Spirit Fueled

All that said, we are wrapping up.

I think we're wrapping up a series today.

We might extend it by one week, but we'll see.

I'm praying through that.

But we are maybe wrapping up a series today that we started a few weeks back called a really good year.

And this is very simple.

We want to have a really good year.

I've never met anyone who says at the outset of a year, I am looking for a terrible year, a mediocre year.

We want to have a really good year.

The problem is this word right here, good.

Our version of good often differs from God's.

What we see is good, what we believe is good, does not always match what God says is good.

We actually see that in a really interesting exchange that Jesus has.

A man comes to him and calls him good teacher, and he responds by saying, Good teacher, why do you call me good?

Only God is good.

And he's not reprimanding the man, he's not trying to make the man feel bad, but he is making a point that what we often view as good isn't really good.

And we know that because many of us have spent years chasing after something we thought was good, we believed it was good, it seemed good at the time, and then we got it, we experienced it, turns out it was the opposite of that.

Things that our culture teaches us are good are not.

Things that our world says we should pursue because it's the highest good are far from it.

But God is good.

His will is good, it is good and pleasing and perfect, and if we seek him with our whole heart, he will show us what good really looks like in our lives.

So that's where we started by saying, hey, at the very beginning, let's exchange our version of good for God's, and let's be people that have a hunger to know what God says is good and to live that way.

Now, there are many things that we know God says are good, that God teaches us over and over again through Scripture, hey, I want this in your life, I want this to define your life.

This is what a good life looks like.

And so we spent a few weeks going over some of those, and today we're gonna sort of tie it all together.

Uh, everything we've talked about so far isn't really possible, it's not really complete until we talk about what we're talking about today.

All right, so here's the first one we looked at.

We looked at this word filled.

We want to be filled.

Sometimes God gets a bad rap that it's all about him removing things from your life, taking things away, that if you follow him, if you really surrender to God, he's just gonna take away all the stuff you love.

Because that somehow gives him pleasure.

That's not true at all.

Anytime God takes something away from us or asks us to lay something down for him, it's so that he can fill us.

It's so that room can be made in our hearts for more of what he has.

Take, for example, Ephesians chapter 5, verse 18.

Ephesians 5:18

It says, Don't be drunk with wine.

Like, don't get drunk.

It says, that will ruin your life.

And many of us here could be like, yep, been there.

Don't do that.

But it's not just for that purpose.

It's not just, hey, don't do this because it'll be bad.

There's a huge statement after that.

It says, instead be filled with the Holy Spirit.

So God says, don't be drunk with wine.

In other words, don't be filled or consumed with something like that.

It doesn't say you can't drink alcohol, it says don't be filled and drunk.

And it's because he wants to fill you with his spirit.

He wants that to fill you.

He is all about your life being full.

Jesus says it so simply and plainly in John chapter 10 the thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy, but I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.

John 10 · chapter mention

God wants your life to be filled.

He wants you to have a year that is full.

And it is full of joy and passion and love and every good thing that comes from him.

So we started there.

And then we moved on last week to this word that God wants us to be free.

He wants us to live lives that are free.

And you might say, free from what?

And that's a very complicated answer, very multifaceted answer.

Ultimately, he wants us to be free from the power of sin.

That's one of the two.

Romans chapter 6, verses 12 through 18 says, Do not let sin control the way you live, do not give in to sinful desires, do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin.

Romans 6:12–18

Instead, give yourselves completely to God.

For you were dead, but now you have new life.

So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God.

Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law.

Instead, you live under the freedom of God's grace.

Well then, since God's grace has set us free from the law, does that mean we can go on sinning?

Of course not.

Don't you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey?

You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living.

Thank God, once you were all slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we've given you.

Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living.

Sometimes we read scriptures like that, and all of us feel horrible immediately afterward.

We're like, oh no.

And sometimes there's a healthy conviction that's happening there.

Other times we have overactive consciences, but what we have to understand is that sin, and sin is it's that part of us that just has an urge to satisfy our own desires, whether or not they're good.

The word literally means to miss the mark, and we've all missed the mark many times.

Some of us haven't even tried to hit it.

We've just like, I'll shoot that way instead, right?

Some of us tried our best.

We were aiming for the bullseye, and we still missed.

That's the way life goes.

But apart from Jesus, we are slaves to sin.

Like we have to do what that nature inside of us desires.

We are slaves, we're powerless.

When we give our lives to Jesus, it's not that sin stops messing with us, but sin is not your master.

You have the power through Jesus to say, no, I don't have to live that way.

I can choose other things.

We're not slaves to sin.

We're free.

But last week our real focus was not just that we're free to the power of sin, it's that we're free from what we talked about as the law.

We are free from this rules-based, rigid religion that is how we're supposed to navigate a relationship with God.

That's not what it's about anymore.

Galatians chapter 5, verse 18 says, When you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses.

Galatians 5:18

When you're directed by the Spirit, you're not under the obligation to the law.

Galatians 5.13 says, You have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters, but don't use your freedom to satisfy your sin nature.

Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love.

Paul's emphasizing, yeah, you're free from the law, from religion.

And we'll cover that a little bit more today, what that really means.

That's not a license to sin.

Sometimes we'll get really a little angsty whenever we talk about freedom from the law, because they're like, oh, you're just gonna let people do whatever they want to do.

No, I mean, that's not freedom, that's chaos.

But we're not under the law.

And if you're unfamiliar, the law is referring to the law of the Old Testament, the law of Moses, and Jesus, he's fulfilled all the requirements of that.

When he died on the cross, he paid that price fully, wholly, forever.

And now we're in a new dynamic.

We're not under the law.

It says it so plainly.

We're not.

We're not accountable to the law anymore.

We have a whole new way to approach God.

Now, what's tough is that a lot of times we we just don't like that.

Like freedom is great, but it's also messy and it's complicated and it's confusing at times.

And I've seen many people, many followers of Jesus who have abandoned the freedom that God has won for them and they've instead decided to adhere to a super strict, controlling, religious, rigid system again?

Because in some ways that's comforting.

I asked this question last week.

I don't, if you guys don't mind, please respond.

Uh, how many of you grew up in a very strict religious environment?

Okay?

How many of you would say, nope, not me?

Free.

Yeah, so you know, which is better, which is worse?

And it depends.

Truthfully, all of us are messed up in some way, and so neither.

But those of you who grew up in a strict religious environment, you know that in many ways it's off-putting, but at the same time, there's a comfort.

There's a comfort to it because it tells you what the rules are and it gives you a framework for how to live life.

The problem is that strict religious mindset, the law, we might call it legalism, there's lots of things to call it.

It's it's incredibly dangerous.

In fact, Paul wrote in Galatians chapter 1, he said, I'm shocked that you're turning away so soon from God, who called you to himself through the loving mercy of Christ.

Galatians 1 · chapter mention

And when he describes them turning away from God, he's not talking about immorality, he's talking about legalism, that they are they're so wrapped up in the law, in this strict religion.

They're not experiencing the freedom that Jesus has won for them, and he spends all of Galatians basically going through that.

Immorality is bad, sure, but it's often not as dangerous to our relationship with the Lord as religion.

And that sounds wrong, I admit.

But hear me out.

We see in Scripture many times where Jesus encounters people who are living immoral lives.

And it typically is a pretty simple interaction, like they're doing stuff that is wrong and they know it's wrong, they know it's not good, maybe they've tried in the past to be rid of it, but they're just kind of stuck and they're addicted, whatever you want to call it.

And Jesus talks to them and he and he's honest and he's plain and he's direct, he always calls sin.

But we see those people very often turn from what they're doing and change very quickly.

We see it with the woman at the well, we see it with Zacchaeus, the tax collector, who's greedy, we see it with the woman who's caught in adultery, these people who are who are exposed in their immorality, but they come face to face with Jesus, and it's pretty easy for them to go, yeah, this isn't good, I want to lay this aside, I want to follow you.

But then we see Jesus interact all the time with people whose lives aren't dominated by immorality, they're dominated by religion.

It's the Pharisees.

And they don't respond to Jesus hardly at all.

Not in the right way.

They have a very hard time recognizing who Jesus is because the problem with religion is that it convinces you that you're right.

In fact, Thomas on our staff, a brilliant young man, works in our student area, he's great.

He put it this way, we were talking about it in the office.

It's not just that you're convinced that you're right, you're convinced that God thinks that you're right.

And when you have someone who believes that they are right and God thinks they're right, that's a really hard person to convince that that they need change, that they need something more.

And Jesus spent so much of his ministry dealing with that with the Pharisees.

I'm saying that that religious thing, it is, it is strong, it is dangerous, and we've been freed from it.

And so we kind of ended with this last week, and we're gonna pick up and move on.

Um, this is a framework, I just didn't have room to write the words.

I tried seven times, and then I had to tear it off and tear it off, so we'll just abbreviate uh for simplicity.

So we we use this, this was kind of the silly way that we ended last week.

I put a hat on, it's shocking, uh I know, and uh used it as a personal example for this framework in my life.

We have absolutes, interpretations, convictions, customs, and preferences.

Absolutes are things that God is clear about, Old Testament, New Testament.

He He makes it very clear where He stands on these issues, how we ought to live, who He is, and when it comes to absolutes, we should follow them absolutely.

We often fall short of that, and there's grace for that, but we shouldn't convince ourselves that something that God has made absolute is somehow less.

Then there's interpretations, things that the Bible talks about, but there's room for interpretation.

And there's multiple valid interpretations, and you might be very convinced that your interpretation is correct, but you have to at least leave room for someone else's.

Now, sometimes people will try to turn absolutes into interpretations, but if you have to use mental gymnastics to explain something that the Bible makes very clear, you're probably off.

So this stuff is it's a little bit looser, okay?

Then you have convictions, those are personal.

You have a personal conviction, you should live by it.

Follow your convictions, but don't force them on other people.

Because God hasn't given your conviction to everybody else.

And often our convictions are informed by these other things, but they're not at the same level.

Then you have customs.

These are things that just, it's what our culture does, it's what's normal.

And we should, for the most part, adhere to our customs up to the point where, you know, it's it's not challenging us to go against our faith.

But there's no reason to rock the boat just to rock the boat.

At the same time, customs change.

We can get on an airplane right now, fly for three or four hours, and be in a place with totally different customs.

So, customs, they change.

And then preferences, that's the stuff that you really like.

And that's important to you, and that's great.

And it's good in life to try to find places or people that kind of fit our preferences, but they're just preferences.

So we should lay them aside pretty quickly.

Here's the point we have a tendency because of religion to want to elevate all of these.

For everything, our our convictions become absolutes, our interpretations become absolutes, the customs that we like are absolutes, our preferences are definitely absolutes in our minds.

So I wore a hat and I use it as an example that, you know, I grew up wearing a hat in church, bad.

Bad, right?

But Herb wears a hat all the time, he wore one this morning, and Matt wears a hat all the time, and I've never told them to take their hat off, I've never even thought it.

So I was like, could I wear a hat?

Because I like to wear hats.

But then I wrestled with it and I went through this whole mental thing, and it's silly.

The point of it is it's not an absolute, it might be an interpretation.

There's some scripture about head coverings, but even in that scripture, Paul calls it a custom.

You might have a personal conviction against wearing hats, so don't wear a hat.

And uh, if you wear a hat, you should wear a hat that you like, because that's your preference.

So the point is, the point is, we're free.

We are free, and even that whole conversation about it's just to, it was just to sort of model how silly and twisted things can get in church when we get influenced by religion.

We are free and we're meant to enjoy our freedom.

But frameworks don't get us all the way there.

Little ways of thinking about things, paradigms, whatever you want to call it.

They're great, they're helpful, but they're not what's gonna get us there.

What's gonna get us there ultimately in terms of living this good life and being filled and being free is what we're talking about today, and that is really simply being spirit-fueled.

We need the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit to fill us and fuel us.

We've actually seen this in multiple scriptures we've already read today.

It says in Galatians 5.18, I'll go to this one again.

When you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses.

When you are directed by what?

By the Spirit.

Ephesians 5.18, and guys, I'm sorry for giving you two 5.18s.

It's okay if you mess this up.

It said, don't be drunk with wine.

Why?

Because that will ruin your life, but instead be filled with the Holy Spirit.

So we're free from the law when we live by the Spirit.

And what does God want to fill us with?

Ultimately, it's His Spirit.

Galatians 5, 4, and 5 says, for if you're trying to make yourself right with God by keeping the law, you've been cut off from Christ, you've fallen away from God's grace.

But we who live by the Spirit eagerly wait to receive faith, by faith, the righteousness God has promised to us.

It doesn't say by the sweat of your brow, it doesn't say by the strength of your might, by your conviction, your devotion.

That's that's great, but that's all flesh.

It says by the Spirit.

By the Spirit.

We are we're supposed to live by the Spirit of God.

His Spirit that He's given to us.

Now, anytime you talk about the Holy Spirit, you get what I'm looking at right now: a bunch of faces, having different levels of understanding and familiarity, okay?

Some of us, Holy Spirit was like, okay, I'm just gonna be honest.

I grew up in a church, and I love the church that I grew up in.

I'm not mad about it.

We all have different experiences.

Um, and in my church, the Holy Spirit was like, we only said the Holy Spirit when we baptized someone.

It was like real quick, like a little secret, by the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit, and then we never talked about the Holy Spirit again, right?

The Holy Spirit was like a secret, weird cousin that you don't talk about at a family reunion.

Like, don't do that.

Shh, what are you, crazy?

And part of that was because other of us, we may have grown up in a church culture that was all about the Holy Spirit, and it was fun and it was free, but it also got kooky and weird.

Um, and some of us, you've been there.

And Jesus wasn't weird, right?

Can we just own that?

Jesus wasn't odd.

I mean, he's unique and weird in the sense that he's not like everybody else, but he didn't creep people out.

Okay?

When Jesus, you're like, you know those people that come up to talk to you, and your first thought is, How can I get away from this person?

Like, Lord, even if they're a passionate follower of Jesus, they're like, ah, just and sometimes you're trapped and you can't.

But but Jesus wasn't like that.

When Jesus came to people, they wanted to spend as much time with him as possible, and he was someone who operated completely and totally out of the power of the Holy Spirit, and yet people were drawn to him.

It wasn't repulsive.

Some of us didn't grow up in church at all, and the Holy Spirit just sounds like some kooky weird concept that we have no idea for.

The point is, we all come from different places, and I want us to understand this as much as possible.

And if you want to understand it ultimately, we should just start with Jesus.

In John 14, he said, When the Father sends the advocate as my representative, that is the Holy Spirit, he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you.

One of the crazy things about Jesus' teachings is that very often they're fairly mysterious.

He doesn't always speak in really practical terms.

But when he talks about the Holy Spirit, he talks like someone reading off the features of some new piece of technology.

Like it'll do this, it'll do that, it'll do this, it'll do that.

I mean, he says the Spirit will teach you, remind you, guide you, lead you into truth.

He speaks about the Holy Spirit so practically, and he tells us that we need the Holy Spirit.

That without the Holy Spirit, we we we have no hope of living the life that he's called us to live.

In fact, some of you grew up in a church where you were challenged to live differently, but never taught that the only way you could do that was by the power of the Holy Spirit.

And so you tried your best and used all of your own strength and might to do it, and you were exhausted and burnt out, and you felt like a failure when in reality you were trying to do something in a way you could never have hoped to succeed at to begin with.

It's only by the Holy Spirit that we have any hope of living differently.

And so I'm really sorry if you experienced that for all that confusion.

But the good news is, God wants to help you out.

He wants to empower you to live in a way that you couldn't live on your own.

Jesus in Matthew chapter 10, this is one of my favorite things Jesus ever says.

Matthew 10 · chapter mention

He's talking to the disciples.

Just imagine someone says this to you.

When you are arrested, not if, like when.

Jesus is their leader, he's their teacher, and he says, Oh, by the way, when you get arrested, because you follow me?

Like when?

Don't worry about how to respond or what to say.

And if we pause there, I can just say categorically, this is terrible advice.

When you get arrested, don't worry about it.

Don't, don't worry about it at all.

And he goes on to say this God will give you the right words at the right time, for it is not you who will be speaking, it will be the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

Jesus says, even when you're in the hardest situation you've ever been in, the hardest situation that you can imagine, the Holy Spirit will work through you.

So don't stress out, don't get been out of shape.

I haven't been arrested yet.

You know, you never know.

There's always time.

But practically I find myself in situations where I maybe I'm gonna have a meeting and it's a hard meeting, it's a difficult meeting, and I want to do that thing that we all do, where I pre-plan what I'm gonna say and I imagine what they're gonna say and how I'll respond to it.

And I found that anytime I do that, it's almost always fruitless because the conversation never goes the way I think it's gonna go.

But instead, I should just take Jesus at his word and say, you know what?

I don't have to worry about all that.

The Holy Spirit will give me what I need at the moment.

And that's such a more enjoyable way to live because I don't get all bent out of shape before I have those conversations.

Paul spent a lot of time as one of the leaders of the early church trying to help us understand the Holy Spirit and explain it.

And so, for example, Romans chapter 8, verses 5 through 16 kind of walks us through the Spirit in a cool way.

Romans 8:5–16

Those who are dominated by their sinful nature think about sinful things.

But those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit.

So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death.

But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.

For the sinful nature is always hostile to God.

It never did obey God's laws and it never will.

That's why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God.

But you are not controlled by your sinful nature.

You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you.

And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all.

In other words, if you belong to Jesus, you have the Spirit.

And Christ lives within you.

So even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God.

The Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, and just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by the same Spirit living within you.

Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do.

You don't have obligation to it.

For if you live by its dictates, you will die.

But if, through the power of the Spirit, you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live.

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.

You've not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves.

Instead, you received God's Spirit when He adopted you as His own children.

Now we call Him Abba Father.

For his Spirit joins with our Spirit to affirm that we are God's children.

We have the Spirit inside of us, and it empowers us to live not by our sinful nature, but by a new nature.

And so we live free and filled.

One more, real quick, before we talk about something a little different.

Galatians chapter 5, verses 22 through 23 talks about what the Holy Spirit does in our lives, what it produces.

Galatians 5:22–23

The Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.

And there is no law against these things.

Keep that in mind.

There's no law against these things.

And so just to kind of Recap.

We want to be filled, we want to be free.

We definitely don't want to be empty and we don't want to be bound.

But what are we filled by?

We're filled by the Spirit of God.

When you gave your life to Jesus, if you've made that decision, his spirit joined with your spirit.

And you can grow in that and you can have experiences with the Holy Spirit where you're filled even more full.

Like we all know that you can be full when you eat food, but you can also be like stomach, you're making room for more, right?

Like you can take control of that.

Like I've had many times in my life, as is obvious, that I've eaten enough and I'm full, but then I go, we can find room for more.

It's not scientific, but I think you can do the same thing with the Holy Spirit.

So if you need more of the Spirit, He'll give you more.

And you can have experiences where you experience the Holy Spirit moving in a way that change your life, that create a whole new category for how God is, how he speaks to you, how personal that he is.

But know that if you've given your life to Jesus, you have the Holy Spirit.

His Spirit has joined with your Spirit.

And something new has started within you, and that is what is meant to fill you and to guide you and to lead you.

So to really be filled and free, you have to live by the Spirit.

And it's a totally different way to live.

And so we might look at it in these terms flesh or spirit.

How do I want to live my life?

I want to have a really good year.

I want to pursue all the things that God has for me.

I want to pursue all the good things that He has in store.

Doesn't mean life is easy or without problems, but He's good and He gives us good things, good relationships, good opportunities.

How am I going to pursue it?

How am I going to go after it?

How am I going to live the right life this year?

Am I going to do it by my flesh or by my spirit?

I had a very uh you ever have one of those memories that hits you that you you just had haven't thought about for maybe a decade plus?

I was thinking about it this week, this this concept, flesh or spirit, and I feel like God gave me a very personal story from my childhood.

I grew up, I moved around a lot.

Anybody like like like me, you you migrated all over the place, okay?

Not most of you are like, how many of you are from Georgia?

You've been here your whole life.

Oh wow.

That's pretty cool.

Um I lived, I was born in Missouri, then I moved to Wisconsin, then to Tennessee, then to Georgia, then to Missouri, then to Georgia.

And so kind of bounced around a little bit.

And I have amazing memories in most of those places except Wisconsin.

Anybody here from Wisconsin?

Good.

That place sucks.

Oh, sorry.

I didn't see that.

I didn't quite pan all the way over.

Uh forget what I said.

No.

It just wasn't, it just wasn't for me.

Sometimes when it's really cold here, I will I'll complain about it because I don't like cold weather, but then I'll pull up my phone and look at the weather in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, which is where I lived.

And the other day it was like 13 degrees here, but Fond du Lac was negative 15, and I was like, thank you, Lord.

Alright, here we go.

So it's just not for me.

I moved around a lot, and I I do have good memories in in uh no, not Wisconsin, but I have good memories in most places.

Some of my most cherished memories are when I lived in rural Missouri as a kid.

We lived at this one house for about five years, and that was a long time.

It was a big stretch for me.

And I just have unbelievable memories there.

In fact, the house got listed on the internet for uh listed on the market to be sold.

I looked it up on the internet and found a couple pictures, and one in particular just brought me way back.

So this is a picture of my backyard at this house when I was a kid.

I'm gonna put this up.

Look at that.

That was my backyard.

I lived there 30 years ago, and so those trees on the right, we planted those and they were like tiny little sticks.

Now they're not.

That was my backyard.

Amazing, except for Saturdays when we mowed it.

Um that was not fun.

My dad and I mowed it together, and it took Saturday.

So um, but we lived on a ton of acres, and then surrounding us was just more and more just everywhere you looked, woods.

I mean, you couldn't you couldn't hit a golf ball and hit a neighbor's house.

It was impossible.

So, very, very cool experience.

And I grew up, and kind of like Matt described when he was leaving worship today, it was really, I didn't know he was gonna say that.

I was in the woods all the time, exploring creeks, all kinds of fun stuff.

When we lived there, we had two dogs.

And I have gotten a rap over the years of not being a dog person.

I am a dog person.

I do like dogs, it's because I'm I said something years ago about dogs maybe not going to heaven, and I don't know if dogs have spirits or souls, and I've repented of that.

Your dog is definitely going to heaven.

All of your dogs are gonna be in heaven, every dog ever is gonna be in heaven, every single one of them in the history of the world, all the dogs and none of the cats.

That's how heaven works, okay?

A few cats.

I'll go with a few.

But no, it grew up with dogs.

And at this particular time at that house, we had two at the same time.

One was a Yorkshire Terrier named Chance.

And we didn't really like Chance.

And Chance didn't really like us.

I don't know if any of you had a dog like that where there's just an understanding that this is just a we're obligated to the dog because we bought the dog and he needs us to eat, but he didn't like us very much.

And honestly, dogs like like Yorkies, like, can we just admit, even if you have a small dog, how many of you have small little dogs like that?

I mean, God didn't make those dogs.

Like we made those dogs.

We created those things.

They couldn't, you know what I'm saying?

Like, you know, like we had a pug at one point in time, and their eyeballs are half hanging out of their face.

Like, God, God didn't create that.

We made that.

We're like, that's hilarious.

Let's make those.

That's what happened.

Okay?

Chance was this little puny tiny dog, and he hated us.

He hated our family.

And then we had a collie at the same time, as far from a as far from like a Yorkie as you could have, a giant collie like Lassie on that old show.

And I granted, God did not make collie's either, but they're much closer to what he did make.

Okay.

Well, one day, Chance and King, that was the name of the collie, King, Chance and King ran off.

They ran away.

And we panicked as a family because obviously we live in the woods and and there's coyotes and all kinds of things, and and we had no idea where they were, and we searched and we searched and we searched, and we couldn't find them anywhere.

And I mean, there's endless possibilities to where they could have gone.

We were really freaked out.

Not so much for chance, but for kinopism.

About two or three hours later, King, our colleague, came back, and we were so excited, but Chance wasn't there.

And this went on for several days to the point where we were convinced that Chance was dead.

Because he's a he's a Yorkie in the woods.

I mean, come on.

How is he gonna survive?

And then about a week later, Chance came back, and his his fur was just matted, had all kinds of sticks and burrs and things like that in it, to the point where my mom had to shave him completely.

Have you ever seen a shaved Yorkie?

If you have, you know, oh, God did not make that.

That is how you like, that's no way, no, I'm teasing.

No, we shaved him, and the thing is, chance would do this very often.

It got to the point where, on a pretty regular basis, chance would just go off and he'd be gone for two days, three days, four days, and then he'd come back, and mom would shave him, and this is something that went on for the whole time we lived there.

And ultimately, I want you to understand is that chance, he I'm I'm joking, I'm half joking, but he did not really love us.

And it was sort of this mutual understanding, and he just he wanted to be as far away from us as possible.

King was different.

King was like part of the family, he he loved us very, very much.

Interestingly, because he was a big dog, we kept him outside, but he all he wanted was to be inside.

And eventually when we moved to Wisconsin, he came inside because it was so cold.

But Chance, he was inside the house from the very beginning when he was first part of our family.

He was with us, and yet he just wanted to be outside.

He wanted to go.

I was thinking about this week for for this reason.

Because in my mind, Chance and King, they're like flesh and spirit.

It's two ways that we can live when it comes to how we live for God and approach our life with God.

The only thing that could have kept Chance within the boundaries of where we wanted him was if we had used fear or force.

We would have had to put a shot collar on him, uh, but 10-15 acres of shot collar is very expensive.

And so uh we didn't do that.

We would have had to build fences and just whatever we could do to force him or make him afraid to exit the boundaries.

That would have been the only way to keep chance close to us because chance he didn't want to be.

And King, after that first time, never tried to run off again, ever.

Even when chance would.

He would just watch him.

Because King wanted to be close to us.

King stayed within the boundaries, not because he was forced to, because we put a fence up, not because he had a shot collar on, because he he wanted to be close to us.

He loved us.

It's two different approaches to life.

It's flesh and spirit, it's law or freedom.

And the thing about the law, the law being those those rules, that that rigid approach where it's all about don't get outside of the boundaries, or else.

I've put a fence up, I've got a shot collar on, don't do it, or else.

You can actually follow the law and be extremely far from God.

The law can never make you love someone.

Like if we put the fences up and the shot collar on chance, it wouldn't have made him love us.

It wouldn't have made him want to be with us, it just would have kept him technically in the boundaries.

But in his heart, he didn't want to be there.

King, he just stayed where he was supposed to be because he wanted to, because he loved us and he wanted to be close to us at all times.

And I want that.

I want my relationship with God to be like that.

Freedom, because in my spirit, I know I'm family, I know I'm a son of God, and I want to stay close to him.

And I don't want to go outside the boundaries of what's good.

Not because I'm afraid of what'll happen if I if I do.

I know he loves me, he'll forgive me, but I just don't want to.

I want to be close to him.

Why would I why would I go do that when I can be close to God?

And so you even think about something like the Ten Commandments, right?

The law that sort of encapsulates the law.

You can follow the Ten Commandments perfectly, technically, and not love people at all, or truly have a heart for God.

Because the Ten Commandments don't compel you to love someone, just don't kill them.

But if you live your whole life and you say, Well, I've I've never I've never killed anyone, yeah, but do you love people?

The answer, I mean, you can live, you can follow the law and have a heart that's far from God.

The law cannot compel you to have the same values that the Lord has.

But the spirit is different because the spirit of God is God.

And the spirit of God joins with your spirit and is active inside of you and working inside of you, making you day by day into the person that God has created you to be and recreated you to be to the point where your heart can desire the same thing that the spirit desires.

And so look at a scripture like Galatians chapter 5, verses 19 through 23.

Galatians 5:19–23

It says, When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear.

Sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, interesting.

Uh the Greek word for sorcery is pharmakaia.

In their time, sorcerers were people that had all kinds of potions and tonics.

And so we get the word pharmacy from that.

I don't mean if you're a pharmacist, you're a sorcerer.

What I mean is sometimes we read words like this, we're like, sorcery, I would never even, but if you've ever found yourself addicted to a substance or you need some type of substance to get you by, that's what it's talking about, like needing that kind of thing.

Hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, while parties, and other sins like these, which of course none of us have ever had, so I mean, not very irrelevant.

Okay.

Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the kingdom of God.

You can't live like that, give yourself wholly to that kind of life, and then simultaneously experience.

God, it just won't work.

You won't.

Your spirit will always bring you back to the Lord if you have the Holy Spirit inside of you.

But then listen to this.

We read this earlier.

The Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

And then it says, there is no law against these things.

There's no law against these things.

Like, the things that the Spirit wants you to have, joy, you don't have to worry about following a law to have joy.

Like, there's it's not against the law to have joy.

Self-control, like if you have self-control, the spirit produces that in your life.

You don't have to live bound to some set of laws because the self-control within you is going to keep you where you need to be.

And so it's a whole different way to live.

It's law or freedom.

Law or freedom.

But it all comes from the spirit.

Now I'm looking at the clock, and I realize I have massively uh overestimated my ability to fit all this information into the time allotted.

So, because I love you, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, I have self-control, I'm gonna cut off most of what I was gonna say next.

And maybe we'll revisit this next week and finish it up.

But here's what I want to say as we wrap up: law or freedom, two different approaches you have to God.

Okay, and just like we talked about earlier, ultimately, it's well, I'll go back one.

It's spirit or flesh.

Do you want to live by the flesh this year?

Trying your hardest to please God, trying your hardest to stick to some type of list of rules and regulations that if you keep them, God's happy with you, and if you get, if you mess up, he's not.

Like, Jeremiah chapter 17 tells us what that kind of life is like.

Jeremiah 17 · chapter mention

This is what the Lord says.

Cursed are those who put their trust in mere humans or who rely on human strength.

If you live by the flesh, by your own effort, this is what you have to look forward to.

They turn their hearts away from the Lord.

They're like stunted shrubs in the desert with no hope for the future.

They will live in the barren wilderness in an uninhabited, salty land.

When you live out of your flesh, you are exhausted.

You are spent.

You are dry.

But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence.

They're like trees planted along a riverbank with roots that reach deep into the water, and such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought.

Their leaves stay green and they never stop producing fruit.

This year, if you want to have a really good year, you need to live by the Spirit.

And that's not about effort.

In some ways, yes, but it's effort that comes from a desire to want to.

It's about closeness to God, it's about desiring more of him in your life.

And like that dog that I had, the good one, the one that's more like the ones he created.

Um you love God and you want to be close to him.

And so what's motivating you staying close to him and living for him is not it's not the flesh, it's not the law, it's it's not religion, it's it's the freedom and the joy and the passion and the love that comes from the spirit.

So here's what we're gonna do uh worship team, you guys can make your way out.

Uh we don't do this very often, but from time to time, I feel like the only way to wrap up a conversation is to just engage with God again and worship him just a little bit more.

And so I asked Matt if he wouldn't mind adding a song at the end, um, maybe not a full song.

And I know for some of us this is a huge curveball.

You're like, I already did the thing, I did the singing thing, I'm out of that.

I see so I saw a few of you cross your arms just now.

I get it, okay?

I understand.

It's like a different mode, and I'm surprising you, and uh, okay, but but Jesus says this in Luke chapter 11.

Luke 11 · chapter mention

I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for.

Keep on seeking and you will find.

Keep on knocking and the door will be opened to you.

For everyone who asks receives, everyone who seeks finds, and to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

You fathers, if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead?

Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion?

Of course not.

So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?

If what I'm talking about today, if this whole experience of the Spirit leading you and guiding you and producing love and joy and peace and patience and all those things in your life, and the spirit compelling you to stay close to God, and it's not about law or rules or religion, you're not under that anymore.

You're just you're compelled to follow God because you love him, you want to be close to him, and it's this free and beautiful thing, something that just happens within you.

It's not a forced routine.

If that's something you go, I want that, I desire that, I don't know exactly how to have that.

Jesus tells us, start by just asking, by inviting the Holy Spirit in and surrendering yourself and saying, Lord, I give myself to you.

And so we're gonna sing a quick song, and it's it's a chance for us to do that very thing, just to invite the Holy Spirit into us.

It's already in us, but we don't know how it's in us, around us, on us, through us, it's all kinds of things.

But it's a chance for us to say, Holy Spirit, I recognize you, and I need you, and I want you, and I want to live this year by you, not by my flesh.

I want to be empowered by your power, not by my own strength.

And so um, I'll tell you what we'll do.

I'm gonna just bring the lights down just a little bit, and this is a time for you to pray.

This is a time for you to sing, but it's just a time for you to invite the Lord in.

Um, if you want to use this as an opportunity to leave and beat the traffic out, you can do that, but we will know who you are.

And, okay, well, no, I'm just teasing.

We do have a few people getting baptized after this, and so please stick around for that because we've got to celebrate that together.

But right now, I'm gonna pray.

We're gonna ask the spirit to come.

And for each of us, this is a chance to say, Lord, February 2nd, 2025, I want to live by your spirit, not by my flesh.

You need that, it's the only hope you have, it's the power, it's what it's what makes it all possible.

You want to live full and free, you need the spirit.

So let's pray together.

Father God, we thank you for this day.

Thank you for this opportunity to join together, to worship you, to learn about you, to think about you, to ponder what it really means to follow you.

And God, I'll say for myself, I I don't want to be close to you just because I'm I'm forced to be close to you by some type of system of rules and religion.

I don't want that.

I want a heart that longs to be near you.

I want a heart that wants to be closer and closer to you.

I want a heart that isn't prone to wander away from you upon every temptation.

I want a heart that is led by you.

So, Spirit, lead me, lead us, move in us, speak to us, empower us, encourage us, fill us, and free us.

We pray this in your name, Jesus.

Amen.