Re__ Re-member, Re-turn, Re-embrace Pt2 - I am Afraid!

GREET EVERYONE-

If I have not had a chance to meet you; My name is Scott and I am a follower of Jesus and have the privilege of serving Him as the Lead Pastor among the people of Stonewater Fellowship.

Our Vision:

We Desire see every follower of Jesus well equipped and fully deployed on the mission of Jesus.

What mission? - This questions leads us to articulate His mission for His church in a simple way.

Our Mission:

Is to engage people into a multiplying relationship with Jesus!

WELCOME-

When we are all gathered here at our campus there is a phrase that from time to time you will hear me use.

In fact when I got up here just a few seconds ago used it when I said good morning.

I said “good morning loved ones”

As we get in to the message this morning I want to navigate a couple of things about the term “loved ones” and why I use it.

AND ya know I'm not really sure how you react to it when you hear it.

Reality is I don’t use it because I am the one who loves you.

Now I do love all of you at different levels and different ways.

but there are some of you that I am just getting to know your name and some even still that we have never said hello yet.

I don’t use it becasue you are loved by me - I use it becasue we are all love by God the Father - with a love that is so immense that it is really hard to fully understand -

but here is the truth - He loves us! He loves you and me.

Le Loves us so much that He sent Jesus in to this world. -

And He opens the opportunity so that anyone, anywhere at any time who trusts in Him,

Anyone who trusts in his finished work on the cross and the Power of His resurrection as the only means of complete and total forgiveness from God for all of our brokenness.

The kind of forgiveness that completely repairs our relationship with the God,

Anyone who trust those things and who lives that trust out - The Promise is they will not perish but will receive -

They will receive the Holy Spirit to dwell in their physical bodies,

They will receive being regenerated as a new creature and new life

And part of the new life will also mean they will posses eternal life with God the father as a child of his, as an heir to His kingdom and an eternal recipient of His grace for ever and ever and ever -

That is why I use the terms “loved ones”. Because God loves us!

Listen - know that Love for most if not all of us is a term that come with it some brokenness.

The earthly kind of Love that we all experience has failed all of us in some ways -

Some in large ways and in some in small ways.

If this is the first time you have ever been to a worship gathering of the church or it has just been a long time -

And maybe the reason is is becasue earthly love has failed you and relationships have hurt and you just don't know if love exists.

My hope is that you will hang around long enough to come to know the love of God that HE displayed in the person and work of Jesus.

and you will join in with all of us as we all learn to love each other imperfectly under his grace and forgiveness.

LETS GRAB OUR BIBLES IF YOU HAVE ONE AND

Open it to Luke chapter 11 and verse 13 today as we continue in our sermon series

RE---

In this series we are Exposing SOME of the things that God says in His word about the Holy Spirit.

What I pray happens to all of us is that we will

Re-member The Holy Spirit and his working in our life.

Re-turn to the Holy Spirit in our knowledge and activity as the God that has taken up residency in our bodies.

Re-embrace the Holy Spirit and the person of God that is actually with us and the one we have recieved in God saving us.

TRUTH -

ENGAGEMENT –

Are we afraid?

Are you afraid?

Am I Afraid?

I think for most of us this morning you are now asking: Pastor… Afraid of what?

Ya know fear is an interesting thing to think about.

In general terms think what are you afraid of -

I think many of us are afraid of snakes -

My self I am terrified of them. So much so that when I take the kids to the zoo I have difficulty going into the place where all the snakes are -

And in there they are all behind like bullet proof shatter proof glass.

But it still is a little freaky when I go in there.

Maybe for you its bugs or spiders or snakes -

How about death?

I’m not sure that I am all afraid of actual dying as much as I am the way death comes.

There are certain ways of dying that I am just afraid of.

Some of you know what I am talking about.

Heights are something that people are afraid of.

I not so sure I am afraid of heights as I am falling.

How about this one - Public Speaking?

Getting up in front of a large gathering of people and giving a speech.

Now all of those are fears of positive - Fears of something actually in front of us.

TENSION

I have though about this a lot lately - and i’m not really sure how this all lays out.

But maybe just maybe we are have an interesting fear about God.

and Here is what I mean.

I wonder if we have a fear of of the negative when it comes to God?

Ya know like praying and nothing happens?

You may not think much about this but this is something that I think we really need to place out there in front of ourselves.

IS that the reason we don’t pray on Sunday mornings with everyone?

Is that the reason our prayer team is not inundated with people lining up to be prayed with and prayed for?

You might be thinking “Pastor… afraid of what?

Afraid that if I pray God doesn't answer my prayers?

Or worse - what if He doesn't come through for me?

Ya know the Scripture says that one of the fruits of the Spirit is patients and kindness.

Many of us need patience - How many of us are afraid to pray for the Holy Spirit of God to give us patience becasue we have prayed it before and we are still not very patient at all.

You see I thing this is one area that has moved us away form prayer - Especially prayer for the Holy SPIRIT to have His way with us.

ad Church I'm not talking about the “have you way with me lord” kind of prayer.

I talking about the weeping, surrender, i feel like my chest is gonna burst Kinda prayer -

What if Nothing happens?

What if I pray like I did before for more of the Spirits fruit and no change?

It is interesting that Francis Chan thinks through these same thoughts and draws a fearful conclusion.

Our fear of God failing has caused us to “cover for God” by expecting less of GOD?

We actually think to our selves “we have all of God we need we done need any more Especially in terms thinking that we need more of the Holy Spirit.

What a frightful thought -

I mentioned at the beginning of this series how shocking it is that the Holy Spirit - The Person of God that actually is with us - that actually dwells in us - has been the subject of so much division in the church.

Here is what the interesting part is Jesus encourages us to receive the Holy Spirit and He actually says that the Holy Spirit is a Good Gift from our heavenly father.

and not only that WE should actually ask in prayer that our Father would send the Person of the Holy Spirit

Luke 11:13 ESV

13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Here is what Jesus has just spoken to us both directly and indirectly -

In the brokenness of our human relationships we know how to give Good Gifts to our children -

What are the good gifts that we give them -

Food Clothing Shelter Transportation - nurturing, Love and Kindness and encouragement and discipline and understanding and care.

Jesus says - We know how to Give those thing sot our Children to our off spring -

And we give those things without limit and for most of us at the drop of a hat, Eagar to give them - and Jesus we we are evil.

Jesus then Says “how much more will the Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask?”

How much more Eagar and willing is the Father to Give us the Holy Spirit simply by Asking.

I do wonder though -

Ya know God not coming through is a fear for sure -

But I wonder how many of us are more afraid of actually showing up.

What is we pray for the Holy Spirit and God give it to us our of His eagerness and willingness as Jesus said He would and Then What?

and what happens after the 10 day prayer meeting that was going on with the 120 people.

and we read about the sound of the wind and we read about them all going out and speaking in tongues and this powerful movement of God and It makes me wonder what ew think about that -

DO we think - Man If I ask for the Holy Spirit and God gives it to me - Will he ask me to go somewhere I really don't want to GO?

Will he as me to do something that I am not all that comfortable with?

Will he ask me to do something that is disruptive of my life?

You see one of the things that I think most if not all of us are deathly afraid of is not being in control.

I wonder how far that fear of not being in control has influenced our desire to fully embrace the Holy Spirit.

I wonder if the Idea of the Spirit leading and guiding and prompting and controlling our life and will is scary to us.

You see loved ones - The Truth is that when we repent, and surrender our lives to the Lord Ship of Jesus - To Him being master of our lives He sends the Holy Spirit to us to do what Jesus want to do with our life.

This is why when the People of Jerusalem heard the proclamation of the Gospel for the very first time and peter preached and the Holy Spirit Convicted - and they were cut to the heart.

The People - The ones that God was adding to them that day The three thousand.

They heard Peter Preaching and he finished His sermon with

Acts 2:36 ESV

36 Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

They were cut to the Heart and they Said to Peter and the rest of the Apostles -

WHAT SHALL WE DO?

Here is what Peter said to them -

Acts 2:38 ESV

38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

This is why Peter did not say “Repent and ask Jesus into your heart”

And from the whole council of Scripture we can understand this exclamation by Peter

Repent - Turn your life over to God’s Control

Be Baptized in the Name of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins - because that is what Jesus commanded you to do and us to do as we made disciples.

and then Peter says “and AS you repent to Gods control - As you follow through with that in obedience beginning with Baptism

You will Receive the holy Spirit.

You see here is the truth of Scripture and the Truth of experience -

The Holy Spirit, if yielded to and we are filled with, will absolutely tell us to go somewhere or do something that is so far out of our comfort zone that we absolutly will need God to do it.

1st place He will lead us to is to the Cross of Jesus for our life to be crucified with Christ -

The Spirit led Jesus there and He will lead us there as well.

This is not safe = This is not comfortable - This is according to the worlds estimation crazy and radical and out of control - But this is where the Spirit will lead us -

And in the process of leading us to the Cross The will also over time conform us and mold us into the image of Jesus. New Creatures - Regenerated unto New Life.

This is often painful and uncomfortable and upsetting to the life we had planned. But it is also glorious as we get to see God work and move in our life.

As as all that is happening Here is what he will also do:

HE will take you places you never thought you would go,

you will do things that you never thought you would do,

you will speak languages you never thought you would speak,

and you will See the Holy Spirit move in the life of others in ways that you never thought were possible, and in the midst of all that you will know Jesus in a deeper and more abiding way.

But what Stands in our way?

I think in our culture there are many many things that are opposing the Spirit.

It is interesting that I had a conversation with one of my 8 kids recently about the difficulty in following and knowing Jesus in our culture -

He said Dad its hard becasue of all of this -

I wonder is we are afraid of loosing -

Afraid of loosing this -

or Loosing our reputation?

IF we read and study and talk about the Holy Ghost are we worried that we will be perceived as to Charismatic?

I have even wondered at some level what people think about me when I talk about the Spirit - Wondering if there is a fear in your hearts that I am leading us somehow into chaos.

If you talk about the Movement of the Holy Spirit with other are you worried about them thinking your too out there -

Here is the reality of our reputations - Following Jesus - being in relationship with him, in and through prayer, the word and obedience must be the focus of our life.

When we allow the perceptions of others to control how we live for Jesus we become entangled in the things of this world and we no longer live as citizens of Heaven.

Earlier I spoke of fear - Things we are afraid of -

There are some healthy, good fears.

maybe there are called bondries or river banks or things we need to check on.

Here is where we really need to dial in on this - When we think about our reputation and what others think -

Are we more concerned with what others think and say then we are about bringing grief and sorrow and sadness to God -

This is what Paul is talking about with the Ephesian Church -

when He says Eph 4:30

Ephesians 4:30 ESV

30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Do not bring sadness and sorrow Grieving to the Holy Spirit of God.

I think that looking back there are many many ways that I was grieving the Holy Spirit.

One of those ways was looking with contempt on others whom the spirit had given certain gifts to -

you see loved ones I think we a lot about other people reaction to us but rarely do we consider if we have brought grief or sorrow to the Holy Spirit.

Lets look at the command in

1 Thessalonians 5:19 ESV

19 Do not quench the Spirit.

DO we somehow quench the spirit?

I not sure I even really knew what Quenching the Spirit meant. SO I looked it up.

It means to “Put the Fire out”

Here is what I'm talking about - I'm not talking about just saying no to what other people have in mind or to what they want to do - That might be quenching their Spirit -

What Paul is talking bout is putting out the Holy Spirit working in your life and in the life of others.

This is so Important - If we are going to re-embrace the Holy Spirit we must examine if we have some time in the past Quenched the Spirit.

I think there are many many times I just assumed that I had never quenched the Spirit and never really thought about it.

Paul Gives us some good examples to self examine with -

1 Thessalonians 5:20 ESV

20 Do not despise prophecies,

Here is what that Means - IT means to treat prophecies with contempt.

It is a pretty interesting debate in christian circles as to what Prophecies are.

and you don’t have to look very far to read and hear some person on the internet with “profetic ministry”

and Maybe just maybe its a little closer to home for you.

Maybe you have heard someone say something along the lines of “I have a word from the Lord”

and listen there are certainly without question people in the world and especially in the western Church that have abused EVEN the IDEA of the use of the Prophetic stuff.

Were gonna deal with it in great detail when we talk through the Gifts later this year, but here is the general guidelines to know if it is a profetic gift from the Holy Spirit.

1st off it will Glorify God - Here is whats important about that - It will reveal God. That is what Glorify means. IT will focus our attention to God and his power and majesty no on a person who says “I have a word”

2nd it will be based in scripture. God is finished speaking Scripture which means that the Old Testament guys that were speaking directly on behalf of YHWH are not with us in any other way than through the pages of Scripture.

And there are certainly future events that are predicted by the Old Testament guys and even a couple of the new testament guys that have not occured yet.

However God is finished laying down Scripture.

But that does not mean that the profetic gift in a new testament way is done -

Here is what the New Testament gift does -

1 Corinthians 14:3 ESV

3 On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation.

Up building like building a house - SO think of it as there is an area in your life that needs building and someone who knows nothing about it just comes over to you or calls you on the phone and says “I was reading my bible and reading this verse and i don't know why but your name just popped into my head and I think God wanted me to shar it with you.

That is the other thing that you will sense is humility on the part of the deliver.

Remember that the Gift is not for the person upon whom the words are spoken.

The Gift is for the person who needs building up - Affirmation - or Encouragement or Comfort or consolation.

and it adds to the church - it adds to the assembly of the called out ones.

Paul says Strive to build up the church - Strive to add to the assembly of the called out ones.

That is what Paul says toward the end of Chapter 14

If everyone is Encouraging one another and co-building up one another and comforting one another and a stranger walks in the assembly - The Holy Spirit will fall on Him and he will be convicted and called into account and his secrets will be revealed and he will fall on His face and say -God is really among you.

Loved ones that is a move of the Spirit on someones life.

3rd thing is it will be accurate - here is the funny thing - It may not be accurate today.

In fact it may not be accurate for years.

It will Encourage but it might not hit its target right away -

Reality is becasue the Holy Spirit never misses.

I was told by my aunt Ruthelleen that I was going to be a preacher 20 + years before I began preaching.

I was told I would be a pastor by another Pastor nearly a decade before I became one.

When those people spoke those things, I dismissed them as inaccurate - Not inaccurate to day.

SO when you hear something like that - Don’t look at the person with contempt - Don’t immediately dismisses it.

You might totally miss the working of the Holy Spirit.

Some of you may be asking well what do we do Pastor?

Glad you asked - Verse 22

Test Everything -

After you have tested it - Hold on to it - It is a gift given to you by the Holy Spirit of God and it is a GOOD gift.

Last Test -

It has to come from divine unconditional love.

It has to come with patients, and Kindness - it cannot come with envy boastfulness ore pride or rudeness. It does not come with the insistence that it is right and it is not given out of irritability or resentment.

You see if any gift that the Holy Spirit gives is delivered to another our of anything but love for that other person.

Then it is useless and noisy -

1 Corinthians 13:1–8 ESV

1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.

So Everything must be done out of love and not a miss guided sense of Love But Divine love.

STICKY POINT

APPLICATION OR IMAGINE

As Rob and Melissa and the worship team come and lead us back in to musical worship.

The Question now remains -

What do we do? What do we do with this?

Here is what I know - Right now there is some skepticism, and maybe just some down right fear going on -

and the skepticism and fear is based on a bigger problem.

I think that it is possible that many of us are afraid of “going too far” or “gettin out of control” or “not being orderly” and even worse we are afraid of other people doing that.

and know this loved ones - I don't want to be out of order and out of control either.

SO here is what the Scripture Says -

PRAY

Ask God who gives good gifts to give and deeper relationship with the Holy Spirit

Be filled with the Holy Spirit -

Don’t Quench Him

Desire Him to do more than you can think or even Imagine according to the power that is with in you.

Chase after Love

Earnestly desire His gifts that are always for other people than yourself. Especially what Paul calls the Higher Gifts.

Pray for all things to be done in order.

Pray that God would remove all your fears and anxieties about the Ghost -

Pray that God would change your heart and you would put down your worry about your reputation and what others think about you and ask God to release His power in your life.

Here is what will happen to you -

God will be glorified in and through your life.

You will change - The regeneration of the Spirit will be much more than a happens conception but will become a living reality.

and Here is what you will do over time -

You will go places that you never thought you would go.

You will meet people that you never thought you would meet

You will do things in obedience of Jesus by the mere power of the Holy Spirit that will be all for His glory that you never through or imagined you would do.

You will speak languages that you never thought you would speak.

and when you yield everything to Him

And in a very real sense Jesus may wreck your life and your reputation and your sense of abundance and everything you thought was your life.

But if He does -

But if He does - He will rebuild it into something that is more beautiful and more abundant and more eternal that you can possibly imagine.

You may be hear or watching and you have done a pretty good job of wrecking your own life and you are thinking and hoping there are some solutions, some fixes, that God may have an answer - He does! What do you do when you have wrecked it - Turn your life over to Jesus - Repent is how the scripture defines this. Repent - Turn you life to Jesus, Follow Him make him Master of your life - Be obedient and be Baptized in the name of Jesus and pray to receive the Holy Spirit and the Bible says you will be born again and a new creature and and adopted child of God.

If this is you come to Jesus - The Invitation is for you and for everyone who is far away.

Come and pray with our prayer team that you would receive the good gift of God.

PRAYER TEAM