Let Your Kingdom Come - Part 2

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STORY - Seed pucks as object lessons

I put in all this effort - but nothing was going to grow out of it.

So how do we grow more in God? Where’s the seed come from?

We need to start here:

Romans 6:23 NIV

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We’ll be primarily reading from Galatians 5, but this text summarizes the difference well. I want you to notice something:

Death is what we earn by our effort. Eternal life is what we’re freely given by God.

We talked last week about how, in our nature, we’re default opposed to God. and that moving forward in really inviting the Spirit in meant admitting that.

So in Romans, paul is saying - what your SIN does, what your FLESH naturally does, is EARN death. when your flesh works, the product of that work is death.

But the gift God freely gives leads to eternal life.

If we believe this, there’s only one real question.

How do we get better at accepting this gift?

Now, when we’re talking about the movement of the Spirit, there’s something we need to realize.

TROUBLE THE OTHER DAY IN WITHDRAWING FUNDS

It’s the banks job to give me my money. When they were dysfunctional - it prevented me from getting money.

So, who’s responsible for doling out the giving out the Holy spirit?

Luke 11:11–13 NIV

“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

So it’s my job to teach, to equip. and I work with volunteers in the background to make sure that our services are done well, and we’re trying our best, and constantly improving. I help lead and direct the church the way I feel the Holy Spirit is leading our organization.

But i’m just a guy standing here saying, Hey look, God is awesome, here’s how you can learn to talk right to him yourself! And I can help people to learn to be better at that process. I use my gifts, what i’m supposed to do in the body, to help bring health.

When it comes to who decides who gets to receive the spirit? Who actually sends him? That’s God.

And here in this verse, Jesus is saying, if you, as an evil person, if your flesh can only lead to death and YOU know how to give somebody a good gift - how much more willing do you think God will be to give out the Holy Spirit?

Jesus is almost shaming us here, to even suggest the idea that God wouldn’t want to give us good things.

So we know that God WANTS TO give us the best gift, the Holy Spirit, and He’s the one who does it.

BUT - If we check our hearts,

Do we act like we secretly believe God is trying to abandon or avoid us?

Scripture clearly challenges this idea.

Or the flipside of that -

Do we act like it’s somebody else’s job to connect with God for us?

Both of these are false. But then....

Why do we not always feel the Spirit?

Now, there’s a hard truth in this. And I think this is a foundation that we need to accept to move forward.

The only thing that can block you from accessing the Spirit is you

It’s not me. It’s not the worship team or the prayer team. It’s not your ability to be here physically in the room.

If we think the natural world has the right to take that away from us, PLEASE, read the book of acts. Story after story is about the apostles having terrible things happen to them - and seeing the spirit move in greater and greater ways.

Today, we’re talking about the idea of learning to invite the Spirit into our lives and our hearts and be able to SEE and FEEL the difference the Spirit makes, all the time.

And I want to stick with Galatians 5.

Galatians 5:22–23 NIV

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

There’s a couple things I want you to understand here.

First -

You need to clear the soil

Paul calls the change that the presence of the Spirit brings to our hearts ‘fruit’.

It’s this image of, God planting the spirit in the soil of our hearts and lives, and watching it grow.

And paul is REALLY intentional teaching this in contrast to the acts of the flesh - because this process starts with the choices and decisions we make. The choices we make out of our flesh bring death - the ways we allow the Spirit to do things in our lives bring life.

So, this thing paul calls crucifying the flesh, this clears up space for the spirit to get deposited in our hearts in greater and greater measure.

And we talked last week - how this isn’t about indulging our desires if we think they’re right, but rather this is about getting ourselves RIGHT out of the way and

asking, ‘God, what do YOU want me to do today?’ and asking and asking and asking

Get in this habit of just flat out denying ourselves, and JUST focusing on God and what He wants.

There’s another thing we should understand here:

The Spirit starts with changing your heart

Notice what’s not on this list? Healings. Prophecy. Miraculous power.

Those things are GREAT and they WILL be present. And we can ONLY operate in those kinds of gifts from the spirit.

But this list? It’s all about who we are, and how we treat others.

And see, this is the Spirit helping in that ‘crucifying the flesh’. He helps to get the old us out of the way.

The old us that’s hateful, he grows love.

The old us in despair, he grows joy.

The old us that’s anxious, he grows peace.

And my last point:

We need to start in the same place

I talked earlier about how we tend to see it two ways - that God is either against us, or other people are taking God away from us.

But maybe, just maybe, there’s a third possibility- that we’re focused on the wrong thing.

Because here’s a bit of a scary truth I’ve learned over my years in the church.

As we move away from the fruit, we move away from the Spirit

Let me unpack that for you.

I’ve noticed that those people who seem to just be abounding in love, growing daily in it, they aren’t the ones saying, ‘Where did the spirit go?’ They’re the ones saying, ‘every day, God shows me just how much he’s here’.

But if hate starts taking hold in your heart and your life - you’re going to start feeling like that well is dry.

If you find yourself moving from joy to misery. From peace to anxiety. From kindness to harshness. As you move away from the fruit that the Spirit, you move away from wherever the spirit is growing.

If you’re not where the plant is, you’re not where the seed was. If you’re not by the water, you’re not by the well.

And the easiest way to get back on that track, is just look at this list, and say,

‘God - help me to grow more of your fruit’

I PROMISE you, the Spirit will answer you. If you’re genuine about it. Because that’s where it starts - God, Help ME.

So, do we want to connect more with the spirit? Practice this.

Love joy peace forbearance kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and self control

And the truth is, this is the superior connection with the spirit. This is the one that is there when things are going well, and they’re going poorly. It’s not an experience that depends on other people to do things just the way we expect them to be done.

This is the experience that can cause Paul to sing for joy, while shackled up in prison. For the apostles to rejoice for having been tortured.

That no matter what, no matter where, they constantly asked, ‘God, come in HERE (heart), and help ME’. And God answered them, time and time again.

So let’s invite the Spirit in today

So let’s invite the spirit IN today. Not just into this room. But right inside.