Devoted to the Fellowship

Well, let's turn back again to Acts chapter 2. And verse 42 and let's look at this. Verse will spend two more weeks in this verse and, and then we'll come back. And and I'm going to try to To bring together. Just some thoughts on the work of the Holy Spirit. It's a profound subject with many varied opinions. And yet necessary it's him with the subject that we, we shouldn't should not fear because it's essential that we come to terms with the role of the holy spirit in our lives and in the laughs at the church. But we're going to be in Acts 2:42. This isn't a devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to the fellowship to the breaking of bread. And the prayers. And we're going to hone in on that they devoted themselves. To The Fellowship of this verse in scripture has played, and still plays of a very critical role. In shaping my picture and understanding of what the church should be. Nothing even just left, the church should be, but what The Church Must Be in my mind, it encapsulates. If we wanted to take 11 verse out of the Bible, that would encapsulate, what the church is irreducibly. It would be this. It would be disbursed here. This is why the church is beer, minimum, if you want to look into be able to understand what is the church will, at least bare minimum it is, those who devote themselves to the apostles, teaching the fellowship to the breaking of it into prayers, Now, that's for Essentials.

Are the things to, which the whole church. that we read of an ax engaged in a Relentless Pursuit. Stubborn perseverance. They they latched onto these things. Committed to them committed themselves to these things in and they may not Define for us. Everything the church can be or even everything the church should be, but but what they do is they demonstrate for us. That the church really can't be any less than this and still really be called a church. This at a, at a minimum has to be true. And if and if I had their concisely state my vision For this church, it would be asked to 42b this verse my vision. I'm not saying that this is the church's vision. I'm just simply saying it, it's my vision and I hope and pray that someday. It'll be the church has vision and not only the church's Vision but it will be the division that begins to become reality something to to experience and I realize that that me not especially to our minds today. It may not seem like a very lofty Vision because we're talking about bare minimum at the church is irreducibly. We're talkin about that, the really the lowest threshold of what must exist in order to, to say a church really is a is a church, had somebody even see if it'll be Asian is being very unworthy, maybe even uninspiring or even faithless I have such what may appear to be a small vision. And I'm sure there are others out there and have much more elaborate visions. That sounds a lot more thrilling, a lot more exciting, and even see much of that fulfilled. But in my experience on closer scrutiny, These Bare Essentials these for Essentials that are are listed here for us. That was true of the first church or assets. And if these things are a Samson I can assure you that whatever else the church is doing Old Mill either just plain church because this is essential and necessary.

in fact, I would say that if you do not empty the word devotion of its meaning, and if you do not, if you end up, don't dilute the substance, I bought these for Essentials. Really are If you do not ignore the the universal participation that we see here in in Acts 2 in regard to these for Essentials. And if you do not discount the the dynamic that surrounded them in and really enabled in the context in which it took place.

I think you would see that this is a really a vision of necessity. One of absolute need because indeed, it is very rare to be able to find such a place that's characterized by Acts 2:42. You, you just don't see it unless you start emptying terms of their meaning, unless you start laughing and diluting, understanding of of what is in the passage. At the same time, I think it is a really go off the vision. Because of the devotion that we see here to did Beats for Essentials was the effect of the working of the holy spirit of God. In fact, if you take the Holy Spirit out of the equation it asks too I don't even think these four things, get honorable mention. I don't think they take place. You would not find the devotion that you see here apart from the working of the holy spirit of God.

I think if they would have pursued it. If you would have seen any semblance or mention of these things, they would have just been people working in the power of the Flash.

Working in a mechanical way. A lifeless way trotting along. With what they would call Devotion to these for Essentials. Then, that sounds amazingly like what we often find today? The reality of Acts 2:42 could only come by the work of the spirit at the result of it. It's one of the ways we know that the Holy Spirit was raining, but we are directly to hold it. This is the product where we're in this Dynamic context here where God spirit is working.

is significant of it is is is if you had this awesome living reality in a church, do you have the foundation? That's the foundation for which everything else will come in and you might say that, everything else of importance Will quite naturally follow. Every other thing that is needed beyond that will come in the most natural way. It will flow from that when this is a reality and what? It's not a reality then you got a manufacturer. It you got to figure out some way to make it work. You got to figure out some way to have some semblance of watch. You find in Scripture. Between the holy spirit of God is working in and the people of God or devoted these for Essentials. You got the foundation. You got the beginning by which the holy spirit will continue to work out these messages that were doing here in axis is in a tent in part to just drive us back to the Bible. That's all I'm trying to do this. If they let, let's let the Bible speak. Let's let the Bible say what it says.

because if we want to know, what the church is, what the church is to be, then we need some point of reference, we need some place that we go back to that becomes Urus.

and I think this tells us and one of the things I hope the challenges any notion that we might have in our minds to where we

We think this is somehow outside the realm of what can be experienced in our day and time. Because if it is, then we need to get busy about hearing things out of the Bible. I mean, if there is no more use of what we have an accident, but the to give us a historical record of the first church with no relevance to us today. That there is no pattern, there is no reference point. Granted that there is a lot that has to be waited through a lot that has to be sorted out a lot, that is not intended to be a pattern. But there's fundamentally things here that we are to draw out and understand. This is our point of reference. This is a a Biblical pattern that we are given to follow and I fear sometimes they were so accustomed to doing Christianity to doing Church. Without the laugh of the spirit that we just don't even know how to think about and process, what we even read here in the second chapter of Acts.

Me and certainly is unreachable for us. If you factor out the Holy Spirit, you factor, the Holy Spirit out. This book is just it's a Daydream, there's nothing more that we would glean and gang from what we see in Acts chapter 2 but just wishful thinking that we had experienced something similar, and in the same vein, as what we see experienced in Acts chapter 2, and that's why we have to get Back to the Bible, we go back to Aaron week. We allow it to establish our expectations to develop for us. Are definitions for how we understand things. Because we all know, all know how easy it is. To develop last in biblical ideas, over time. It always happens. It's not that we don't learn that in, in, in the process of church history, even of itself, and that's the value of church history. You can go back and read in periods where Things look very much like they do now. But you also at times go in church history, you find points where when you look at it when you read the passion that took place and maybe not have been universally and they have been Pockets off in front parts of this world but you you read it and you look at that experience. You look at the the Bible centeredness of the people, you look at the passion. You look at the the the self-sacrificing life, you look at the way that they viewed. What their life was in this world in the way that they looked at the world around him in your reading of it and you can't help from thinking and it's a very different experience. Then what we see you today. And if you think about it further, you begin to start thinking what that that looks a little bit more. Like what I see you next to, it looks more related to that experiencing and it causes you to answer the right question sometime. What's the value? That's why it's good to go in and to read from Saints of the past because sometimes it's it's one of the things that helps you to go back to the Bible in and think about things evaluate things, ask the right questions where you looking you ask is it possible that that I have developed some of the wrong understanding? So is it possible that I have have diluted different parts of what I understand scripture to teach? Has has my understanding of the word been more shaped by this culture in this world, then then I even know. I don't think it's one of the things that God uses the, to help us to evaluate and to think,

What are the things that's always been true in church history that causes laws in departures from laugh. Laugh in the church is we tend to revert to Traditions. It's always the Bible gets nuts off center a little bit or really we get nudged off. Center of the Bible. A little bit, has a way to have continuing that course and we become last Bible Center, didn't we? We create Traditions. Traditions are kind of a two-edged sword. Traditions can be very helpful. And traditions going at the same time, be very harmful. I mean, what is a, is a tradition except that? Which, at some point in time is a practice That became a pattern, a practice that became settled in a practice doing a way of doing that is embracing and then it gets carried from one generation to the Next Generation. And to the degree that it's better tradition emerges out of scripture itself. It has strength, but not only has strained that really has a 40. But to the degree that a tradition is maybe just one of many applications of something and scripture, it is helpful but it loses its strength and Authority as just a possible application. But when a tradition is something that is based on a misunderstanding of scripture or is based upon, not even scripture itself, it's just something that we adapted that we thought through that, we thought would be better though, but the church and it becomes a practice. And if tradition Well, then it's a problem.

Inevitably win. You look at experiences that sometimes people having you ask, what what what what what do we need? To restore us back. To what we find in Scripture. And usually people aren't running back to scripture to be able to say what we need. They're going to run back in time. Usually within the time of we just need to get back to and they're going to they're going to look at the tradition, may be of their grandfather or father what they experienced when they were a child. the night to be all in well, unless Unless the very things that you think are the most important things have nothing to do.

With a true life and experience of the church.

Or we can make another ear that I've already alluded to in that is sometimes we we look at the Bible and we look at scripture and we could see it there in and we realize there's something in it. So I think if we're truly Believers, that realize sometimes what we're reading here is not what we're experiencing in this day and time.

And we're confronted. And some way we have to deal with that, I think other something inwardly that makes us wrestle with that week, we can't be content with just seeing that difference without something changing. so, one of the easiest ways to relieve the tension is, To redefine the terms. To redefine, the experience has to be able to, to go in and and take the teeth out of what we sometimes. See in scripture so that it more reflects what we think we're capable doing nothing and holding up to and in the process, if that becomes a law, Because the departure. Becomes a a drift.

That's what I'm afraid that there's a tendency when I'll probably have it. A tendency toward developing a theology. That.

That looks at truth or what is taught as truth. What we're confronted with this true that X and determining that if we're not comfortable with it, it's to be rejected. You're not comfortable with it. It's, it's in there. And there is a true sense in which there's sometimes there is are Todd and there should be something that arises within us. That makes us uncomfortable about that, but it always should be that which makes us uncomfortable because we feel that God's word is under attack. It's very different than the discomfort that we sometimes experience. Because We feel like we're under attack. Because we think the truth of God may be demanding more of us than we are ready and willing to yield into him.

Where it is. So sharp. So harsh to us that we have we don't want to go that far.

And so if we're not comfortable with it, we just explained it away. We read it. We delivered it. We lessen it. If it's going to require me change if it's going to upset the flow of my wife, if it's going to interrupt my agenda, then I somehow have to shake this and Define it all to where I can keep the equilibrium.

And that's why we have to get reoriented. With the rap Benchmark, the reference point, and that's the bottle. The importance of this is really battle because the church is put here for a reason. The church is put here for a mission. And God has entrusted us with the solution to meet the problem of the ages. We look at we looking. What's wrong with our world today? You know, what's wrong with our world today? Same thing that was wrong with the world in the first century in Rome. We would think it's different, it's not different. I mean, there's a lot of expressions of seeing that might be different, got a lot of Technology. Now, that gives a lot of avenues. They didn't, they didn't even have to distract them and to even indulge themselves in. But there's nothing really different The problem of the world is the problem. The world's always had is that they live laugh without reference to God. They are separated from God. They're seeing has separated them and their God and they live life without reference to God. They live, according to the desires of the Flesh, and they're pursuing Subway. To satisfy their heat Mystic desires. The chase. They pursue.

oftentimes, plunging headlong into a morality and in Self-indulgent. We find every way in the world to justify every sin that has come along. We reason it away. We rationalize it away. Well, that's the same thing that happened in brown. Read the history.

It's the same thing that happens now and there's only one solution. There's always only been one solution and that is the solution at the church has been entrusted with and it's the gospel. I think you see an ax is when the church moves under the power of the holy spirit of God. With the truth of God with the gospel in hand. Get upset, the world. It was upsetting to the world. It was so different, it ran. So contrary to the world so that by the time you find Paul and Silas going into festival and Armed with the gospel. People are starting to believe it.

And the reputation had preceded them. Where it said of them. Not as a compliment. But these men who have turned the world upside down, have come here also. I will say that to men. Who me a beast men who have turned the world upside down really right side up. They said they're shaking things up. They're messing with their messing with our our lives and in some cases their livelihoods, but that's what happens. That's the, the influence, the power. Of the church and only hope that the world has is the gospel. The only hope that's the world has is the gospel. That Christ is entrusted with the church and commissioned. Did not only to carry it but to lend it to be it.

The gospel is more than just the content of the message. It it is connected and tied to the message bears. I think it's something different, something to speak something that sets the church apart.

It when the church is on the move. You can't help for there being a disturbance. Somebody gets uncomfortable, always. How do you think about this new Society? You haven't asked a new society that we call the church?

Fossils. The rest that were another totaling about 120 and then 3,000 new believers.

And you think about that. These are probably some out of that crowd had probably weeks before being In the area when Jesus was crucified and they may have been in the same crowd where we're pilot was saying, you know, who do you want me to set free and give to you, Brabus the hardened criminal or Jesus. And they may have been in the crowd saying give us Barabbas. What do you want me to do with Jesus? They may have been some of the ones who were saying, crucify him. But here they are. Grit. Change transform. By the gospel. And I have rearranged their entire lives. Around it. They found themselves to the apostles.

They bound themselves to the message that the apostles delivered. And it says they devoted themselves.

To the fellowship.

Fellowship is a collective word. It's you can't really have fellowship with yourself and requires, at least somebody else to be able to to have Fellowship. And when you read what happened your yet, that's what is it? What is it? That could take these 3,000 people who were from all over the place. Who come into Jerusalem?

They have heard the message of the Gospel, which involve Jesus. The one who'd been crucified and now they believe the message they turned. What could cause them all the sudden? To totally alter their lives. What what could cause them to bind themselves together in the way that we see here? Make it remarkable been really. You have to start when you think of the word Fellowship, what is it? How do we come to an understanding about Fellowship is because it's probably one of the most misunderstood words when it's applied to the church. I don't know. There was quite grasp what it is because you cannot simply take.

A common cultural understanding of the word fellowship and applied to the fellowship that exists within the church. You cannot do that. Unfortunately, that's what we've often done with we, take what we sometimes, what we call Fellowship is really no different than than what you find anywhere else in the world.

And we call that Fellowship Mount. Ultimately when we do that we will end up disappointed at some point. Is it always manifest itself. They both what you thought was that is really something else. What you thought was this thing? You see in the Bible is really no different than the thing that you see out there in the world, and we wind up disappointed, So we have to come to some kind of understanding. What, what do you say? What, what is fellowship?

I think as often is with certain things, one of the best ways to heading the right direction. Is to maybe. Look at what. It's not. What Fellowship is not Well, it's not just people being cordial and nasty each other. That is not fellowship and we should be cordial and we should be nice to each other. I'm not arguing against them just saying that in and of itself is not Fellowship. It it's not just people being friendly, it is not even friendship, it's not camaraderie.

It's not just people being nice. I mean, I am certain that the Devil Himself often comes with a smile just before he eat you. We have to wait when we look at this and we realize it's more than just shaking. Hands is more than exchanging pleasantries. It's not a time on Sunday morning, we're doing a, i music only selection that everybody goes around and shakes hands with each other Fellowship time. It's not that.

It's beyond. Hi, how are you? I'm fine.

How's your family?

What are you been up to? What you going to do today? It's not that it's so much more than that that this would be just a week substitute.

And it's not just getting together and eating.

And we probably if you grew up in church, that is almost ingrained in your mind. That's why we have a fellowship hall, right? A fellowship hall. You go and eat and you've had Fellowship

I'm not saying the fellowship cannot happen in that kind of a context. I'm just saying that in and of itself is not Fellowship, but you can engage in spending some time together, eating with one another and never really happy Into the Heart of what Fellowship means. Never quite get there. It may be pleasant. It may be enjoyable. It may be something you even look forward to But if you truly honestly analyze it it's not much better than the Sands in the feeling in the enjoyment. When you go to a reunions and you eat a meal with people, you haven't seen and that you enjoy seeing again or you go to a banquet or some other event.

I'll go even further.

It is not. Even necessarily people getting together and study in the Bible.

I mean, what I mean by that is people can get together and pull a Bible verse and have some discussion and maybe talk about their problems and maybe even have prayer.

And not experienced Fellowship.

Now, again, I emphasise that I'm not saying the Truth Fellowship just cannot come out in that expression. Visit, certainly can, I'm just saying it's possible to do all of those things. And not experience. True Fellowship.

So we have to ask, what is it then? Well as a word, the terms that are used to speak of Fellowship,

I want to think it turns more of what's the assets of it? Not so much. Looking at all the different varieties of expressions of it. But what is it? What's the, what's the essence of it? When we look here in and we see in Acts 2:42 so they they devoted themselves to the fellowship in in the word Fellowship, along with the three other Essentials, they're all nouns. Somebody says, they devoted themselves to the fellowship. It means they can bury themselves to each other. What it drives us do then is to ask for, what is the nature of that relationship? Then what makes the the relationships that the people that were in at stew who now made this this new First Church in Jerusalem, what is the nature of their relationship that that made it. So you need that made it so different that people would rearrange their life. That makes it so much different than want to be found anywhere in the world.

Because what you found here is that the last of these people were becoming deeply intertwined with each other? It's astounding what you see here. I mean, all these people coming from all these different places in here they are and now they're Reviving their lives around each other.

They were becoming a family. The family of a totally different kind. And is that what Jesus really promised? Remember when Peter point out to Jesus that the disciples had left everything to follow him?

Then Mark, 10 verse 29 and 30, Jesus said, truly I say to you. There is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or or father or children or lands for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold. Now in this time houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions and in the age to come eternal life, I think at least in part he's saying that if you left your family to follow me, then you are going to be blessed with family, the even greater measure, you're going to find something that transcends, even that They can only be fulfilled in the contacts, though, at the church.

Now. so, we generally Define and we look at what Fellowship is

It's means communion, it means partnership, it's used of an association, it's used of a joint ownership its use of intimacy in marriage. So we're talking about something here that is that is beat in battle. and these people here in Acts were experiencing that, their lives were becoming entwined in, And you have to think a little bit deeper. What makes that possible? How could that be? I mean seriously, can you really conceive? right now, if you were to have to go out and find 3,000 people, So you can get on the same page about anything. And who all the sudden couldn't get enough of each other. I just want to be with each other all the time, they're just coming together. Can you imagine that task? If you were assigned, I want you to go get 3,000 people. I want, I want the end result to be that they just can't get enough of each other. They just want to be together. and when you see that you realize there's something extraordinary going on here, Something that that has to be explained in a way that is not merely natural. How did they come to be so drawn together so quickly?

Nothing, here's the reasons. When we want to look at the stuff that Fellowship is made of the essence of what it is.

I think the first thing that you realizes, it's really based on the fact that they say now had the same nature. In other words, they were born again. They had new life. There have been transformed in change in the holy spirit of God had quick in their heart. They now turn to the crisis that they had cried out to crucify and they have turned to him, they have given everything to him, they were willing to lay everything, aside in their life. For him.

They shared the same wife.

And that saying life unified them into one body. One of the great blessings of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was that he plays his new Believers into the one body. Pulsating. 1st Corinthians 12, 13, 14. 16. We were all baptized into one body. Jews are Greek slaves. Are free for all were made to drink of one spirit. It doesn't matter where you're from. What Do You Believe In Christ? There is something that happens. Maybe, you're not even conscious of it, but your place in the one body There's a profound Bond. That comes among believers.

Call kavitha Unity of the spirit in the bond of Peace in Ephesians 4:3. And it can only be shared by Believers. See what we're talking about was happening. Next to cannot be shared among unbelievers and that's why it's so foolish for us to try to replicate what we see out there and pass it off as Fellowship. Within the context of the church, it's an entirely different something.

It's such a work of the spirit that you understand that when the spirit of God is in control of believers, they are naturally going to be drawn to one another. I think that's what you have happening here. It was something quite natural. It is absolutely unusual. But it is quite natural.

and when the holy spirit of God, has yielded two in the life of the believer, The outcome of that is going to be Fellowship. I didn't mean it won't be challenged Paul the same verse that I mentioned a minute ago. In Ephesians said, we had to be eager to maintain it.

But you can be sure that if the spirit is fulfilling the rightful role in the church, there will be a desire. To draw close together in this kind of Fellowship.

Famous people's wives have been changed. crash was now at the center of it all He become the magnet. That Drew everybody together.

he's the one who died for them, Rose for them to send it in, to have it, had poured out, the spirit that they had witnessed and now we're experiencing They shared that thing wife and the devotion that they now had for one another, was rooted in their Devotion to Christ.

Finish what Fellowship fundamentally is? It's very manly standard in Christ. That's when the Deep Fellowship occurs. It's when it's when believers who? Who not only have the same understanding of the Gospel. Not only embrace the gospel in that regard but they share A commonality in their view of the implications of that gospel. In other words, they know. The pitch Gospels life-altering. And they almost being instinctively naturally want to come together because they know this has to be lived out today. They couldn't wait to talk about it with one another.

Was deep Fellowship.

and you know that when that's happening, if you could Just listen in on conversations.

cuz after all the pleasantries of happened, after all the the courteous small talk is taking place conversations will start taking shape around the gospel around what God is doing. About faithfulness about wife in the spirit about the word of truth. It's considering it was consuming for them. I think the second thing you see is it was, it was based around common beliefs Come to believe the same thing. I think they come to believe it's the gospel they'd come to believe Jesus but they had followed through. They've been commonly they'd all been baptized as an expression of that faith.

And they were told they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching. Which means?

They were learning the truth and as they learn the truth, the truth that they learned that they were hungry for that. They devoted themselves to that they were taking into their wives start giving them inside on to what the nature of their relationship really is. He gave them the fodder for their conversations, the truth itself, gave them the The Fighter for what they were going to talk about.

And they were lb together by what they believed.

I'm going to think you see that they shared the the same orientation for the same Outlook. You think about this?

How different the orientation of their lives in their outlook on life would have been different. Just a day before. Just a day before they come to know Christ. You've been in a thousand different directions. There would be no Unity their Interest. Really were pray more more political than spiritual more Earthbound than eternal. Call Ideal, even if the Messiah was something that was, was different than what they needed understand before they were converted. But now they've entered into the kingdom of God, they're here in the teaching of the Apostles. They're realizing they while they haven't physically left this world that they have changed Spears. They are now the, in the kingdom of God, there's been a change of citizenship status for them. And they have a common interest oriented in the same direction. They begin to realize that the life is not about this world. They start looking toward the Eternal, they start thinking in terms of mission, they start thinking in terms of what it means to follow Christ. They realize that they are now at odds with the world are aliens in. The world are strangers in the world. They begin to understand that they are just pilgrims. Now that really just passing through there not living for this world.

They started feeding off each other. All this are taken in its new life is New Direction, it's a new orientation and they're feeding off each other. They can't get enough of each other, they're they're drawn to each other.

And I really believe we'll never really experienced the door at Deb's of True Fellowship. Until we experience the true sense that we really are strangers. And pilgrims in this world.

See the common experiences of life that everybody experiences. Is not the adequate glue. To bind people together in the way that we find here. It's something greater than that deeper than that. These people had a radical shift of focus. They were not the same.

And now they were finding that they they shared something battle something important with a group of people than the last thing is simply this they were following the lead of the same Holy Spirit. How could it have been any other way?

to the holy spirit is not raining in the last of his people and in a church, True Fellowship will not happen. Where call you want to manufacture at all that you want? It will not happen because it cannot happen. Apart from the work of the spirit of God. It is fundamentally spiritual in nature, what takes place.

We can try to manufacture something and create an illusion that at best. It will be a natural substitution for a supernatural work. I think when we look at Acts 2:42 at least I hope. Hopefully I'll look at that and it stirred something up inside of us and thinking I want that, I would like to see that. What a joy it would be to to experience what what they experienced there.

And I know that we have to guard at that point from looking at that wonderful experience in time to Grapple with what do we do with it? Then, in the thing that I don't want us to not do that. I'm trying to steer us away from this just redefined in it.

Ormoc marketed off is just a reference point in history that that is not a reference point for us to 2 to look at how we we live. Our life is Believers today.

These Pursuits were rooted in the work of the holy spirit of God. And there's one thing I understand. What was happening next to? It was an unusual. Work of the Holy Spirit. I mean to Spirit came and wellness in every dimension in power.

The only other times, you see anything like it? How many times where God has blessed with a reliable where the spirit comes in power? Those are unique I don't think any church ever will live perpetually in this state that you found in Acts 2. It isn't me know that we don't ever need to for a season. The one I am sleepy people saying is this, but even when you're not in that kind of unique outpouring of the holy spirit of God, I mean, the holy spirit of God still does it rain. With fat. I think if the holy spirit is raining at all, at least a Devotion to these for Essentials will be prevalent enough that you realize that there is some resemblance to what you're experiencing to, what was experienced the next to. I think that's what we have to come to. And realizing in the flip side of it is we have to come to terms with if it is not experienced with, some kind of semblance, is what you see in Acts 2. There can be but one conclusion That the holy spirit of God is grieved and quenched. How can you look at it any other way how can you explain it? Any other way, that if that is what the holy spirit of God produces and people here in yielding to him in the absence of that, how are you to conclude anything else? But the work of the spirit of God is grieved. Pantsed. They should be sadness to our souls.

Now, the question is, do we really desire to see that reality? We really want that.

Can you experience this kind of Fellowship that we see here? absolutely made the first criteria of courses, you You are to be admitted into the fellowship, via the grace of God, in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, you can never experienced that kind of Fellowship as an unbeliever. Bonanza believe or can can we experience it?

And I want to say without hesitation, yes, it can be. That's a different. That's a different statement, then it will be but it can be it. It is something that can be experienced.

But I think it's going to require for us to fundamentally think differently. I think we have to come back to the word of God as a reference point answer. Some honest questions about? Are you leading us to the Lord?

And I fear that when the greatest hindrance is that we have in this regard,

Is that we so easily? Take what we find in scripture and we americanize it and that the American way we can always find a better way. We always find a more efficient way. And my fear is that sometimes we get so influence. So ingrained our minds sometimes, so conformed by this world were supposed to resist, Their way of thinking our attachment to this world is so great. that it hinders us from being able to To really look into pursue. What we see here.

that we may look at it and And say what? You know what? I want. That kind of Fellowship. I want it.

As long as it can happen in one hour a week. as long as he can happen in an hour a week, I'm in As long as it could take place, it's a long as it doesn't demand any more than that, because I've got my life to live, I have my agenda, I have my plans, I have I have my dreams, I had my life to live, I don't have time to do anything other than that.

And sadly, if that's all that, we have, it won't happen. Will never experience it. It can't happen.

And the thing that I understand, is his birthday, taking

Is wrong if I thinking is dulled. If our sensitivity to the holy spirit is somewhat calloused.

If there is absolutely no amount of me standing here, trying to convince you, trying to show you the word of Truth trying to get you to think differently is going to change, that won't do it.

It will require the working of the holy spirit. Is that the only thing that I ask this is the only thing that I ask. Is that for each of us?

Pray for what Bill said. He's thankful for is the greatest blessing in his life right now. It's just to say holy spirit. Teach me, show me break me.

But you just say, all I want, is the yield myself to you now. Show me everything. That's in the way of that. Show me everything that that hinders that work, that you want to do is sit just start there. Cuz here's the one thing I know if you honestly with a with a sincere heart, go to him.

He's going to start working. But you better buckle up.

I'd like to say, it will be fun.

Fun's, not the word. There's some Julian it, but there's a lot of sorrow in it. Because I've never met anybody. Who dies? Easy. And willingly. And it takes the holy spirit of God.

To bring within us. The very thing that Jesus demands of his disciples. But he will surely do it.