to put it on the pile.

He said, that you're gonna put it on the pile.

And I was like, Well, do you want me to do it or do you are you want to do it?

Gh, that was you.

You have to do it, you should put it on the pile.

And like, so there's this, there's this space in his life where it was like, I know you so well, and I've spent so much time with you that I'm able to decipher to other people who are in our lives.

And if you're a parent, you know that you can do this too.

When your kids are first talking, they say things, and because you've been with them so long, you can explain to the neighbors or the random people on the street, like, hey, what he said was thank you.

I know it sounded like something else, but this is what he actually meant.

This is what he said.

And what Paul says about the spirit of God is like that the spirit does the exact same thing.

And so in 1 Corinthians 2, uh, 10 through 12, it says, The Spirit, the Holy Spirit, searches all things, even the deep things of God, for who knows a person's thoughts except their own spirit within them, in the same way.

No one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

What we have received then is the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.

I recognize that it's not a perfect analogy because I'm I don't have the spirit of Teddy in me, but there's something there, the deciphering piece that Paul is trying to get at and go, we have something within us.

You're supposed to hear from God.

And the way it's supposed to come from is like he has given you his spirit to decipher for you the mind and thoughts of God, so that when you're wondering, which way should I go?

What should I do here?

And all these different things.

And like you're actually guided and directed by God Himself because you have God's Spirit living in you.

It is the Spirit from God that so that we may understand what God has freely given to us.

The Holy Spirit helps us understand his voice.

And this is what is supposed to be true for us.

You are meant to hear from God regularly.

Jesus says this consistently.

He says that my sheep, what is it?

John 10, 17, my sheep will hear my voice.

I know them and they follow me.

And so his identification of like who will be my sheep are those that can hear me.

His regular occurrence for people will be like, you will actually hear from God.

This will be your normal experience.

And the way that that will come about is ultimately through the Spirit of God in you, speaking those things to you, so that you're not just hearing yes from God's word, but also communing in this conversational relationship with Him.

Jesus says that uh in Matthew 4.4, he says, Um, you man does not live on bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

And the idea is that yes, you can find sustenance from bread, and we're gonna take some here in a second.

Um, you can find a little bit of that and life from that, but really the way that you'll fully thrive and fully flourish is God speaking to you in your life, and you cannot fully live unless God speaks to you.

And so this is supposed to be a regular thing for us that we encounter and that we engage in.

Jesus says, uh, and all these different things, the Holy Spirit will guide you into all truth.

The Holy Spirit will teach you truth and remind you of what is true, the Holy Spirit will help you to know the thoughts of God.

Jesus says that he will listen to you and counsel you.

He is your helper when you when you have needs, he's he helps you in your weakness, he comforts you.

All of these things is are what's true of the Holy Spirit.

And I think for some of us, like, we're desperate for a lot of this stuff.

Like, I need to be guided into truth in my life.

I need to be counseled and comforted in these spaces where I can't find counsel or comfort anywhere else.

And I know that we have counselors and therapists and all that.

I think that's great, but you have one that lives within that actually wants to do those things for you and to supply more than just outward, worldly, or um finite counsel, but like he wants to give you infinite words that actually bring life into you and things like that.

And so Jesus has given us the spirit so that these things ultimately happen.

I love this quote by um Bruce Larson in the preacher's commentary.

He says, In the Holy Spirit, in the Holy Spirit, we partake of God's friendship.

Through his spirit, God comes to be in us and with us, to talk to us, to listen to us, and we to him.

It is a sign of his friendship.

God gives his spirit to us if we ask, and then the conversation begins.

And so the idea is that it's supposed to be this conversational, rel a true relationship, not just this thing where it's like I came to faith and now I really just hear from a preacher or really like, no, like you have a one-on-one, this intimate relationship between you and the Father, you and the Lord, and it comes through the gift of this of this spirit that wants to dwell within and wants to speak to you and wants to do those things.

If you read the Gospels, the disciples are constantly asking Jesus questions, like just tons of questions.

Um, and some of them are really great questions, and some of them are really dumb.

Um, but what you see in Jesus is that he's asked a ton of questions and he doesn't answer all of them.

But anytime a disciple asks a question, he always answers that question.

Always, even if it's dumb, and they ask some really dumb questions, like who's the greatest?

Like he answers that question.

Um but the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the teachers of the law, they always ask him questions, and he's like, he says some riddle or parable or something, and he doesn't really answer the question.

Um but for the disciples, this was a very normal thing.

Like they believe, like if I ask Jesus a question, he's going to respond to me regardless of how dumb the question is or whether he thinks I need that information or not.

He always, I ask my teacher, and my teacher teaches me something from that.

So what happens is when Jesus dies, is buried, and then he resurrects, and then they're walking around with him, he's teaching on the kingdom of God, they're asking them questions again.

And they ask him a question in Acts 1, it's like, hey, it's now the time that you're gonna do the kingdom and all this stuff, and he answers that question, like, No, you it's not for us to know the time.

Don't worry about that just yet.

And then Jesus ascends into the heavens, right?

That's what happens.

Which is great, and that's really exciting.

But the the disciples are left there and they have this question because there are 11 disciples and they need one more, and they're supposed to have 12.

And so they don't have their person that they normally ask questions to.

You would normally go to Jesus and be like, Should we take this guy or this guy?

And Jesus would be like, You should take that guy.

But they don't have him anymore.

And so what they do, if you remember, they they actually roll dice and they cast lots, and the lots fall on Matthews or whoever, and that's that's who it who it is.

And so that's how they decide.

They just they pray, they throw some dice, and it lands on so and so, and it's like, you will be the disciple.

And he's like, Great, good stuff.

But then in the next chapter in Acts 2, the Holy Spirit descends.

And you know what they never ever do again?

They never ever roll dice to figure out who does anything.

Like because now what they have is this person again.

Now we can just ask the question.

Now we have this person that we can be in relationship with that we don't have to roll dice.

You know what's better than rolling dice to see what we should do?

Just asking someone what they should do.

And that's what they decide.

It's like this is their normative experience for them.

It's like I get to hear from God again.

I get to speak to Jesus again because his spirit now dwells within me.

And I think for us, we need to recapture that idea of like, we need to understand and have the expectation that when we ask, not just yes or no questions, should I, shouldn't I, that kind of thing, but like real in-depth questions to Jesus, that he will guide us and the Holy Spirit will guide us in truth because that's what he wants to do.

It's a promise.

He's not going to guide us into something else.

And I know that it takes time to learn people's voices and that kind of thing, and we can talk about that later.

But I think there's this space where you were meant to actually hear God in your life, constantly directing you and be in this way for you to ultimately encounter him and to be guided and led into counsel and in good direction and all the rest of it.

Those are the things for you.

And so you're meant to live with power beyond yourself.

You're meant to hear from God.

And then the third reason I want this passage to shape our church is because, and this one's maybe it's selfish, I don't know.

But I don't want a normal Southern church.

Um, I do want church, and I know that we're in the South, but in my experience with Southern churches, and I've worked at seven different churches, um, and so I have a ton of experience working at different churches, and I just don't want a normal one.

Because in my experience working in most churches, uh, whom I love, and I left one that I loved and all those different things, but in my experience, normally the questions that they ask are something along the lines of how do we grow our church?

Is all, I mean, it's normally at the front end of everything that they want to do.

How do we grow?

How do we grow?

How do we grow?

How do we grow?

They say it in different language, like, how do we make disciples?

But really what they're saying is how do we grow?

How do we get bigger?

How do we do that?

Um and so what it leads to is questions like this.

It's like, uh, they how do we grow?

What's our well, and then then we start going through the list of like all the different things that can make us grow.

Uh, what's our parking lot experience like?

Should we make it easier for people to get in the door?

And so they start considering what their parking lot is like and all those different things, which maybe our parking lot's terrible.

I have no idea because I don't really care.

Um I mean I want it, I want you guys to be able to get in and not die or anything like that.

But the like what's our parking lot experience like?

Are the front uh these are questions that literally we've been asked in staff meeting, not at this church, but at different churches.

Are our front door greeters too old?

Um, are they too old to greet people?

Does it give off the impression that we're an old church and not for young people?

That was a question.

Um, is our coffee good enough?

Um big stuff.

I mean, you see that in the Bible where they were asking about the oh no, you don't.

Okay.

Um let's try and uh uh let's try and grow the church by doing a gift card giveaway for everyone who comes to the church.

If they will share that they were at our church, we'll enter them in a drawing like our car dealership to give them a gift card or something like that.

Just like Paul, right?

Uh was the music too loud?

Is the sermon length short enough?

How's our online presence?

How's the video quality of our services?

Um, and what will make us succeed as a church?

Good communicators, better music, shorter service, more programs for and options for our kids and our youth, and always, always, always better coffee.

Normally, in my experience, this these are the questions.

All of them are based on personal preference.

All of them are just like, I just they're not based on God's presence.

They're based on personal preference.

And so I was like, what can we do to make it more accessible for people to when they show up to our thing to like our thing better than that other thing up the street?

And so we're slyly, somewhere subtly in competition with every other church and trying to taste their coffee and then drink ours, me like ours a little bit better.

And to me, like, I just don't want that.

I don't want to do that.

I don't want to fall into that.

I don't think that's biblical.

I don't, and if they do that, that's fine.

But I left all those places because I was like, I just want something grander than that.

And I think when I read the scriptures, I see a better question than how do we grow?

It's like, how do we experience God's presence in our time so that people are transformed and the things that they have going on in their lives are actually met by somebody who has the power to actually do something about it.

I don't care if our we have 10,000 people, but if we have 10,000 people, but none of the meet, the needs are met in the church, like what a shame.

Like, honestly, I should be held accountable for that.

Like, we got 10,000 people, and everybody's like, I have tons of needs, and I have nothing to offer you.

Like, that's a that's a terrible space to be in, and that's not what the church is supposed to be about.

But churches like that do grow because everybody likes going where all their preferences are met.

I love when my preferences are met.

I love going to those types of places.

But in my experience, the churches like that grow a ton.

There's tons of growth, but very little power.

Tons of growth, very little power.

And if you read the early church, there's tons of power, and they never even consider the growth.

Just tons of God's presence breaking into people's lives and setting them free, and God's presence meeting the needs of people around them and all these different things.

And it's like, yeah, the church grew because they were just wowed by it, but there's like there's one church in all of Jerusalem and all this thing.

And so they weren't worried about that.

It was like, but just tons of power.

And for us, I don't want a church that's defined by look at the growth, but no power.

I think the church is supposed to be the space where we encounter the actual presence of God and something happens.

I want the power of God's Spirit working among us and in our church so that the anxiety that lives in all of us, and for some of us more than others, the anxiety is actually overrun by the peace of God that we're promised when we actually cast our cares upon Him, so that the addictions and the strongholds that we face and the things that seem to have a grasp on us that we can't seem to break.

I want us to experience God's Spirit working among us so that those things can break and so that we do find freedom from those things.

I want to experience God's Spirit working among us so that the marriages that are on the brink of divorce ultimately have life breathed back into them.

Instead of just all constantly just having this space where it's like, oh yeah, tons of people.

We got a thousand people here today.

It was such a great day.

But we have just as many marriages failing as anybody else in the world or any other organization out there.

It's like, what a shame.

I don't think that's the way it's supposed to be.

Prodigals can come home because people didn't just give them away and be like, oh yeah, I don't want it.

They just continued to pressure the Lord through prayer, like, bring them home, God, bring them home.

And we experienced, they experienced the presence of God in their time and they came back.

The early church constantly had this space where it was like, if you read about them, there was unexplainable things happening.

And it wasn't just like miracles and signs and wonders and healing.

Like it was, it was that, but it was like unexplainable generosity, where everybody sold property to like make sure there was no poor among them.

Unexplainable generosity, unexplainable friendships.

They had friendships that crossed political dividing lines.

They had friendships between slaves and slave owners, they had friendships between men and women, which really wasn't a thing back in the day.

They were taking care of like the the kids that were, that other people didn't want, and the church was like bringing them in, and everybody was like, What are y'all doing?

Like, why would y'all ever do that?

It's like, we're moved by the Spirit of God to do something that's unexplainable.

And there was constantly unexplainable stuff.

Unexplainable peace and joy in circumstances and situations that didn't seem to make sense to everybody else.

Like, you guys are being persecuted.

Why are you singing praises to God?

And it's like, well, we have something different than everybody else.

And to me, if we have this space where we're large as a church and tons of people are coming, but no power, to me, I just don't want that.

I've done that.

I've worked at a church with thousands of people and tons of people coming, and we were the best thing on the block, and everybody knew it, and I knew it too.

Felt really good about it, but experiencing zero power, and it's disorienting to read the scriptures and go, I think we should be experiencing something a little bit more than what we're than than just people just showing up because our thing has better ice cream.

I don't know.

You know, I just think there's something better than that.

Something that's actually supposed to be life transforming.

And so for us, when people are asked about our church and like, did you like our church?

Or when people ask what church you go to and they talk about Christ Community Church, what I'd hope they say is not like, oh, yeah, there's a ton of people there, or their coffee is really good.

I don't want that.

I want people to say, like, uh, like Jacob said in Genesis, like, surely God is in that place, and I didn't know it.

I had no idea that God dwelled at Shady Grove elementary school.

Like, I would love for that to be the experience of people that walk in.

And they do encounter, you know, just unexplainable generosity and unexplainable welcome and all those different things.

But more than anything, I want our worship to be led with it with a spirit and power of worship.

I want our preaching to come from that, and I want the presence of God to be this thing that he's wanted here.

Because according to Jesus, there's this space where it's like the Father wants to pour out the Spirit on you and in you and on our church, but it's asking.

You should ask him.

How much more will he pour out the spirit on those who ask?

Francis Chan again says this.

He says, Being filled with the Holy Spirit is not a one-time event, it's a continual surrender and dependence on him in every aspect of our lives.

Don't settle for a powerless life when the Holy Spirit offers you his power.

Ask him to fill you anew and surrender to his leading.

Ask him consistently to fill you anew and surrender to his leading.

And so my encouragement for you and for our church is to just ask.

And so if you come to the Holy Spirit and this idea of the Holy Spirit, and you're like, I've had weird experiences with charismatic Pentecostal movements or anything like that, or maybe you have great experience in those.

I don't want to, I don't mind talking about those things to you afterwards, but that's not really where I'm at.

Jesus just said this very simple thing.

Just ask.

And if you're sitting there going, I feel like I'm not living with power beyond myself, just ask.

I feel like I'm not hearing God the way that I'm supposed to, according to the scriptures, then just ask.

There's something more available to us if we just ask for the Spirit of God to actually.

And Jesus is like, just do this.

He is so eager to give you his life in you so that you experience something far greater.

And so some of you have tried so many different things to try and fix all the different stuff in your life, but maybe you just need to try asking consistently for the Spirit of God to dwell in you anew, afresh, consistently.

We have all these Christians that will make decisions to like, I need to get baptized again, I need to come to faith again, I need to rededicate my life again.

None of that stuff exists in the scriptures.

It's fine if people want to do it.

But we are consistently told to ask for the Holy Spirit over and over and over again.

And we're consistently told to ask for daily bread over and over and over again, ask for our needs to be met.

And I feel like the church has kind of has it backwards.

We ask for random things that we're not supposed to ask for consistently, and we don't ask for the things that we're told to ask for consistently, like the Spirit of God being poured on us.

And so I want our church to shift that and to be the other way and be like, let's just ask more and more and more for this space so that we actually experience God's presence in our lives and in our church so that the needs that we actually have here are actually met not with power that we have, but with power beyond ourselves.

So you and I are meant to live with power beyond yourself.

Don't settle for something less than that.

You and I were meant to actually hear from God, and it's supposed to be different than what other people have available in their lives.

And that's why it's good news for us to experience it, so that when we walk in the world and they're going, How do you have that?

And it's like, oh, Spirit of God dwells in me.

And so it's a little bit different.

And in our church, I want it to be a space of encounter because that's what it's supposed to be, where people can actually experience his presence.

Last story, and then we'll take communion.

I was at the um at Kroger the other day, and a guy walked up to me and wanted some money, uh, which is fine.

I don't mind giving people money.

Um, but I just knew he was lying.

And I wanted to say to him, like, hey, um I have the spirit of God in me, and I just know that you're lying.

And honestly, if you would just be honest with me, I would give you the money that you're actually asking for, but I don't want to do that.

And so, but I I didn't, it's weird, you know, you're standing at the wine aisle at Kroger, you don't really want to get into it with somebody like that.

But um, but it was this space where I was like, but I should have said that because like that might have been really good news for him to hear.

Like, hey, there's something actually better for you.

Like, you can have a spirit of discernment, and these things are, anyways, I that's a bad story.

But it was an interesting Tuesday night at the Kroger.

Um, but I do think there's something available to us, and it might make us weird, maybe, but I promise you the Spirit of God is not weird.

We are, but he's not.

And it's really this gift that he wants to give us.

And so my encouragement to you is to, as Jesus says, to ask.

Just ask for this the presence of God to be renewed and refreshed in your life.

And I think we're supposed to do this daily, just constantly doing that.

If you don't believe me, Billy Graham, who was like, y'all know Billy Graham, he was a pretty big deal.

He said that.

Like, I just want I wake up every morning.

Uh John Piper says the exact same thing.

He was quoting Billy Graham.

I wake up every morning and ask for God to pour out as much of his spirit as he possibly will give me today.

And so two heroes of the faith are saying this exact same thing.

And so some 36-year-old brand new lead pastor saying it may not make any sense.

But I'm telling you, this man, those those people who lived a very different style of living in Christianity and something that was available to them, they're calling us, all of us, consistently.

And Jesus Himself is calling us to ask.

And so let's do that and pray.

Uh Father, um I pray that we would receive that gift.

Um there's so much uh that I think the that is still available to us inside this thing that you prayed, the riches of the good news of Jesus is Christ in us.

And so there's so much that's still available to us, and God, I just pray that we would seek it and find it, that we would ask and we would find you to be so eager to give good gifts like the Holy Spirit to those who ask.

And so, Father, for the things that we still need power for, and the things that we still need strength and something beyond ourselves, God, I pray that you that you wouldn't invade our lives.

That you would give us your strength and not ours.

Our strength has gotten us in these in these problems, our strength has has led us to these spaces where we're still lacking and wanting.

Um God, I pray that you would stir in us just a belief and a hope and a desire to just follow what you say, Jesus, just to ask.

And how much more would the Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask?

And so, Father, I pray that you do that for us.

Uh, I pray that you shape our church, uh, that we would be a spirit led church.

Um that's not led in the power of Colton or the power of our pastors, but it's in the power of the Spirit, actually doing the work of the church and doing the work of the Spirit in our lives so that we experience the fullness of what's available to us and the fullness of what you died to give us.

I pray that in Jesus' name.

Amen.