Living Life In The Holy Spirit (Part 3) - Nancy Wheatley

The power of the holy spirit is more important than ever before, because being people of the spirit is not optional. We are continually either sowing to the spirit or sowing to the flesh. In this teaching we discuss how to position ourselves to be able to receive more of the Lord and walk closely with His Spirit.

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​Okay, so this is going to be part three of a series that we started the week after Pentecost. So it's been a while. And I, when I looked on the teaching library, I saw part one, but I didn't see part two. So I think maybe that recording didn't come out well. And so that's okay, because I'm going to summarize that one a little bit this morning. And so if you if that one's not there for you to go back to, you'll at least hear the meat of it today. But let's just start with prayer. Okay. precious, precious, precious Holy Spirit. Pray promise of the Father. Gift of the Son, Holy Spirit. You are our connection to the Godhead. You are our power for living the way of Jesus. You are our teacher, our comforter, our advocate, Holy Spirit, we honor you among us this morning. And Holy Spirit, we long for more of you. Holy Spirit, we also just acknowledge that I mean, I'm speaking for myself if anybody else agrees you're welcome to disagree in your own hearts. Lord, I just acknowledge that my life is cluttered. My mind is often cluttered, my heart is often cluttered. And because of that clutter, it's hard for me to be a vessel you can fill. And so holy spirit, we need your help. We need you to come and be our teacher and be our guide. We need you to come and convict us. reveal to us the clutter that's in our lives, that is keeping us from being holy yours. And so, Holy Spirit as we are together this morning, as we consider these things. I'm asking you to be at work. in me and in, in in my friends, and in those who will hear this message later. Holy Spirit, you know us so uniquely, so individually, so tenderly, would you show us what we need to see, so that we can be more fully yours? Yeah, we ask this in the strong name of our Jesus. Amen. Amen. Okay, so as we began this series a few months ago, we started out by just considering what it had meant for the early church to discover in real time, what happened when the Spirit of God was poured out on a group of people, and not only rested upon them for a season, but came to live within them. It had never happened before in all of human history, the Holy Spirit had been present. But as we look at his activity across the Old Testament, He would rest upon individuals, he would rest upon groups for a season for a purpose. And when that purpose would was fulfilled, he would lift. Some people were able to host him for a long period of time other for brief periods of time. But that's why it was such a big deal. When on the day of Pentecost, Peter pulled that quotation from the book of Joel from the Old Testament, that prophecy that said, there is coming a time when the Spirit is going to be here in a way he's never been here before. And the Spirit of God is going to be poured out on all flesh, and all of a sudden everyone is going to have access to the Spirit of the Living God. And so on Pentecost when Peter stood in front of everybody and said, This is that, that we are now experiencing that moment, Jesus promised that it was better for us that he would ascend to the Father. Because then when he did, he would pour out the spirit in answer to that prophecy. And they stood in all, suddenly experiencing gifts of the Spirit that they had not had access to before, in speaking in tongues, seeing the tongues of fire around them, and immediately began to discover the power of the Spirit in anointed evangelism, when Peter stood up and gave up honestly a pretty simple message. And 3000 people were cut to the heart and repented and came to Christ. And so, the early church, like, so much of what they were doing in learning to be the people of the way is what they were first called, before they were ever called Christians. Learning to be the people of the way meant learning to be the people the Holy Spirit lived in. That was their task, like, Okay, I know that I used I am the same me that I used to be. And I did not use to have any power to do what Jesus is telling me to do. But now I have the Holy Spirit. So, huh, all right, let me learn what that is, for me to have that that power, then Jesus had told them, these people who had walked with him for three years, and yet he said, Don't even try to go be My witnesses until the power of God has fallen upon you. Why, because in order to be witnesses, true witnesses to who Jesus is, what his kingdom is, like, we have to do it the way he did it. And he did it in the power of the Holy Spirit. They needed that too. So I am feeling the importance of this word more than ever before. And that's because we're living at a time in history, when being people of the Spirit is not optional. We need the currently speaking voice of God, to know how to position ourselves. We need the power of the Holy Spirit to fulfill the work of the Kingdom, that's ours. To do in this generation, don't we want to be faithful, to fulfill the work that God has appointed for our generation? The word of God tells us that God chooses the times and places in which we will live. That means that we are all here by God's design for a purpose. This is a challenging time we're living in God knew that, and he chose us for it. May we be found faithful? May we be found faithful? What is he requiring of us? I don't know. But we we won't be able to do it. Without the power of the Holy Spirit, I can promise you that. We need the wisdom of God to discern and interpret prophetic words. Now, I don't know if y'all are on any platforms where you're hearing some of the prophetic words that are coming out right now. I'm not even going to refer to any of them specifically. But man, there are some pretty portentous ones that have been spoken over the past few years and even months, they seem to be sort of, you know, building in intensity. And yet there are also some prophetic words that seem to be in contradiction. whose voices do we listen to? They are all claiming to hear from the Spirit of God, they may all be hearing from the Spirit of God, there may be ways that those things are going to work together, I don't know. But we need the Holy Spirit of God and the wisdom that he gives us the discernment that he gives us to know, whose voices should I be listening to right now. He will bear witness with our spirits when there is a word that is for us, for our family, for our spiritual family. So God has given us His spirit for these very purposes. Knowing how to cooperate with him, is probably the single most important key to our fulfilling the intentions of God in this our for ourselves, for our families, and our work is the church in this generation. I just want to give you an example of that from Scripture. In Jesus last few days before his crucifixion, he gave a prophecy that was very dire. It was recorded in Matthew 24. And I'm not going to go over it right now. But you read that and it's scary. There's scary stuff in there. nearly 40 years later, okay, so just think about your own life. And how long 40 years is if you've even lived that long, which most of you have not. Right. 40 years is a long time. And so there's a prophecy that was given 40 years earlier. And Jesus did not say anything about the timing of it. He just said there was coming a time when you need to pay attention to these things. And when you see these things, this is how you need to respond. Okay, so nearly four 40 years later, in 8070, the Roman army had been besieging Jerusalem since at 66. So they'd been there for a while. But in ad 70, as the Roman army surrounded Jerusalem, leading up to the celebration of Passover, so there are 600,000 Jews in Jerusalem because that was where they had to go to celebrate the Passover. 600,000 Jews are in Jerusalem during this time, and that's when the Roman army decides to strike. But prior to that, the Christians in Jerusalem gathering for worship sent the Holy Spirit telling them this is that this is the time that Jesus spoke up. This is the time to obey what He said. And what he had told them was run, run for the hills don't don't even go back for a coat get out. They did. They fled the safety. And the at least what the host historians tell us is that the entire community of Christians in Jerusalem fled to safety in Pella. I don't know if it's 100% accurate, but there are some historians who claim that not a single Christian was still in Jerusalem when that siege took place. And so not a single Christian lost their lives during that time, because the entire community had fled and found safety elsewhere. And so they were saved from the unspeakable carnage that followed, as I believe a million Jews were killed, and the in the city of Jerusalem completely fell. So I'm not saying that we're in a place, you know, that's that dire. But I think it's important for us to note that it was the prophetic leading of the Holy Spirit, and their obedience to it, that saved them. I think that we need to realize that being in tune with the Holy Spirit, is a lot more important than just like having a more fulfilling devotional life. This is so much bigger than that, you know, that's great. I love to have a fulfilling devotional life. But we are talking about being positioned to walk in the days we've been given. And I think that's really important. There's a lot at stake. If we're deaf to the voice of the Holy Spirit in this hour, God intends us to have wisdom from heaven. And if we are not seeking that wisdom from heaven, then we are essentially flying, deaf and blind. Why would we do that? Why would we do that when God wants to give us wisdom? Right. And so that's why I think this is really significant. Let's consider like the role of the church, what is it that we're supposed to be doing in our day? Let's look at it through the eyes of the early church. When the Spirit fell on the early church, what happened? Well, there was anointed evangelism be way beyond human argument, anointed evangelism among those who were perishing. Do we have some people who are perishing around us? Would you like to have the Holy Spirit's power to reach their hearts so that they can repent and turn to God for salvation? Yes. Okay. power in prayer. I, this is a funny example. But you know, what is our what is our example for walking in the Holy Spirit? It's the early church, right? Okay. So in the early church, this is one thing that happened in Acts 13. It the story is told in verses six through 12, and Paul is ministering. We find it he's ministering on Cyprus, and they traveled throughout the whole island. And when they come to a town called Pafos, they meet a Jewish sorcerer, and false prophet, Jewish sorcerer, so he is Jewish, of ethnic origin, but he is dabbling in magic. And he is a false prophet. Okay. And so this guy is they call him Bart Jesus or Elymas, the sorcerer, for that's what his name means. Paul is there and he is preaching the gospel to one of the leaders, the proconsul, Barnabas and salgo they share the Word of God with him, but LMS the sorcerer doesn't like what they're doing. And so he opposes them. And he tries to turn the Proconsul back to his way of seeing things. And so listen to this. Then Saul, this is verse nine, Then Saul, who is also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit. I want you to note this is The activity of the Holy Spirit, filled with the Holy Spirit looked straight at elymus and said, You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right. You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery, will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord? Now the hand of the Lord is against you, and you are going to be blind for a time not even able to see the light of the sun. Immediately, mist and darkness came over him, and he groped about seeking someone to lead him by the hand. When the Proconsul saw what had happened, he believed for he was amazed about the teaching of the Lord. The Holy Spirit did that. Isn't that interesting? Are there some that No, I'm not. I'm not suggesting anything. I'm just asking us to consider. Are there some people who are opposing? The the ways of God and everything? That's right? Are there some people who could use a Paul in their life, to come to them and say, stop it. Now, this is going to happen to you for a time, so that you get a grip. And you realize that there is a God in heaven, you are subject to him, and so that everyone can see that what you're doing is opposed to the counsels of God. Wouldn't it be helpful if the people of God, were walking in the power of the Holy Spirit, to the degree that they could stand against the enemies of God, with that kind of authority with that kind of confidence, with that kind of effect? Just saying, what else happened in the early church, there was a boldness to stand against the rulers of this world, without fear, even in the face of persecution and death. I personally think that's the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. Because left to our own devices, we're pretty self preserving. Right. And so when the Holy Spirit fills us with the boldness and the courage of the Lord Jesus Christ, we can stand Against those things, and do what Scripture says, we're not treating our own lives as precious, but instead choosing to honor the Lord Jesus Christ. They also experienced supernatural gifts that built up the church, that's what we're told the gifts are for, is to build up the church in love, to edify, to strengthen to encourage one another, also to be assigned to unbelievers. That was one of the works of the Holy Spirit. They also experienced a supernatural love, unity and generosity in the family of God, that also was a sign to outsiders, they would see the love the Koinonia that was happening in the family of God and say, I want that. And it was an invitation for people to come in. They also experienced an intimacy with the Godhead through the agency of the Spirit living within us, and an unshakable certainty that we are the children of God. That's what Paul talks about in Romans eight is the what what kind of living can come when we have absolutely no doubt that we are the children of God? Yeah. Might we need those things, all of those things I just named in the season that is upon us. That's the supernatural witness of the church. I am never opposed to good apologetics. Sure, you know, preach the word in season and out of season. I am never opposed to Christians standing boldly in the political realm and doing what they need to do. They're all of those things, you know, the things that we do in the natural, they're all important, but I'm suggesting that the supernatural witness of the Spirit of God is what will get people's attention. All of a sudden, it moves us from the realm of your truth versus my truth, your ideology versus my ideology, and it puts us into the realm of the inexplicable. Oh, dear heavens, there's a God. Yes, that's exactly right. Just a side note, I'm not going to go there today. But just a side note is that if you are aware at all of the world of the the unholy supernatural it's rising. There is so much at least in this nation, there is so much interest in witchcraft. There is so much interest in all things that are related to dark power. The enemy is not a bit shy about laying hold of the supernatural power. That's a veil. Little to them, and wanting to use it to control people and world situations. If the people of God are not laying hold of the power of the Holy Spirit, the Holy supernatural, then we're going to be outpaced. And we're going to, to find ourselves on the losing end of some battles. Because the, you know, the the enemy is prowling around looking for people to devour. And he's not, you know, he's an opportunist. He doesn't care how he goes about it. And there are people who are yielded over to his power. And so this is a time for Christians to truly be wise as serpents, as well as being harmless as doves. And to just be aware that in the cosmic battle that we are on the battlefield of God has not left us defenseless. But He expects us to know and lay hold of the power of God that's been given to us. Okay, so a little bit of a summary is just that in part one of this series, we looked at not just those things that I just mentioned, but also the power that comes when we cooperate with the Holy Spirit in prayer. Instead of just bringing to God our laundry list of the things we know we need to come, saying, Holy Spirit, I know you know what I need better than I do. You know, what needs to be prayed for, in my family in the world around me better than I do. So Holy Spirit, would you lead our prayers. And so to do that spirit led prayer is, is takes our prayer to a whole nother level than just coming and saying, oh, Lord, please, you know, bless my work day, you know, whatever it might be. So we talked about that power of spirit led prayer. And we also consider the importance of seeing other people according to the Spirit, instead of judging them according to the flesh, the flesh, you know, we're all just a mixture of messy flesh. And so when we're looking at somebody and their messy flesh, we're not going to see what God's up to. But when we ask the Holy Spirit to show us and we judge according to the Spirit, then we can see what God is up to in that person's life. And we can be positioned to cooperate with it, we can speak into it, we can not be dismayed by what the flesh and the enemy are doing. But we can keep praying and speaking into what God is up to in that person's life, so that we can be an agent of his work in that person's life. In part two, we looked at the amazing reality that we are corporately, and also individually, the temple of the Holy Spirit, that that's exactly what Scripture says that we are. When we gather together we become as the people of God, we become the place where heaven and earth meet, which is what the temple in Jerusalem was to the Jews. That was the place where you could encounter heaven. We have become that both individually, in our actual physical bodies is what Paul says in first Corinthians. But also when we gather together we are that dwelling place of God, the place where heaven and earth intersect. And we carry the presence and intentions of heaven into the earth. And we also carry the needs and petitions of earth to heaven. We also discovered in part two, the the reality of the Spirit's presence was given in the early church, apostolic letters in the New Testament never address how to get the Holy Spirit. Because he was already there, he was understood that the Holy Spirit was in their midst, instead, what we see as teaching on how not to grieve Him, and so lose his power and influence. And so what can do that? Well, we discover the carnal living us tolerating habits of the flesh and habits of sin in our lives carnal living sets us at odds with the Spirit. Scripture tells us that the spirit and the flesh are at war with one another. And if we're, if we're feeding one, then we're depriving the other. So we have a choice to make, about whether we are sowing to the flesh or to the Spirit, because we will reap what we sow. There is an intentionality and a power of choice implicit here. The Spirit does dwell within us, the Spirit is given to us at salvation, but we still have to choose him. We could probably all testify to times when we're like, Well, I know I believe in Jesus. But I don't really sense. Anything here other than me. Like, I just don't sense the presence of the Holy Spirit. Well, when that's the case, it's good to ask the question, What am I sewing to? Am I sewing to my flesh? am I allowing myself to get sucked into distractions of the world, the busyness of life, am I allowing myself to be lazy in my thought patterns and it's stead of aligning my thought with scripture, I'm just thinking all the thoughts of the world around me, that will put out the voice of the Holy Spirit in our lives, it doesn't mean that we lose our salvation, it just means we've got some intentional sowing to the spirit to do to be in that place where we're conscious of the presence of the Holy Spirit in our in our lives. Scripture tells us that we're to live by the Spirit, to walk in the Spirit, to be led by the Spirit, do you notice that there's in that walking with the Spirit, he gets to lead, we are to be led by the Spirit, where to set our minds on the things of the Spirit, all of those pieces of guidance from the early church, that ancient voice speaking to us today is saying, you have to do something. There is a partnership that's involved here that you have to do to position yourself to experience the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in you. When we do that, when we choose him by sowing to the spirit, we have access to everything he is in and for us. And we are then empowered to be heavens representatives. But it's entirely possible for us to not be that or do that. So this brings up a good question. Can we tell when we have grieved the Spirit of God? We all do. We all do it at one time or another. We all grieve the Spirit of God, we all still have areas of carnal living, we all still have, you know, ways that we're tolerating sin in ourselves short tempered Ness or judgment or you know, whatever it is. So we all do it. The point is for us to live in obedience to Him so close to the spirit, that we are actually aware of his displeasure. Have you felt I bet if we were to stop and give testimonies, every one of us could give a time when we were in the middle of doing something and all of a sudden we felt God say, oh, no, son. No, that's not how we do. Right? We've all felt that. And we must, we have to, that's the spirit of God in us, forming Christ in us Crucifying the flesh in us. So here's a good just a, you know, tuck this away. If you're not experiencing that, is it because you've become the doll of hearing? Is it because you've allowed yourself to drift away from the spirit to the point where you're not actually listening to him anymore? Because he, when we grieve him by not listening to him, he doesn't leave but his voice gets more distant and more distant, we can harden our hearts against him, so that eventually we're not hearing that life giving voice anymore. So just, you know, to process for yourself? Am I sensing that in my life with him right now? Where where I can tell when I've grieved him? When I have grieved him, What does my heart do? What health looks like is that when I've grieved him, it grieves me. And I repent, and I run to the Lord and say, Forgive me, create in me a clean heart, renew a right spirit within me, I want to stay so close to you. That I can sense your every whisper that I am, you can steer me. That's the relationship I want to have with you. So, Father, we just we live that before you right now, for our family here today. And for all those who will hear this message later. On Holy Spirit, you know where we are with you. You know how clogged up our ears are or aren't. So for all of us, Lord, would you convict us? Would you convict our hearts right now. Even bring to mind, places where we've just blocked our ears and gone law, law law instead of being sensitive to the leading of your Spirit. Lord, we long for that intimate relationship with you in which you can steer us. We ask it in Jesus name. So we're also told not to quench the spirit. Apparently we can put out the spirits flame in our midst by not honoring the gift of God in us, among us, and in one another. That's what Paul's talking about in First Thessalonians five, when he tells us not to despise prophecy, and not to quench the spirit is that they're in their gatherings. The Spirit of God would bring something up and they because of either class consciousness or you know, whatever reason they were not honored. In the prophetic words that some of their people were bringing forward. And Paul said that that's not healthy, you're quenching what the Spirit is trying to do, because you're not honoring the person he wants to use to do it through. That's not going to work friends. So what he's talking about there, and so we want to make sure that we're honoring the gift of God in that way. And then the last thing is that we found that a vitally important part of walking in the Spirit involves humility, because it takes humility, to yield our lives for the use of God. And that's what we're doing when we're a vessel of the Holy Spirit, we get to see ourselves as small, not really that important. I mean, God loves us, don't get me wrong. God loves us with an unspeakable tenderness. But in the grand scheme of things, when we look back at all of the, you know, eternity, my little life is really not going to be that significant. What will be God. And that's the invitation that we have, is to see ourselves as small and a vessel for God, the very presence of God, the Holy Spirit is not something other than God, He is the Spirit of God. And he actually lives in us and we get to be containers for him. Paul talks about a treasure in clay pots, okay, so yay, I get to be a clay pot. That's my role in this partnership is that I'm the clay pot, the light that lives in that clay pot is the important thing. Okay. And so we are consenting to be inhabited by another, who comes as Jesus did both as servant and as Lord. He comes to enable us to fulfill the purposes of God, which begs the question, is that what we want to, to fulfill the purposes of God? If our intent is to fulfill the purposes of God, if we're ready to deny ourselves, our own worldly concerns and desires, take up our cross and follow Jesus, then the Holy Spirit's here for it. That's exactly what he's here for is he's going to bring all of His power, His wisdom and heavenly resources to bear as we seek to fulfill the purposes of God. But if that isn't what we want, then his presence is without much effect in our lives, we might see some glimmers here and there, we might, you know, experience His presence here and there. But we're probably not going to experience the fullness of the power of the presence of God. Because there we are in the channel that he wants to flow through, we've narrowed it down to about that match. And so he will flow through what we give him but the more that we align ourselves with the purposes of God, the bigger that channel is that he can then flow through in our lives. And I wonder if that explains some of the relative powerlessness of much of western Western Christianity, that our desires and intentions are just not aligned with the desires and intentions of God. If we give the Holy Spirit something to work with, he totally will He is no respecter of persons, a life yielded for the Lord for the fulfilling of Your kingdom come, is really all that's required. So this is the first and most important part of learning to live in the spirit, just getting our hearts right and our spirits resonating with the Holy Spirit's agenda. We cooperate then by recognizing and crucifying the works of the flesh, welcoming the spirit to make us more like Jesus and extend the reign of Jesus in our lives and through our lives. Everything else, the gifts, the fruit, the supernatural manifestations, everything the Spirit is given to the church to accomplish and bringing the kingdom of God that will culminate in Christ's return. They flow from that place of humility and yielding, we submit to the Holy Spirit and we defer to him. Okay, so I today, I just want to also throw out a few practicals. How do we give ourselves more to being the vessels of the Holy Spirit? Can we make ourselves more available for that? Can we tune our ears and our hearts to hear him better? Of course we can. And that's what the people of God have been doing through spiritual disciplines and practices for two millennia. Now. If you think this spirit led life is challenging, you're not alone. The saints have been waging war against the flesh and seeking to be more yielded to the spirit through all of the ages of the church. And the spiritual practices we know today developed because the church through the ages has been like, oh, no, left to our own devices will screw this up. And so what can we do? What are some things that we can actually put into practice? so that we can position ourselves to have more of the Lord. I mentioned this just briefly last time, Dallas Willard, who was a, he was a marvelous. He sought to understand spiritual formation, he was a great theologian. He broke spiritual disciplines into the things we choose not to do, which are the disciplines of abstinence, and the things we choose to do, which he called disciplines of engagement. And so all of the things I'm about to name, here's the thing, they can all be done without leading to more of the Holy Spirit. Because if we do them in our flesh, and we just do them to check a box, then we might just end up hungry. We, they really can't do that. And so let's keep in view that we want to come to these practices, with the holy yearning, that the practice would draw us deeper into the life of the spirit to die more to the flesh for Christ to be formed in us. If we'll do that, they will do that for us. Okay, so first, I want to just talk about a few of the disciplines of abstinence. And that's when we willingly give something up so that we can have something else. In this case, we're giving something up so we can have more of God. The ones that Dallas Willard names, and there are other people who write on this who may be named some slightly different ones. I like his because I like the way he breaks them up. But if you read, for instance, so Richard Foster's celebration of discipline, his are very similar, maybe a little bit different. Lots of people have written on the disciplines, they're all good. Willard names fasting, silence, solitude, frugality, chastity, secrecy, and sacrifice. List them again, fasting, silence, solitude, frugality. So choosing not to spend money on something so that you can have something else, chastity, choosing not to engage in sexual relations, so that you can have more of God. Paul talks about that doing that for a time, even in a marriage. Obviously, chastity is a wonderful practice if you don't happen to be married. And secrecy, which is when you do good works, and you don't tell anybody about them. And then sacrifice which is when you do something that costs you something. So I'm not going to go into a lot of description about those if you're interested. I do recommend Willards book called The spirit of the disciplines, or Foster's book, celebration of disciplines, they're classics, but fasting positions us to crucify the flesh, so the spirit can have more of us. Now, the classic understanding of it is a fasting from food, which of course is powerful. But what else would you be willing to fast from in order to have more of the Holy Spirit? I'm not saying that fasting from food is not important. We should do that. But I think it's helpful to ask the Holy Spirit what's needed. There's a wonderful story in the book called Reese How old's intercessor Reese? How old's intercessor he was a Welshman. And some people speculate that his yield adness to the Lord and the community that he raised up in Wales in the period of World War Two, turn to the course of World War Two, because their intercession was so incredibly powerful. But the story the book, Rees Howells intercessor, tells about the journey that the Holy Spirit took him through to get him to the place where he was yielded enough to be used by God in that way. And one of the stories that they tell is that Rhys howls was asked by the Holy Spirit to go without a hat in public, now, in his day, which would have been early 1900s. That was a scandalous thing, for a man to go out in public, without a hat. Men never walked about without hats. And it was it was a sign of respectability, that you had a hat if you didn't have a hat, then you must have been really poor. And that was a shameful thing. But he had made it a habit to when he was walking, if there was no one around or if it was dark, he would take his hat off, because he was always praying. And so he would take his hat off, because he felt that that was respectful to the Lord, to go without a hat when he was praying for people. And so the Holy Spirit in prayer one day said that he was to remain in the attitude of prayer all day. And so whether working, walking or anything else, the souls of those for whom he was praying were to be upon His heart. And so he was to go hatless wherever he went. Now this created a crisis for him because He knew how people were going to see that. He was deeply grieved, because so many of the things that the Holy Spirit led him to, he lived at still at that time at home with his. I don't remember, his father was living, but he at least lived with no, his father was living. Yeah, he lived at home with his parents. And his poor mother went through fits every time the Holy Spirit tried to get him to do something unusual. She was like. And so the Lord asked him to go without a hat. And he was like, Oh, my mom is my mom is gonna have a heart attack over this. But he This created a crisis for him because he realized how much pride and how much concern about the opinions of men was still alive in him, that it would be this hard for him to go without a hat and know what people were thinking about him. And so it was this simple act of fasting from wearing a hat that revealed a strong route of what he called the respectable self nature, that was an idol in his life. And so his obedience, as painful as it was, broke the power of that root in him, and freed him to be more available to whatever the spirit asked of him. So we have to ask the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit knows our idols, he knows what we need to fast from what that would look like. And yes, it's painful when idols die. We have to prepare ourselves for that. But that's also what removes some of that clutter so that we can belong holy to the Lord. Okay, I'm going to quickly go over some of the rest of these, and maybe we'll have an opportunity to go more deeply into them another time. Silence is an invitation for us to stop the incessant chatter of our mouths and our minds, to hear more of what the Spirit is saying. It's to honor his voice above every other voice. Are we comfortable with silence? With waiting in patients for him? Part of the spiritual direction program that I'm in it requires to spiritual silent retreats. And so I still have one to do. But I did a short one last month. And it what I discovered in that place of silence, first of all, I don't I'm not uncomfortable with silence, I actually crave it. But when I was sitting in silence, and finally, you know, thoughts are still racing, racing, racing. And so I'm just sitting there. And as the thoughts were racing, I'm like, Okay, nope, I don't need to honor you right now. You'll be there. When I get back. I don't need to deal with that right now. Just letting my own thought life settle down into a place of silence. First of all, I realized it takes a long time to do that. It like this was a 24 hour silent retreat. And by about hour 22, you know, I'm finally starting to feel like, oh, I needed another day, to be able to actually sit in that place of silence before the Lord where I'm not hearing anything but him. Because my goodness, I don't need to hear me any more. But it also really made me realize, like feeling that silence. It felt like taking a deep breath and realizing you've been holding your breath. You ever do that? Where all of a sudden you go and you go, Oh my goodness, my body needed that. Why am I depriving myself of oxygen? That's what that place of silence felt like is just going. Wow, my mind is so noisy. My world is so noisy. So can you see how doing what Scripture tells us to do in Psalm 62 Verse five, where it says For God alone, oh, my soul, wait in silence. For my hope is from him. Other translations translate wait in silence as rest. In other words, to be silent, is to rest from our own thoughts from the tyranny of our own opinions. Oh, I get so sick of my own opinions shut up for heaven's sakes, from the limitations of our own smallness, and to just acknowledge Him as God. Okay, I just want to we're, yeah, we're just about overtime. There's so there's just one more I have others, but we'll just do a Part Four for this, I guess. Okay, maybe two real short ones. I talked last time a little bit about the discipline of noticing. I just think that's super important for us to notice where the Lord likes to meet us. That can change over time. But like one of the things that I've noticed over the years is that for whatever reason, God loves to meet me when I'm gardening. Now I am not even a good gardener. Like, for the four years my house was warehouse plants came to die, I do not have a green thumb. And yet every time I would go out and work in the yard and work in the garden, if I'm at all attentive, the Holy Spirit of God is there, and he wants to talk to me. Good noticing, right, like so when I'm in a place where I really want to hear from God. Where is it that he likes to meet me? Maybe fishing? I don't know. What is that for you? But also notice, what are the things that I do that make it harder for me to experience His presence? Or their thought patterns? Are there things that I do? Are there practices I'm engaging in that it's hard for me to get back into that place of being yielded to His Spirit after that good noticing important noticing. To me when I'm watching football. Amen. Tom, for those who couldn't hear, Tom just said that he really notices that the Lord encounters him most when he's watching football. Scripture, Psalm 4610. Be still, yes, thank you so much, Jerry I, that's a wonderful one, to see striving to be still and know that He is God, how much stillness Have you baked into your life? If you're like most modern Americans, not that much. That has to be an intentional carving out of places for silence and solitude. In that place of silence and solitude, we can encounter the Lord, be transformed, give ourselves to Him in love, feel him filling us be transformed, for the for the days for the weeks, the months ahead. Okay. And then the last one I want to talk about is today is just practicing the presence of God. I'm sure you've all heard of the classic by Brother Lawrence, or it's a collection of his writings and letters, called practicing the presence of God. There is another little book called practicing his presence that incorporates brother Lawrence's book, and another small one by Frank law, Bach called I don't know what his law books The one is, but his, the practice that he did was called the game with minutes. And what he said was, I want the Holy Spirit to have all of me. And so what I'm going to do is, I'm going to see if I can turn my attention to the Lord at least once every minute. And I right I know, Jenny's eyes are this big, right? Like, that just feels like a lot, right? But if you even start out with that intention, and you fail 50% of the time, that still means that you're turning your attention to the Lord. That many times, how many times do we go throughout our day, maybe we have that devotional time in the morning, you know, and sometimes maybe we don't. But when we do it, then we leave the place of prayer. We go on about our day. And like by noon, we've even forgotten there's a God, you know, like, we're just, we're just in the flesh by them. We're just going about our lives. And so that game with minutes the practicing the presence of God, and I brought this to show some of you saw it, I picked this one up at the retreat last year, because Dick Duncan had them out. It's healthy, emotionally healthy, spiritually, day by day. What this does is it incorporates a spiritual practice called The Daily Office, which is it's been in the church for centuries. And it is exactly this. They have morning prayers, noontime prayers, evening prayers, and then what they call complient, which is bedtime prayers, which is a regular rhythm of turning to the Lord, at specific times during the day, for exactly this, we leak. We forget, we lose our way. And then if we're not praying again, until the next morning, then we're going through a whole lot of our lives without that intentional partnership with the Holy Spirit. And so whether you're doing the game with minutes, whether you're just you know, peeling potatoes and practicing the presence of God, whether you're doing something more structured like The Daily Office, to be in that place of saying, Lord, we need you, I want you I want to turn my attention back to you. re welcome you into my life. reset my heart to obey you. To what what could work for you. I don't know. Ask the Holy Spirit. So Okay. Um, yeah, that's all we have time for today. So I'm just going to pray and then I'd love to open it up for any of you to share who would like to Holy Spirit, we trust that you're here and that you're already giving us ideas. Have what this could look like in our lives. It is your desire to have more of us. And for us to have more of you. It is your desire that we would have your wisdom to walk through the days we're living in. It is your desire that your power would flow through us to complete the kingdom work that's appointed for us and our generation. And so Come Holy Spirit to each person and each family. We ask it in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you for joining us today. Aaron ova is raising up spiritual leaders in many nations through our spiritual enrichment events, syndicated NetCast international prayer Council network, and numerous international seminary scholarships. Together, we are lighting the fires of revival, fueling prayer movements and raising up friends of Jesus in the nations. We invite you to partner with us in this extraordinary movement. You can sign up as a prayer and financial partner today by going to Aaron nola.org and clicking give. Please include your email address so that we can send you updates. That's era nova.org. Click give and become a monthly partner today. 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