Sermon Tone Analysis

Prayer

LORD, we thank you for allowing us to enter into your story.

We invite you to speak to us today.

Give us open eyes to see you; open ears to hear you; open hearts to receive your truth.

In the name of Jesus.

Amen!

Welcome

Thank you for joining us today.

My name is Keith and my wife, Maegan, and I are honored to serve as the pastors here and on behalf of our entire team, we are so glad that you are here.

If there is anything we can do to serve you and your family, please let us know.

Introduction

We are in week 2 of our Holy Spirit series and if you weren’t here last week, please be sure to go to our podcast and catch up.

Each of these messages to connect to the other and so far we’ve addressed that the Holy Spirit is a gift so we don’t need to be afraid of Him and how the indwelling of the Spirit gives us POWER, BOLDNESS, and FRUITFULNESS but we have to get out of the way in order for Him to flow in our lives.

Today I want to continue our teaching on the topic of being led by the Holy Spirit Let’s look at a few very key passages around today’s theme.

Reference Scriptures

John 14:16

Psalms 37:23

MAIN TEXT

Allow me to introduce you to Saul he was incredibly smart.

He was a Pharisee, which is the very legalistic group the was essentially responsible for the death of Christ.

This Saul, was so passionate about shutting down any element of the “Way” that he took personal ownership over ensuring Christians were arrested and many subsequently killed for their belief in Jesus.

He had a great deal of murderous ambition especially after witnessing the first martyr, Stephen, get brutally murdered.

This inspired Saul and it is with this framework we enter today’s passage.

Who is Paul?

You have likely heard a pastor mention Paul.

You may be asking why do we care so much about what this man has to say?

That is an understandable question.

The Saul that we just finished reading about, is Paul and after his encounter with Christ, he went on to write 2/3 of the New Testament.

His words have shaped our faith and it’s his theology that frames the church.

It’s amazing that God would use someone who stood so diametrically opposed to the Kingdom to possibly have the biggest influence in it, next to Jesus.

That said, I believe we often miss a key character in this story; Ananias.

It was his obedience and response to the Spirit of God that set all of this into motion.

Many of us have likely heard statements like this: “God told me…I was led to…ultimately, that is the language of being Led by the Spirit.

The question is, what does that mean?

How do we know when it is God?

Does God still speak and lead in the same way?

Today I want to talk about being Spirit Led.

I have entitled my message, Follow God.

Prayer

LORD, we thank you for allowing us to enter into your story.

We invite you to speak to us today.

Give us open eyes to see you; open ears to hear you; open hearts to receive your truth.

In the name of Jesus.

Amen!

Illustration

Following God requires us to minimize the other voices.

As I work to continue to familiarize myself with the city, I have come to embrace the no matter how comfortable I may get, that I will still likely depend on maps of some sort to get around.

I am a man of convenience and I realize that each map has its strengths and weaknesses.

The navigation in my car is great because it is clear, but it is outdated.

The Apple maps one is great because it is integrated with my watch but sometimes it can take you a route that is not the fastest.

Google is cool but it has been known to glitch with me and Waze is wonderful but it is so meticulous that it may have me drive through someone’s back yard to shave off 2 minutes.

I can recall one time when using all 4 options to determine which was the best option.

I liked the Apple one and started my journey.

About half way into my trip, the map told me to get in the right lane and prepare to get off at the exit.

A minute later, the app told me to keep straight for the next 7 miles.

Again, it told me to get off at the next exit 3 miles away.

I was incredibly confused.

As I kept driving I realized that I was getting conflicting messages because I was listening to too many voices.

1 saying go left, the other said straight and yet another telling me to make a U turn.

Transition

How many of us are having a hard time getting to our destination because we are listening to too many voices.

The voice of our feelings, parents, Google, Podcasts, books, friends…none of this is bad when we use healthy boundaries (, , ) but we have to be mindful that we utilize resources and community to reinforce what God is telling you, otherwise you can have a collision of ideas and inspiration and have a traffic jam in your soul.

One voice is telling you to move, another says stay, one says turnaround; this robs you of peace and puts you on a journey of unhealthy affirmation.

As we look at this passage, I believe we get a beautiful glimpse of extremes of being led.

One being led by the flesh and the other being led by the Spirit.

Background/Context

Saul and Ananias brilliantly illustrate the distinction between being led by the flesh versus being led by the Spirit.

I do want to take a moment to highlight the fact that Saul honestly thought he was doing the right thing.

It’s so funny how our passion and zeal creates justification for some pretty weird stuff, especially if we can substantiate it in scripture.

I have seen followers of God attack others with toxic venom that repels a person looking for God because His ambassadors are at war.

Sometimes we can confuse personal passion with a divine call.

Truth is, nobody asked Saul to hunt down Christians but his passion convinced him it was on a divine assignment.

Side note, if God has called you to do something, He will confirm it with ELDERS!

We are either being led by the Spirit or driven by our flesh.

Don’t let personal passion make you believe it’s a divine call.

Points

When looking at Ananias I am inspired and challenged but I see a glimpse of what it means to be led by the Spirit.

God speaks to him and Ananias responds with “here I am, Lord”.

There isn’t 4 more powerful words you can say to God when He calls your name; “here I am” to indicate, Lord…I am present in your presence.

I believe there are 3 things we can extract from this narrative that will help us have some texture around what it means to be Spirit-led.

Go where God tells you to go.

Ananias is at home during his quiet time with God and he is met with a vision that included some very specific instructions.

He is told to go to Straight Street to the home of Judas.

That is so specific.

Have you ever felt that God was leading you to go somewhere specific?

My family knows that I am methodical when I go to grocery stores.

What’s the plan?

Which isle do we need to hit.

Let’s get on the same page.

The key is to spend a little time as possible.

However, this one time I couldn’t shake why I was in one of the longest lines at checkout.

No matter how much I wanted to go to the next line, there was this gentle nudge telling me, stay where you are.

So I did.

Turns out the lady in front of me rung up her order and was exactly 12 dollars short.

She was so embarrassed as she was trying to figure out what to put back.

I stuck my hands in my pocket and pulled out what I thought was an old receipt, turns out it was exactly $12.

I didn’t even know that I had it.

There was an overwhelming sense of, “this is why I told you to stay in this line”.

I simply paid the remainder and told her, God bless you.

She was moved to tears.