00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
this morning. Boy, that's hard
to read from here. Maybe it'll be easier to read
there. I don't like the font I picked, but well, it doesn't
look bad up there. It looked kind of like manuscript, you know,
like the Dead Sea Scrolls, but I think it's too old. But we're
on truth three, and what we're doing is I'm taking you through
as if I was discipling you, and I'm explaining the elements of
discipleship. Now you say, explaining? Yes.
When I was on staff with John MacArthur, he used to tell us,
he said, people are always asking me how I preach. He said, the
way I define it is, I believe in explanatory preaching. He said, if you cannot explain
to people how to go from where they are back to Corinth in the
first century or to Ephesus in the first century, and then explain
to them how to get back to today. with that truth. He said you
haven't really done your job. Explanatory preaching is not
just presenting the truth but explaining why God presented
that and how we're to live that. So we're looking at the third
truth of discipleship. The first truth is that we have
to be saved. You can't be a disciple if you're
not saved. In fact, being a disciple, being born again, being saved
are all synonymous terms. The second thing we saw is that
there must be this, and that's why we're reading through the
Bible in the year, we must be scripture-fed. In other words,
our souls, if we're born again, can only be fed by the pure milk
and the meat of the Word. So there must be If there's a
genuine salvation event, there comes a genuine hunger. And we
went through that and looked at that. Now, the third element
is that we were designed by God if we're saved. And if He has
implanted within us that hunger for the Word of God, we were
designed by God to operate filled with the Spirit. And anytime
we're not, we're off the plan, we're off the plan. the general
operating procedure. And so, what we're looking at
this morning, and if you want to open in your Bibles back to
Ephesians 4 and 5, we're looking at the amazing plan God designed
to keep us filled. You see, God designed us to operate
filled, but he knows that we live in a world, in a time, and
in a body that is very leaky spiritually. We live in our flesh. We're a born-again new creation
within, but we're still encased in the old flesh that is antagonistic
and downright Warring against everything God wants to do our
flesh doesn't want to go along with the new creation We are
in Christ, and so there's a constant struggle so this morning What
I'd like to look at is explaining, and discipleship is all about,
and people constantly labor with, can I really disciple someone?
You know, I haven't been to Bible school. All discipleship is,
if you just simply want to define it, discipleship is explaining
to someone else what God has said. See, it's not what I've
said, it's not what I feel, it's what God has said. And so, last
time, we looked at, I already covered that, save scripture
fed, I already wrote that down. There we go. Last time, we looked
at the idea of getting full, staying full, and living full.
Now, basically, what I would like to do this morning is build
on that. Now, we had the incredible, in
fact, I still have I took two. How many of you filled out your
little funny money thing last time and turned it in on Sunday
night? I told Nathan Clifton, I said,
Nathan, that was such a powerful weekend of ministry that you
offered. I know he labored, but the Lord used him to just just
communicate. I was watching as he taught,
and as someone who is in the communications business, I saw
the way the Lord used him, just gripping my heart. And so I hope
that the Missions Conference doesn't end, as he said, with
the end of the conference, but that we'll go on. Living life
the way God designed it to be lived is what we're looking at
this morning I want to explain to you first of all from Ephesians
5 in verse 18 how God designed us. He designed us to be filled
with the spirit But he says we're gonna move back to Ephesians
4 30 in a moment. He says watch out If we are involved
in certain things, it punctures what the Spirit of God wants
to do in our life. And Ephesians 4.30 says that we can grieve
the Spirit of God. And if we persist in that grieving
of the Spirit of God, we actually are deflated. As we grieve the
Spirit of God, the fullness begins to depart. In fact, in my personal
Bible reading, I got started early, and I just am in 1 Samuel,
and so I just zipped through Judges, and there's one of the
saddest notes in the Bible. It's about Samson, and it says
in the Old King James, Samson wist, that means he didn't know,
the Spirit had departed from him. See, Samson only accomplished
what he accomplished through the Holy Spirit. And when he
told Delilah about his Nazarite vow and his hair, and she shaved
it off, his strength left him by the power of the Spirit. And
you know what I think about? I think about that is what's
going on in so many believers' lives. They can't figure out
why they can't do the great things they used to do anymore, and
it's because they are no longer filled with the Spirit, and God
designed us to only live the way described in this book we're
supposed to live when we're filled and we keep filled with the Spirit. Well, last time we looked at
how to get full. That's Ephesians 5.18. And what
it says in there is, Do not be drunk with wine, in which is
dissipation, but be filled. And that's an imperative, and
it's a passive imperative, and it's in the present tense, and
we went all through that. So, to get full, all you have
to do is surrender and desire and ask the Lord to do what he
promised. To stay full is what we're looking
at this morning. Last time, we looked at some
of the benefits, which is when you live full, you have all those
wonderful evidences of Christ's personality, love and joy and
peace. And we began to have his gentleness,
and we began to have his ability to not get irritated at the behavior
of other people, which is It's just impossible, it's supernatural. But we looked at that last time,
but this time what we need to see is God designed this plan
to keep us full. And what I see is a lot of people
In fact, I think in pictures, and that's why I have a phonographic
mind. I'm narrating the pictures I
see. And that's why, I mean, I love, I can go anywhere in
the world that I've studied the archeology, and I can just narrate
because I see in pictures, and I love doing that. And the same
with the scriptures. I see it. You know, when I see
the spirit-filled life, it reminds me of living out in Lawton. Do
you know what's in Lawton? Hills. Do you know what the hills
are covered with? Bicyclists. And I mean, they're
spray painting our roads everywhere. Arrows, you know. I mean, they'll
have three or four different groups and they've got all their
colored arrows and turn here and, you know, this is the watering
hole and all that stuff. And if you were riding along,
you know, like on, what is that, R, one of the national scenic
highway or back roads or whatever it is, you know, with all those
hills and the trees. And if you're going like this and all of a
sudden you come up on a pack of about 100 bikes, bicyclists, And every
one of them are walking along, pushing their bike like this.
Wouldn't you immediately think, what are they doing? They must
have a flat tire. Maybe a comrade is in the ditch
and they're all walking, looking for him. But they're not operating
like they're supposed to, right? If they're just walking along,
pushing that bike, there's something going on. Those bikes. you know,
10, 20, 30, I don't know how many speeds those things have
these days. In fact, I was riding my son's and at one side said
three and the other said five. He said, what year are you? And
I said, 35. You know, I don't know how many, but it said three
on one side and five on the other. And I just, I was on 35. And
he said, good, leave it there, dad. Don't do anything, you know,
you'll fall. And so a bicycle was not designed
for you to walk next to it. Now it works that way. And I've
seen people, like in China, I saw someone once that had about an
eight-foot-long bale of cotton on top of the seat, and they
were using it like a hand truck. Yeah, you can do that, but that
is not what a bicycle was designed for. It was designed for you
to ride it. Now, if the tires get flat, I
can see pushing, because you'll just destroy your rims. Now, I want you to think about
that. that picture when we look at what God designed us to be
in chapter 5 because God designed us to operate best when full
and if we follow what God says and if we are filled with the
Spirit Ephesians 5 18 that is how we operate and so what is
happening is many believers go through life Not filled, and
it's like they're walking through life, pushing their little bike
that God designed for them to sail through life. I mean, did
you know on 35 you can actually really sail along? In fact, if
you go down to 25 and 15, you don't even have to stand up,
you can go up those hills. Yeah, so many believers. don't
operate their bike the way God designed them to be. So with
that picture in mind, apply that to our life in Christ. Simply
stated, our life in Christ is to live out what God designed
us to be. Life is most of all about who
we are in Christ, and that determines what we do. Who we are Dictates
how we behave in fact you put it this way if you believe right
you'll behave right But it starts with believing the truth about
who we are in Christ what God designed us to be That's the
essence Since God uses the term filled right there in verse 18,
we start to think about the truth illustrated in life. Filled is
a normal state of life that we are to pursue as believers. It
is not only for the few. It's not just that a few people
finally get up to the state of being spirit-filled. That's normal. Can you imagine going down here
on Stadium to one of these car lots and buying a new car, but
it doesn't run? You expect if you buy a car,
it's fully functional and it runs. God says normal state for
believers is filled. It's not for the few. It's not
for the rarefied. It's not for the super saints.
It's for every saint, every believer, each of us today. Now, spirit-filled
living is so much like riding a bike. Either we get our tires
filled or they're empty. Either we keep our tires repaired
or they go empty. Either we go through life riding
as God designed us to do on full tires, or we trudge through life
pushing what God designed for us to ride, and we live with
flat, tired, spiritually empty lives. Have you ever seen people
pushing a car? You know, it's out of gas. Was
a car designed to be pushed? Was it designed to have all of
your friends huffing and puffing behind you, pushing you along
through life? Yet, that is a picture you can
get in your mind of what living the Christian life looks like
from God's perspective when we don't operate the way he designed
us to operate. I mean, what would you think
of someone that bought a brand new car and had all their friends
pushing them around town? Is this a joke? Haven't you ever
started that thing? Do you understand what discipleship
is? Discipleship is finding people who are manually trying to make
their Christian life work and come alongside them and say,
have you been to the gas station? Is this thing out of fuel? Have
you lost the key? Do you know how to start it?
Have you ever had driving lessons? Do you understand what I mean?
That's what discipleship is. Because many people are operating the
Christian life not how it was designed. And discipleship is
just coming alongside of them and say, I went through this
too. I used to walk my bike all the time. And you just explain
to them what the Lord said. Pillar one, and I'm gonna go
through three pillars with you, three pillars of the spirit-filled
life. And pillar one is God designed us to only operate, you can only
have the boldness sharing the gospel, you can only have victory
over the constant onslaught of the flesh and sin, or of doubt
and discouragement, or whatever spiritual struggles you're going
through and I'm going through, we only operate, God designed
us, when we're full. his spirit. That's the first
pillar. That after someone is saved and
they evidence salvation and the hunger for the Word of God, when
you get into the spirit dimension with them, the first underlying
truth is the normal state of is that we operate full of the
Spirit. Now, go back to your picture in your mind. The normal
state of a bicycle that is in use is that it works. It's used
to ride places in full condition. That means the tires are full.
You can jump on it at any time and just pedal off. Full tires
means the bike is functional. It's what it was designed to
be. That's what Ephesians 5.18 says you and I were designed
to be. Not under the influence of anything, like be not drunk
with wine wherein is excess, but be constantly being filled
with the Spirit. That is normal. Paul commands
us that we are to stay how we were designed by God to be, which
is full. And then he mentions, look at
verse 19, the evidence. He says, this is what life is like when
you're riding along through life with full tires, being filled
with the spirit. You speak to one another in psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs, verse 19 says. You sing and you make melody
in your heart to the Lord. Verse 20, you're giving thanks
always for everything to God the Father in the name of our
Lord Jesus. And verse 21, we have this submissive spirit.
And it just, I mean, if we had time, it actually goes through
every dimension of life, all the way down through chapter
6 and verse 9. Submission to one another flows
into parent-child relationships, husband-wife relationships, employer-employee,
and back and forth, all the way through life. But all of that
flows from verse 18, being filled with the Spirit. Well, number
two, and this is probably the critical lesson. I think most
people go along with the Spirit-filled part. But what they struggle
with is They don't know. Once they get off with a flat
tire, they think that they've ruined their spiritual life.
They think they're bad. They think no one else has ever
had a flat tire. They think that nobody else is
walking along pushing their bike. And they're actually In fact,
I hate to, well, he's not here this morning, and so I'll tell.
I took, when we first got here, we were on the 100 homes, and
one of the homes was a dear couple, and they actually handed us a
Calhaven brochure of the Calhaven bike riding trail. And they said,
you have five sons and you've got four of them here. You really
need to get bicycles and you can borrow ours and you need
to try the Calhaven. So we really worked on it and
we got our bicycles all up and we did it. We got on the trailhead
at I don't know where and we ended up we saw water. Okay,
I almost died. But I will tell you, the funniest
thing happened along the trip. One of my boys is, well, they're
all adventurous, but one of them is very adventurous. I mean,
riding a bike for him is kind of like being in a circus. I
mean, he goes real fast, and he goes off the ground and lands
over here, and then he's going over logs, and I mean, it's just
like, Come on, just stay on the trail. I'm barely making it,
staying like this. And he would cut through the
woods and come out ahead of us and jump over stuff. But about
an hour into the trip, he was so far back, and I'd go... You know, I thought, you're worn
out for a reason, you've been wasting all your time. And his
face was red, and you should have seen him pedaling, and he'd
get up in sight, and I'd cruise on, and then about a half hour
later, he'd be out of sight, and I'd go like this, you know,
and he'd be red-faced. When we finally got to the water,
I looked at his bike, his tire was flat. all that jumping over
the, he landed on something and punctured or got it off the rim,
I don't know what he did, but he didn't, I mean, he felt so
bad that this bicycle, his dad got him to go on the trail, and
he didn't stay on the trail, that he hoofed about 10 or 12 miles
on a rim, and his face was beet red, I mean, I thought he was
gonna have a heart attack. Did you know that's what goes on
at church? People are totally flat-tired,
but they don't want to admit it to anybody. And they're trying
their hardest to keep up with everybody else here, trying to
be happy, trying to know something about the Lord, trying to serve
the Lord, trying to do what they're supposed to do, and they are
totally flat. And normal spiritual life...
Now see, this is what's so important. Normal spiritual life knows that
we are going to be constantly in need of repairing the leaks
that come in life. Now, look in Ephesians 4 in verse
30, right here is the verse. And think about this. as a reminder
of the leak causers. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit
by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Now, what
is normal Christian life? Paul alludes to another way our
spiritual lives can become. The first way is 518. We are
supposed to stay full. But Paul says there's a second
way. level that Christians can get
in. They can get into this dangerous
territory of letting things come into their life that are total
enemies of spirit fullness. And these things grieve the one
that fills us and causes his power in our lives to be dissipated
by the little choices we make. Now, stick with me, because this
is probably the mystery. In all the years that I've discipled,
for three decades, this is the piece where people, they know
spiritfulness is what God wants, but they cannot figure out how
to get out of their flat tire life. They think they're cursed
for the rest of their life, to be way behind and red-faced,
huffing and puffing, trying to keep up with the spiritual pack.
And they don't realize that there's this giant repair truck that
follows them all the time. And it can instantly, new tire,
refilled, you know, aired up. Have you ever watched the races? They have that little truck that's
right there to help them, you know, handing out water bottles
to them and fixing their tires on these big races. That's the
spiritual life. Only the designer of the bike,
the one who gave it to us, is the one that wants to repair
and refill. Now think how that works. Have
you ever had a bike with a leaky tire? You always have to check
the tire, grab the pump, get it back to full inflation. You
find you need it when you jump on it. It can't hold you up.
In fact, every time I go out with my boys, that happens. I go, oh, you guys,
hold on. The tire is soft, the bike won't
work the way it should. That is the state we as believers
find ourselves described in Ephesians 4.30, when we grieve the Holy
Spirit. In fact, the word grieve in verse
30 is lupeo in Greek. It means to make sad, to make
heavy, to make sorrowful, and to make distressed, lupeo. The Holy Spirit is a person. And our choices that we make
either gladden and please him or lupeo him, make him sad, sorrowful,
grieved, heavy. And that process makes our spirit-filled
lives leak. When we grieve the spirit, we're
leaking out the pressure, the fullness of our lives. Using
the bicycle analogy, think about a soft tire. There are many reasons
tires lose their pressure. They can have punctures, the
wheel rim can be bent, a valve can be cut, so many possibilities. Now, I'm not a master bicyclist.
On another 100 homes, We went to a home where we're talking
about the real thing. This guy has things he puts on
his feet that hook in. He doesn't even have pedals.
His feet hook right into the bike. I mean, if you fall over,
you're committed. You're attached to that thing. I mean, and they
wear those space suits, you know, that, you know, are just so amazing. In fact, there's one I won't
even point at you, Dale. I know that you wear that all
the time. And so, there are many ways, but I'm not a master bicyclist,
but Paul, in chapter four, gives a list of actions that puncture,
damage, and hinder our spiritual lives. And so, what I call these,
and now remember, This is not normal Sunday morning preaching. Actually, that's why I warn you
in the front. This is face-to-face. And I actually say, hey, could
I give you some driving tips for your spiritual life? If your
life is like riding a bicycle, let me give you some tips. Oh,
come on. How did I do that? Uh-oh. There we go. Oh, don't go too
far. Driving tip one. Beware of these
items that leak out our spirit fullness. And I say, mark them
with me. And look in your Bibles. And I'll just point them out
to you. Ephesians 4.25 says, any falsehood in our life. Now,
listen carefully. I will illustrate, audio form,
what falsehood does in our life. That's leaking air. Falsehood,
verse 25, is a part of those choices we make that rob us of
fullness of the Spirit. Secondly, sinful anger in verse
26. It says, be angry and sin not.
There is a righteous indignation, but being upset that someone
has bothered me, has hindered me, has hurt me, has slighted
me, has whatevered me, is not righteous. You ever meet people, they're
just kind of like Who's that cartoon character that had the
cloud over him, you know? You can tell, I used to read
the Sunday cartoons. That's the only thing we could do on Sunday
when I was little, just read, you know, that was fun. And we
would read those cartoons, and there was one guy that had the
little cloud over his head. That reminds me of people that
are angry. They're just, they, their sinful
anger, our sinful anger, whether we have much or little, It's deflating the fullness,
the Spirit. How about this? This could be why we have a whole
generation, I'm concerned about how much they're going to be
able to serve the Lord. Through media, through games, through
movies, through even music. In fact, What was I saying? It was in
Tumblr and it had some cute name and I went to it and you know
what it was? It had a cute name but boy when
you got there it wasn't. It was something called World
of Warcraft and it was the faces of the creatures. If you could illustrate what
the facial expression of Satan's world would look like. There's
some artists that have done a good job in there. And what people
don't realize is that that leaves a place. Don't leave a place
for the devil. Any theft, I'm talking about
tax theft or padding the expense accounts or being paid and not
working, any rotten talk It just empties, grieving the spirit.
Ephesians 4.31 says, any bitterness, any bitter attitudes, all of
these are punctures. These are damaging to our spiritual
life. So tip number one, beware of
items that leak out. Driving tip two, when punctured,
pull over and get repaired. Don't try and keep up. Don't
act like everything is just fine, you know, and you're just gonna
try harder. See, what that's talking about is when your bike
tire gets soft because of wear or damage or puncture, do you
park the bike and say it's useless and will never work? That's what
some people do. When they are totally sidelined because any
of those anger or theft or lying or whatever is in their life,
they just quit. They said, I just never can be used by the Lord
again. What would you think of a child that you bought them
a perfect, brand new 35-speed bike, or however many they have,
and they just left it in the garage? You said, why? Well,
the tire's flat. You'd say, you need a little lesson. How to
get it repaired. And what's even nicer is, When
you have a truck following you, the Lord himself wants us to
not be empty. He wants us to be repaired. And that's why he tells us, in
fact, look in chapter 4, the repair kit is right in chapter
4. Look across in verse 20. You have not so learned Christ.
Verse 21 of chapter 4 of Ephesians, if indeed you've heard of Him
and been taught by Him as the truth is in Christ Jesus. And
here's the repair kit. Verse 22, put off concerning
your form or conduct. The reason that you are starting
to have a little repair needed is you are going back to the
old ways. Put it off. Stop that, the Lord
says. Put off concerning your former
conduct, the old man which grows corrupt. Verse 23, be renewed. Lord says, I'm following you.
I want to repair you right on the spot. My goal is not for
you to be red faced and so sad that you are deflated and you're
trying to keep up with the pack. Pull over and let me fix you
right now, the Lord says. If we confess our sins, he is
faithful and just to already have forgiven us and to cleanse
us, to get us back. to get us, look what it says
in verse 24, put on the new man. Actually what the Lord does is,
he doesn't patch up the old tires, he just puts on, we have a new
beginning with him. That's what's so neat about Christian
life, that we have a new beginning. If anyone is in Christ Jesus,
they are a new creation. The old is passed away and the
new is coming. There's just an endless string
of new beginnings in Christ. So, Driving tip two, when punctured,
pull over. Do tires get injured when you
ride on them? Yes, it's expected. It happens quicker if we choose
to ride over nails every day, if we crash the bike against
the curbs, if we ride through piles of trash and sharp objects.
But here's the spiritual lesson. Spirit-filled life explained
by Paul is this, avoid those things that grieve the spirit.
That list in 425 to 31. When the spirit is grieved, we
get less and less able to operate the way we were designed to operate.
We slowly go flat. We can't get through life the
way we're designed. Pause and ponder that. If you're peddling your spiritual
life and not making it, park and ask the Lord. confess, say,
yep, I've been running over all those nails of untruthfulness,
stuff, whatever it is, you know, jealousy, whatever sin, grieving
and quenching, and ask him to refill. Driving tip number three,
expect tire damage. You know what some people think?
This is the most fascinating part when I sit with people.
I say, you know what, you're going to be punctured, you're
gonna have blowouts in life, and they go, I thought when I
got saved I was more than a conqueror. In Christ you are. But we don't
happen to always operate in Christ. Expect tire damage. Expect the struggles that we
go through. Life is full of dangers. Life
is full of punctures and sharp objects and many unseen and unexpected
events. Disciple makers come to spiritual
bikers and say, it's all right, we all get leaks. You are not
a bad bicyclist. You are normal. And here's what
you do to ride longer between leaks. Just because you lose
your fullness, it's not time to give up and never ride. It's
time to pull over and get repaired, to get reinflated and to go on.
That's the normal life of a believer. No one stays full every day,
all day, from start to finish. Not Paul, not the heroes of the
faith, and not any of us. Expect tire damage. Expect things
that rob us of operating in the fullness of the Spirit. Here's
driving tip number four. Use the tire repair kit. Get
to know the put off, be renewed, and put on of verse 22, 23, 24. That's what it's all about. It's
all about saying, God, I agree with you. I know that every time
I get near whatever, I respond in the wrong way. And so God says, if you confess
to me that you're leaking and ask him to check what happened
and come to him as the only one that can refill us, then he'll
get us right on immediately after fixing us. It's normal to need
to get repaired. And the Lord is right there next
to us. And he wants us operating the
way he designed us to be in Christ more than we can ever comprehend. And here's the final tip. By the way, this is what spiritual
maturity is. Start avoiding things that damage your tires. Right? That's what sanctified, mature,
and godly living is all about. If you always crash when you
operate in the dark, stay in the light. If you cut your tires
every time you are on a certain road, avoid it. Tell others how
you're always deflated and ask them to remind you not to go
that way. Do you see how we work together? Do you see how the
Christian life is lived in community? You know, I remind that one son,
because I notice him starting to jump, you know, we'll go back
to Calhaven and whoop, over one of those logs he'll go and I'll
say, Do you remember when you were red-faced four years ago,
a mile back? Yeah, yeah, okay. And he kind of stays kind of
on the road. That's what the community in
Christ is for. We work together. We're all on
bike tires that are equally vulnerable. We help each other stay safe
on the road and repair flats. God wants us to avoid anything
that punctures and destroys our ability to stay filled. It's
spiritual maturity to avoid things that always damage our tires. Why? Because, and here's the
last pillar before communion. 1 Thessalonians 5, if you wanna
turn there and mark it, this is a very strong word. Do you
know what 1 Thessalonians 5, 19 says? Do not quench the spirit. That word speaks of a dousing,
an extinguishing. It's used for like a fire retardant
where you just foam the whole thing and bury it so it's just
out. The Holy Spirit is first illustrated in the New Testament
Church as a flame of fire. This is foaming and suffocating
that flame. And here's the third pillar of
the Spirit-filled walk. Any unrepaired leaks that we
leave unmitigated, undealt with, lead to a life flat tire living. A life of being agonizing that
everything that you know about Christ, the assurance, the joy,
the hunger, the more than conquerors, the wisdom, the boldness, the
passion, the compassion, everything isn't working. And there are actually believers
that go for days and weeks and months and in a state of quenching
the spirit. Communion is when we say to the
Lord, you designed me to operate full of your spirit. I know that
when I get in certain realms of media, when I go to certain
events, when I am around certain people, it starts leaking my
spiritual fullness. And Lord, I want to have you
repair and restore and refill me. And I want you to keep me
full of your Spirit. But I know if I sin that I don't
have to keep going through life like nothing's wrong. I just
pull over, confess, forsake, be renewed, put on the new man. Remember, no matter how far back
we are, it's only one step to get right back where we should
be, and that's confessing and forsaking. So let's bow right
now, and as we bow, I invite the elders and deacons to prepare
to serve us communion. And we're going to sing a song
that's kind of like a reminder of who we are in Christ. And
it's before the throne of God above, I have a strong and perfectly
a great high priest whose name is love, whoever lives and pleads
for me. Communion is where we look up
and say, Lord, I want you to restore to me the joy of my salvation. I want to be refilled. I want
you to give me a fresh new beginning. And by your grace, I want to
more and more and more deny those things in my life that make your
spirit grieved. And I don't want to live one
day of my life quenched. Father in heaven, we bow before
you this morning. And as we prepare to take these
pictures in our hands of your body and of your blood, we're
reminded that you died, that we should no longer live under
our own power, but you died so that we would live filled and
overflowing with your spirit. I pray that we would renounce
flat-tire living, that anybody here that's red-faced and huffing
and puffing, we can't tell, we all look like we're great this
morning, but down deep in their hearts they know they're operating
in their own power, and everybody seems to be needed to push them
to make it through life. Rather than a pit crew that gets
them back on the road, they just want to sit in their car and
be pushed. I pray they repent of that, that
they'd confess why they're out of the fullness of your spirit
to you. You already know they just need
to agree and then ask for your precious refilling and immediately
we're right back on the road. Surrounded by other fellow travelers
and we say that apart from him we can't do anything. He's the
one that fills us and energizes and you oh Christ are the one
that repairs us. May this be a communion where
we follow your amazing plan to stay filled with your spirit
by being careful of anything that grieves and quenches your
spirit. Thank you for this bread. Remind us as we sing our worship
to you in the name of Jesus we pray, amen.
ESH-31 - Spirit-Filled & The Amazing Plan God Designed To Keep Us Filled
Series Biblical Exercises for Spiritu
| Sermon ID | 99625151744240 |
| Duration | 39:49 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Language | English |
Add a Comment
Comments
No Comments
© Copyright
2026 SermonAudio.