Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:08] What a joy to be together. What a joy to be in the house of God. How many appreciate these moments where we can gather together and be in his presence. We don't take this for granted. So glad to be here together with you. So thankful for each of you. Did this in first service. Want to do this in second service because many of you were not there. But I feel so grateful for the most incredible team we have at Kingdom Movement.
[00:00:34] It takes over 300, almost 400 volunteers involved in some way or capacity throughout the month to make this happen and to create a space for more people to come and experience and encounter the presence of Jesus. And I just want to say thank you and maybe you're watching online, maybe you're not here. Can we give it up to all the volunteers, all the people the. That go the extra mile to make this happen? We want to say thank you to you.
[00:01:03] You know, at the, at the men's retreat, there was seven saunas, which represents the number of the Holy Spirit and completion. So we were there in the heat together, sweating and opening up our hearts and eating food at 1am and cold, plunging in a dirty river or lake. Sorry, lake.
[00:01:23] And it just.
[00:01:24] I know you might be like, what? But it just, it was so good and it just felt so right.
[00:01:31] And I said to our team that we will have no less than 300 men at our next men's retreat. And we're gonna step it up and we're gonna. We're gonna have a movement in a few years. You'll see, it'll be over a thousand men.
[00:01:48] They're going to come together and encounter God. We're going to have a movement of men, leaders rising up, leading their families, leading the community, and it's going to be powerful. So we're believing for great things to happen. This was a small beginning to something great.
[00:02:03] And as Vic was bragging about the men's retreat, my wife turned to me and said, are you going to say anything about the women's gathering that happened? And so I heard there was a women's gathering. I don't know if any of you are there.
[00:02:17] And I heard it was powerful. My wife preached an amazing word. And so many people came up to me, like, your wife can preach, and so it's time for you to hear more of her.
[00:02:30] And so, yeah, we're so thankful for just those things that are happening. I think they're going to build community, build relationships, and we're going to grow together. And so that's exciting.
[00:02:43] All right, well, where am I. Let's go.
[00:02:50] I want to read a couple passages.
[00:02:52] I'm continuing the. The message I've been sharing the last few times I spoke on the way of intimacy.
[00:02:59] And I want to start with the verse that we kind of ended with last time and is out of First John, chapter two, verse six.
[00:03:08] And it says here, the one who says that he remains in him ought himself also to walk just as he walked. In other words, the one who says he abides in Jesus should live the way Jesus lived.
[00:03:24] The one who claims that he remains in Jesus should walk the way Jesus walked.
[00:03:31] And this is very confronting to me because as I look at that with a heart posture, to practice and to see my life actually match that truth, I see many areas of my life where I have room to grow, to walk and to live the way that Jesus lived. Jesus became the perfect example for us to follow, but also he showed us what's possible through partnership with the Holy Spirit.
[00:04:03] And so I want to provoke jealousy in us for more. I want to provoke jealousy in us for a purity and a holiness that exists in communion with the Holy Spirit.
[00:04:15] And I want to read one more passage. Then we're going to pray and jump into this John, chapter 16, verse 13.
[00:04:22] I'm just going to take one part of it. It says, he will guide you into all truth. And the word guide there is to lead along a path. In other words, the Holy Spirit is God who will guide you, lead you along a path into all truth. Would you bow your heads with me for just a moment?
[00:04:49] Lord, we recognize your presence here.
[00:04:52] We approach the Scriptures. We approach the Word with humility.
[00:04:57] Would you speak to us? Would you cause these words to become breath?
[00:05:02] Would you cause these words to become bread that feeds us, nourishes us, but also transforms us?
[00:05:11] We want to leave this place transformed, looking more and more like you in Jesus name.
[00:05:20] And if that's your desire, say amen with me.
[00:05:24] Amen.
[00:05:26] Well, You know, it's interesting about the Holy Spirit that he comes like a thunder and leaves with a whisper.
[00:05:47] In Acts 2, when he came, it was like the heavens were shaking and tons of fire came over them. And everybody. There's 3,000 people that got saved. When the Holy Spirit shows up, almost everybody can recognize it, but he leaves quietly. And I don't mean by like, leaves our life and abandons us, but he lifts his manifest presence and, you know, if our actions and our relationships affect him. If you look at the Scriptures, there's two instances where it talks about the Holy Spirit, where he's Grieved, which literally points to us wounding him, hurting him, causing pain.
[00:06:35] And there's another passage where it refers to the Holy Spirit, where he's quenched.
[00:06:40] And in both instances it's, it has to do with the context of relational sin.
[00:06:49] So the Holy Spirit is grieved when we live in a way that's hurting other people.
[00:06:55] The Holy Spirit is grieved when we live in gossip. The Holy Spirit is grieved when we covet one another, when we are. Are slandering one another. The Holy Spirit is grieved when we're hurting other people.
[00:07:10] And, and it's easy for us to become callous. And I, I want to say this, that if, if we've become comfortable with jealousy, if we've become comfortable with slander or with gossip, those are signs of a hardened heart, because there is no way the Holy Spirit is comfortable with that. In fact, he's grieved. But somewhere in the process, I lost sensitivity.
[00:07:41] I, I stopped being tender and sensitive to his voice, to his leadership, to his guidance. If you remember, in Acts 5, Peter says to Ananias and Sapphira, why has Satan filled your heart?
[00:07:59] In other words, they were in this moment where there was the fear of the Lord over the church and something holy was happening and people were coming and laying down all their possessions and at the feet of the apostles. And there was a massive revival and awakening happening. And in the midst of that, compromise became normal for someone. And he says, why has Satan filled your heart? In Corinthians, Paul is burning with a desire to preach the revelation of Jesus or the meat of the Word. And he's saying, I'm noticing among you that you're still carnal because you're slandering, you're dividing. And it didn't look like rebelling, it looked like immaturity.
[00:08:43] And because of that, he's like, I'm not going to continue to share what I wanted to share because you don't have the capacity to receive it.
[00:08:54] What would it look like for us to actually be motivated by love, to live a holy life, not by just not fear, but by love? In other words, knowing that compromise and sin, the cost of that is closeness and nearness and intimacy with the person of the Holy Spirit.
[00:09:19] And I want to propose to us that actually the love of God is what's required for us to live up to this standard, to live life as Jesus lived.
[00:09:33] And I believe that that is the motivation of a born again son and daughter of God.
[00:09:44] You know, the scriptures say that Even when we have something against a brother and we're in the middle of worship, that we are to lay our sacrifice off the altar and go and make it right with him.
[00:10:00] And the reason why I say that is because I think we've become comfortable living in relational sin and pretending like the Holy Spirit doesn't care about it.
[00:10:12] And the. The. The. The interesting part about this is gifts can continue.
[00:10:17] Good sermons can continue.
[00:10:19] Great gatherings can continue.
[00:10:22] While this is happening and our hearts are getting hardened and callous towards the Holy Spirit and his leadership, Repeated compromise numbs sensitivity.
[00:10:45] When we're in love with him and our desire is to draw near, compromise becomes very uncomfortable.
[00:10:55] You ever been there when, like, your heart was so pure, And I remember when I got saved and, like, heart so tender, you have this, like, just. You're repenting for everything, and so quickly, and over time, you kind of. Kind of lose that sensitivity. And you need the renewal of the Holy Spirit to keep your heart tender.
[00:11:17] And, you know, I was just at the men's retreat, and as I was preparing last night, I remembered a moment where the Holy Spirit was speaking to me. It was about volleyball. We were playing volleyball, and we have a pretty competitive community.
[00:11:36] You know, some pastors were observing some of our games, and the way we were arguing, they're like, you're this close to getting into a fistfight. I'm like, no, we're just. We're just talking.
[00:11:46] And someone said that I touched the net when I spiked, and I was 100% sure I didn't touch the net, but they were strong about their opinion, And I started to challenge that view.
[00:12:07] And I realized that, like, I wasn't giving up, you know, and my tone was wrong. And the person told me after we were just going back and forth for a little bit, he said, I didn't say you felt it.
[00:12:20] I just said that you touched the net.
[00:12:23] And I'm like, well, you could still be wrong, you know?
[00:12:27] And then I'm in worship that service, and the Holy Spirit says, you need to go talk to him because you weren't leading by example.
[00:12:39] And you know what I did? I didn't do it because I thought, that's not a big deal. Like, it's fine. I talked to him afterwards. He was fine.
[00:12:55] How many of you guys know what I'm talking about? Like, they don't. They don't need it. Like, it's all good. It's a small little thing.
[00:13:01] But that's the thing when. When you start saying no, it's harder to hear the next you say no enough times, your heart becomes hardened.
[00:13:14] And I realized, like, I was repenting this morning. I said, holy Spirit, and maybe that's not a big deal. That person's probably not offended.
[00:13:21] That person probably might not even be aware of that happening, and that maybe that wasn't the best pastor moment, you know, But I know that my heart, my conscience wasn't clear.
[00:13:36] And so it goes down to that.
[00:13:45] And the Bible says that the Holy Spirit in James, that he burns with jealousy for us, yearns with jealousy for us, and, you know, world jealousy, worldly jealousy demands out of fear what doesn't belong to it.
[00:14:00] But holy jealousy demands out of love what rightfully, rightfully belongs to it.
[00:14:08] And so the. The Holy Spirit is jealous for us to experience everything that Jesus Christ died for on the cross.
[00:14:18] I want to go into Ephesians 4. 25, And I want to challenge us this morning to approach these simple truths with a heart posture of humility and an attitude, to, like, apply what we're learning.
[00:14:44] And so in verse 25, Ephesians, chapter 4, verse 25, this is. It says the following therefore.
[00:14:51] And it starts with therefore because it's connected to a context. And what is happening before this is. It's talking about our new identity. The fact that we are born again, the fact that we are transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his beloved Son.
[00:15:09] The fact that we are living out this new life, that we received new life. And so he says, therefore, ridding yourself of falsehood. Speak truth. Each one of you with his neighbor. Because we are parts of one another.
[00:15:27] We don't just attend a body, we are attached to one.
[00:15:32] We actually belong to one another. And what we do doesn't just affect us, it affects people around us.
[00:15:40] What we do affects people around us. And, you know, I was just came home last night from the retreat. I was absolutely exhausted from, you know, the 2:00am Sauna sessions and all the deep fellowship we had.
[00:15:56] And I was trying to prepare for today. And in the midst of that, I have five daughters. One of my daughters walks in and she's.
[00:16:05] She's crying about what her sister has done and how she hurt her and how she was rude to her.
[00:16:11] And so I'm talking to her and I'm like, hey, you know, you just need to forgive her and how are you speaking to her and what would Jesus want you to do? And I'm trying to, like, counsel her, trying to disciple her.
[00:16:23] She walks away.
[00:16:25] A few moments later, my second daughter runs in and she's Crying, and she's talking about her sister and how she's being so mean and so rude and all this stuff. And.
[00:16:35] And so I'm talking to her, and I'm realizing that in the middle, I'm in the middle of this, and my heart is grieved because both of them are my daughters, both of them are experiencing pain. And I'm realizing that's how the Holy Spirit feels relationally with us. And as I'm discipling her, and so I talked to the older one, and I said, hey, I want to challenge you to just forgive her and be kind to her and just ignore what she's doing right now. And she's like, but you need to make sure to talk to her. I will talk to her. And just a few moments later, I come downstairs and I witnessed them playing together. They ended up putting couches together, having a sleepover, and everything was awesome.
[00:17:17] And I'm realizing how in those moments, whoever is more mature goes first. And their maturity or their forgiveness or their grace or their love opens up the door for healing relationally. That happened between my daughters last night.
[00:17:34] And, And I know it's a simple example, but I think it works the same way with us and the way the Holy Spirit experiences our relationships and even the relational sin. He's grieved. He's actually wounded and hurt when we live in relational sin. And so he says, be angry and yet do not sin.
[00:17:57] Do not let the sun go down on your anger.
[00:18:01] And do not give the devil an opportunity.
[00:18:08] Do not give the devil an entry point.
[00:18:12] Do not give the devil a foothold.
[00:18:15] Do not give the devil territory, because he doesn't have territory unless you surrender it to him.
[00:18:24] And, and, and that. That word foothold literally becomes like ground and territory in your life. And so it's interesting because you'll have moments, right? Living in community, you'll have moments to be angry, to be hurt, to be offended. But how you respond, how you react will determine what. What happens next. And in those moments, it's an opportunity for us to grow and become more like Jesus.
[00:18:53] I've said this before, but I believe that maturity is connected to the way we pass the offense test.
[00:19:00] We'll have hundreds of opportunities to get offended by the way people act, by the way someone said something, by the way someone treated you. And, and, and if. If you choose to respond with offense and start to rehearse what they did and how wrong it was, and you allow bitterness to come into your heart, you've opened the door for the enemy and through that foothold, the enemy starts to operate in a spirit of even deception, where, where we become hardened, where we become calloused. And the, the wild thing about this is when it happens to one person, it starts to happen to everybody.
[00:19:38] And so our relationships are not rich. We don't feel connected, we feel isolated. And so he says, do not give the devil an opportunity in your anger, right? Do not sin, and do not let the sun go down in your anger. In other words, release grace, release forgiveness, give an allowance for other people's faults.
[00:20:07] And verse 28, the one who steals must no longer steal, but rather he must labor, producing with his own hands what is good so that he will have something to share with the one who has need. Can I challenge us that we're just not supposed to be great consumers, that we're supposed to labor and prepare and come with the ability to share with other believers? And I'm not just talking about financially, I'm talking about with our lives, with our homes, with our words, with our love, with our affection, with our time, with our presence, that we are to prepare ourselves and know that what we do affects other people.
[00:20:53] And so he says that we would labor and be ready to share with others. And verse 29. Let no unwholesome word come out of your mouth.
[00:21:03] But if there is any good word for edification according to the need of the moment, say that so that it will give grace to those who hear.
[00:21:17] It's amazing that one of the most spiritual things you can do sometimes is just pause, that you don't always have to have your opinion and your feelings are vocalized. Maybe that's not the best thing to say in that moment. Maybe it's not going to add value, it's not going to edify. And, and I realized that one of the most mature expressions of the Fruit of Love is self control.
[00:21:47] Sometimes you just. You just withhold what you want to say.
[00:21:56] Verse 30. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
[00:22:04] All bitterness, wrath, anger, slander, must be removed from you along with all malice.
[00:22:11] Be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.
[00:22:23] Do you see the context in which the Holy Spirit is grieved? It's not even talking about private sin. I'm not saying that private sin doesn't grieve the person of the Holy Spirit. But in this context, we see that the. The Holy Spirit is wounded, is hurt, when we live in relational sin with other people and somehow I see how so many of us can become comfortable living in bitterness.
[00:22:56] There's people that have lived with unforgiveness and bitterness for, for decades and still go to church and still worship. But the problem with that is our heart has become hardened and calloused and we're not experiencing the same worship.
[00:23:13] We're not experiencing the manifest presence of God like we used to.
[00:23:32] You know, in, in the scriptures, the letters to the churches, when it talks about the one another experience, it mentions it over 60 times.
[00:23:41] Love one another, forgive one another, pray for one another, carry one another's burdens, all of these things.
[00:23:53] Let's look at Colossians, chapter three.
[00:24:01] We'll read five through six and then eight through 15. Here.
[00:24:06] Therefore, treat the parts of your earthly body as dead to sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and greed, which amounts to idolatry.
[00:24:19] How many of you guys remember that our bodies individually are a temple of the Holy Spirit.
[00:24:26] For it is because of these things that the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience. Verse 8. But now you also rid yourselves of all of them. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene speech from your mouth.
[00:24:42] Do not lie to one another, since you stripped off the old self with its evil practices.
[00:24:51] You see, just because you're saved, just because you have the Holy Spirit, doesn't mean that you don't need to dress yourself.
[00:24:58] You have to dress yourself. And so the scripture is talking about believers that are born again and filled with the Holy Spirit. And, and it's saying, strip these things off, this formal way of life, that's not who you are anymore.
[00:25:13] Live according to who you are.
[00:25:17] This is not who you are. Strip off this behavior, remove this from your life and put this on this. This is our responsibility as believers. This is what the Holy Spirit wants to lead us to do. And he says, and strip off the old self with its evil practices.
[00:25:40] And have put on the new self which is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the one who created it.
[00:25:51] A renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised, uncircumcised, barbarian, slave and free. But Christ is all in all.
[00:26:03] So in this, in this new, there's a unity that destroys division, there's a unity that destroys separation.
[00:26:15] Because we are called to be one body, to walk in unity. And I believe that because of either immaturity or us living in relational sin, we don't experience the glory that God intended the church to carry.
[00:26:35] Because the Holy Spirit will come in power and glory and dwell in an. In an environment of unity.
[00:26:48] So as those who have been chosen by God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving each other.
[00:27:04] Whoever has a complaint against.
[00:27:07] In addition to all these things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.
[00:27:14] Let the peace of Christ, to which you were indeed called in one body, rule in your hearts and be thankful.
[00:27:31] In Corinthians, it says, you are Christ body and individually parts of it.
[00:27:40] You're not by yourself.
[00:27:43] You don't attend a gathering. You're attached to a body. You're attached to a community. And I. I'm praying for the Holy Spirit to restore that sensitivity.
[00:27:56] Where, when, when, when I do something, when I say something in a tone that. That hurts another person, that I'm actually grieving over that, that I'm actually going. Saying, hey, I'm so sorry for the way I just spoke to you that was so wrong that I'm wrestling with that, that the Holy Spirit is convicting those areas of my life, because I think we've become comfortable with compromise.
[00:28:25] And the Holy Spirit is grieved when we live that way relationally.
[00:28:33] And look at Romans 12, this will be one of the last passages I read.
[00:28:41] For just as we have many parts in one body, and all the body parts do not have the same function, so we who are many are one body in Christ and individually parts of one another.
[00:28:56] However, since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to use them properly. If prophecy in proportion to one's faith, if service in the act of serving, or the one who teaches in the act of teaching, or the one who exhorts in the work of exhortation, the one who gives with generosity, the one who is in leadership with diligence, the one who shows mercy with cheerfulness.
[00:29:26] Love must be free of hypocrisy, detest what is evil, cling to what is good, be devoted to one another in brotherly love.
[00:29:39] And this, this word, brotherly love is relational love, not the agape love.
[00:29:47] Phileo. Is that the right Greek word? There's like seven Philadelphia. That's the.
[00:29:54] Thank you. Vic includes the word phileo as the root word.
[00:30:03] But what it's talking about, be devoted to one another. Be devoted to relational love to one another. Not like, yeah, I love you with the love of God, you know, but relational love, experience, relational love, be devoted to this.
[00:30:21] In brotherly love, give preference to one Another in honor.
[00:30:26] I remember at a marriage conference, it's a large marriage ministry called Marriage Today. The founder of this organization was talking about marriage, large conference, thousands of people. And he said this phrase, he said, if you made marriage a competition of who can serve the other better, you're, you're probably not going to have many marriage problems. In other words, if you're going to prefer the other person above yourself, position yourself in humility to serve them, a lot of this stuff's going to go away.
[00:30:57] And that's what he's saying in preference to one another in honor, not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit. Serving the Lord, rejoicing in, in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality.
[00:31:21] Would you stand to your feet with me?
[00:31:31] Foreign.
[00:31:34] We're going to go in this time of worship. I'm going to invite the ministry team in just a moment. Actually. Let's, let's, let's take a minute to actually respond to what the Lord is saying to us. And I know it's a simple message. And as I was preparing, I, I wanted to share about developing a deeper sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. And I had these points prepared like three, four weeks ago.
[00:32:03] And as I was praying last night, I felt the Lord pause me in Ephesians and I felt like I was supposed to stay there. And I know it's a simple word, but I want us to receive it in humility because some of the life we're waiting to experience will flow to us through the pipeline of relationships.
[00:32:24] Some of the place where we feel lonely, it's not connected to like God increasing his presence in a worship service, but it's actually experiencing the Lord through deep friendships, deep relationships, and some of the things blocking that are actually connected to a hardened heart.
[00:32:44] And so I'm jealous for us to experience the love of God. I'm jealous for us to experience the abundant life available through his body.
[00:32:55] Because it's not just directly. Some of us, we've become so spiritual and we've become so good at receiving things directly from God. We're getting dreams, we're getting visions. God is speaking to us, we're reading the Bible. But we lost the ability to receive from God through his body.
[00:33:13] But you're not independent, you're completely dependent.
[00:33:17] You're attached to a body and what they do affects you and what you do affects them.
[00:33:23] And so it puts us in this humility and this, this place where we, where we don't gossip, slander and cancel, but we carry one another's burdens where we, where we express compassion. And if someone falls, we, we stop, we pause, we kneel down and we pick them up and we lift them up and we encourage them, where we don't get offended by them not being at their best, but through the Holy Spirit, we're cleaning our lens towards that person and seeing them the way that Jesus sees them.
[00:33:56] And all of that looks like maturity. And I believe that the Holy Spirit is yearning for us to step into it.
[00:34:05] And isn't these the words of Jesus where he says, they will know you by this, they will identify you by this, by the way you love one another, that the world will look at the way you live relationally, and they will say, that looks like God, that looks like God, that looks like his image.
[00:34:34] And so I want you to just take a moment and just in this simple moment, just to receive this with humility. Allow the Holy Spirit to examine your heart.
[00:34:44] And if there is relational sin, I want to challenge you to repent. If there's little moments like my moment with this argument about me touching the net in a volleyball game, I know it's a small moment and you might be laughing at that, but like, maybe there's small moments that the Holy Spirit will remind you that you stop hearing.
[00:35:07] Maybe it's with your family, your children, your wife, your husband, your co workers, your neighbor that has a dog that keeps barking or that parks in your parking spot.
[00:35:27] Whatever it is, it's an opportunity for you to grow and become more like Jesus and to learn to love the way that he loves. Amen. So would you just lift your hands as a sign of surrender? I want you to just talk to the Holy Spirit and ask the Holy Spirit, in this few moments of worship, what are you saying to me through this message?
[00:35:51] Thank you for joining Kingdom Movement Online. I pray and hope that that sermon impacted you deeply. I would love if you shared this with a few friends and family. And before you go, don't forget to subscribe. See you next week.
