SHOW ME A SIGN - Pastor Christa Armstead | Elk Grove

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More about Pastor Christa:
      
   Meet Christa, a beacon of inspiration and unwavering dedication, whose life's work as a pastor and community advocate illuminates a path of support and upliftment for all. Drawing from her own trials, Christa's compassionate heart and acute sensitivity embrace the needs of others, a testament to her profound understanding of the human experience.

Grounded in an unshakable faith, Christa finds solace, strength, and boundless inspiration to triumph over personal challenges, discovering the sweet taste of freedom in the process. With a flame burning brightly within her, she is driven by an unwavering passion to share her healing journey, extending a hand of hope and guidance to those who strive for liberation.

For years, her voice lay dormant, but now, it emerges like a clarion call, resonating with the intention to touch hearts and ignite transformative change. Christa's words carry the weight of wisdom born from her own vulnerability, and in their embrace, she seeks to empower others to embrace their own journey of growth and transformation.

As you embark on your own path, let Christa's story be a testament to the indomitable spirit that dwells within each of us, reminding us that through dedication, faith, and the power of our voices, we can move mountains and create a world where hearts are healed and lives are forever changed.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Well, for those of you who may not know me, my name is Pastor Krista. I'm one of the pastors here. And I just want to just dive right into the word today. We've been in this series on the Holy Spirit. How many of you have just been growing and you've been blessed by hearing about the Holy Spirit? Come on. You're learning. You're learning about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not an it, it's not a thing, it's not something we catch. Some of us come out of a background with like, oh, they caught the Holy Spirit. Well, no, we didn't, we don't catch him. It's not baseball, but but we're filled with the Holy Spirit. And God has sent us the Holy Spirit. He is the third person of the of the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So just like we want to understand God, and we wouldn't never say we don't want to understand God or we don't want to understand Jesus, we're in this series because we said we need to talk more about the Holy Spirit. A lot of times we don't talk about the Holy Spirit, so we don't understand the Holy Spirit. So the intention of this series has been to um teach us and for some of us, just remind us. For me, it's been a great reminder, and I'm learning lessons. And so again, I'm just gonna dive right in. If I had a title for my message, it would be today would be Lord, show me a sign. Lord, show me a sign. Have you ever stopped to think about how important signs are in our lives? If we didn't have them, life would be completely chaotic. Life would be completely chaotic. Like, like just for example, today, I passed so many signs getting here, right? Um, there was even a cop on the freeway. I'm glad I was paying attention to the sign that said, Don't go faster than 65, because there he was, like in the cuts, and then all of a sudden he had the gun. I was like, ooh, thank you. I look down, I'm like, 62, Jesus. Won't he do it? Won't he do it? Because it would be bad to get a ticket on the way to church and then not make it. I'm like, where is she at? She wasn't paying attention to the signs. Anyway, I passed a few other signs coming here to Oak Grove campus this morning. Expect delays. Expect delays. Sometimes, if it comes to God, I don't like that sign. I don't like when he says expect delays. When I pray, I'm like, can it just happen right now, Lord? Especially if it involves trials and tribulations and things that I don't want to go through. I'm like, Lord, don't delay on this. Just woo, just move that. Anyone else? Anybody else? Another sign said bumps in the road. It said, it just said bump. It just said bump. Sometimes there's bumps on the road of life, right? Things that we hit that, we go, woo, that was a bump. That was a bump. And then another sign that I saw says there were turn arrows. There were arrows pointing us to something very positive, too. There were so many arrows saying, now selling, now selling, now selling. All the developments. Stephanie was on the worship team. I hope I'm not uh telling a um telling her business, as we would say, but she's got purchasing one of those, her and her husband are purchasing one of those houses that now selling represents new beginnings, new life, new opportunity. How many of you know you can hear the Holy Spirit saying, show me a sign? You need a now selling sign. You don't you won't necessarily need to buy a house, but you you need to hear, Lord, now selling. I need a new opportunity. I want to experience some things that are new. Then another sign that I saw this morning, when I read it, it immediately said to me, avoid danger. Y'all say, avoid danger. You know what it was? It was that daggone nothing but bunk cakes sign. I was like, oh no, oh no, no, no, no, no, no. We're not getting off track with that, right? So, anyway, the signs, the signs. Some of you got here this morning because of a sign. Some of you found this church because of a sign. You thought you were just seeing a banner. You thought you had just got a postcard in the middle that said there's a new church coming. But how many of you know that God is working? He's going out before us, he's got the plans for our lives. So you think you got here by accident. I'm I'm I'm so grateful for these visitors. They're praising like they've been here already. And so when they said they were first-time visitors, I'm like, what? So we're so grateful. Whatever sign that brought you here, you're here because God brought you here this morning. We are all here because God meant for us to be here this morning. Now, sometimes signs can be confusing, right? So if you ever go downtown Sack, I know when I lived in El Grove, I never went downtown Sack. But now I live downtown. There's those parking signs, right? I'm convinced it's not a conspiracy theory. I am convinced that those parking signs are there to intentionally confuse and trick us. Check it out, be like, two hours here, but three hours there. Why you got all them hours in it? Just tell me. And sometimes I love, I'm gonna go down the fields coffee, right? And a five-dollar cup of coffee turns into like a hundred and eighty dollar experience. You're like, uh, I got a$75 ticket plus the five, the five dollar coffee, and then gas feels like it cost me about 80 bucks to go about 10 blocks. And so I'm like, that's crazy. That's just crazy, but they're not gonna get me next time. They got me this time, but they're not gonna get me next time. God gives us signs too. The question is, I want you to honestly ask yourself, don't ask out loud, just look straight ahead. Don't, don't, don't try to ask these for your neighbor. Because sometimes we like, ooh, yeah, my husband needs this message, or my sister needs this message, or I'm gonna send this to my kids. Nope, just look straight ahead. This message is for you. This message is for you, this message is for me. Honestly ask ourselves: are we reading the signs? Do we understand the signs? And are we ignoring the signs? And again, if you're like me, I know you've prayed this, but Lord, show me a sign. Show me a sign. I need to hear from you. We've all missed or ignored the signs. A few weeks ago, I did this very thing, right? I'm in my car, and my my car is so fancy, it'll tell me 243 miles to empty. Then it'll go 100 miles to empty, right? And I'm like, I can keep going, I can keep going. It got down to like 30, and then it had a red flashing thing. It said, you need to get some what? Some gas. But I said, Oh, it says I got 30 more to go. And then I said, I intended to get gas, right? But I had ignored those screaming signs the whole time. And all of a sudden, I'm a I'm on the freeway. I'm on the freeway, I'm a few blocks, blocks from my exit, and all of a sudden my car goes, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Ignore me if you want to. I barely made it over to the shoulder, and then I tried to call triple A because I didn't want to call my husband and tell him what I had done. Like, I'd done this like a couple times in the last year, and it's so dangerous, right? I'm on the shoulder thinking, Jesus, the whole time, like, protect me, Lord, watch over me. So triple A thing didn't work. I had to call, I had to be so humble. I had to call my husband. I was very humble. I said, Babe, I'm on the side of the road. He's thinking, did your car break down? No. No, not that, not that. I was ignoring the signs. He's like, babe, you didn't get gas. I was like, just come get me. Just come get me.

unknown 7:48

Just come get me.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

I said that day. My husband was like the Holy Spirit. He was my protector, he was my provider, he was my counselor, he was Jehovah Jarah, Jehovah Shalom, Jehovah Nisi, Jehovah Shamma. Y'all know all that. Jehovah Shammah means the one who is there because he had to come. Well, today I want to just continue on some things building upon what we've been studying. And I want us to pray a bold, audacious prayer. And why this is bold and audacious, it may even feel like, depending upon how you feel about prayer and talking to God and signs, it may even feel like it's inappropriate. But I want you to know it's okay to say today, Lord, Lord, show me a sign. Lord, show me a sign. That's our prayer for this morning. Lord, show me a sign. Not only do I want us to see signs as individuals, but as a church, are we going in the right direction? Lord, guide us. We pray this prayer that says, Not by might, nor by um, but by your spirit, Lord, not by might nor by power, but it's by your spirit, God. We don't want to go in our own strength. We don't want to try to do anything. Our verse of the year is, abide in me, for apart from me, you can do nothing. As individuals, we're saying, Lord, show me a sign. So just a little bit of biblical background. We usually point to this verse at Christmas time, but it's not a Christmas verse. It says in Isaiah 7.14, it says, Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign. Now, I love y'all, and I love praying with you, and maybe I might talk to you about some things, but listen, when I'm really in trouble, I need the Lord Himself. I don't call up my husband and say, Show me a sign. I don't call up Haley, my friend, and say, Show me a sign. I call on Jesus and say, though I need a sign from the Lord Himself. He says, The Lord Himself will show you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means what? God with us. That's the sign. So people throughout the Bible, down through the ages, have asked God for signs. He's been giving them before we ask. Like sometimes we think, I got saved, or I showed up here. No, you didn't. It was God. He was God was directing your path the whole time. So He gives signs before we even ask for them. They're blinking. They're like my gas light. They're blinking. They're like, hey, hey, I'm over here. And we're like, yeah, yeah, I'll get to you, God. Hey, I'm over here. I'll get to you when I finish my degree. I'll get to you when I get the the mate I want. I'll get to you when you fill in the blanks. The problem is not in asking for the sign. God doesn't mind if we ask for a sign. The problem is how we ask. What is the posture of our heart when we're asking God for a sign? Matthew 16 tells us that the Pharisees came to Jesus and they too asked for a sign. But this is what it said. It said they asked for a sign to test him. They had no uh inclination at all. They were not going, they were not coming to him so they could say, follow his directions. They were testing Jesus. And then the Bible says their hearts were hardened. And if you're like me, as I was just preparing for this message, sometimes when I'm asking God for a sign, I'm asking, I am asking in faith. Like when I'm saying, when I'm praying for you all, when I was asking God for signs for this message, I'm like, Lord, show us a sign. You know, I'm all excited, right? Show us a sign. Even as we were worshiping, I'm like, show us a sign today, God. Move on every person. That's me asking for God from a sign from God in faith. But then there are other times I'm in asking in fear because I'm scared. I'm like, Lord, show me a sign. I'm just desperate for you to show me a sign. I'm scared. I don't like this. I don't like this season I'm in. I don't like what I'm going through. I don't like what I'm experiencing. Show me a sign. And then if I could be completely transparent this morning, sometimes I'm asking in frustration because I am tired of waiting. Lord, show me a sign. You need to show me something today. Anybody else but just me? Come on, y'all. Be honest today. Anybody else? You were like, show me something. I've been waiting. And he's like, really? You better, you better, you should calm down. You better calm down. That's how the Lord talks to me. I don't know how he talks to y'all. They're like, really, girl, you better, you better slow your roll. You better calm down. But thankfully, honestly, he knows our hearts, right? He knows that we're, he said, man is as dust. We're like the vapor, we're dust. He knows we're fallen. He knows we're broken. God has been giving us signs all along. Moses in the burning bush. The fire represented his holiness and his presence. The woman at the well, he says, I'm going to give you living water. That was a sign symbolizing cleansing, renewal, and spiritual satisfaction. Again, we only miss the signs because we don't understand them. We're not paying attention, or sometimes our hearts are hardened. And sometimes you're praying and you're going through a season and you realize, like, I didn't realize my heart was hardened. That's recently happened to me. Like, Lord, I didn't realize my heart's hardened, but let me just pray this for you today. Don't let your heart get hardened. That's what the enemy wants because he knows if we have hardened hearts, we won't really receive the signs from God that he wants to give us. Someone recently asked me a question. How do you know if it's the Holy Spirit? Like, how do you know? Is it your voice? Have you ever wondered that? Like, is this me talking to myself? Or is this the Holy Spirit? How do I know? And I can just tell you that I've learned the voice of the Holy Spirit over years. And He's allowed me to test it. Sometimes I missed it. Sometimes I the Holy Spirit told me. And like, no, that later, that wasn't the Holy Spirit. That was somebody told me something, but it wasn't the Holy Spirit. But you learn to test, test the voice of the Holy Spirit. He's not always shouting. Sometimes I tease myself because I said I'm I feel like I'm always shouting at you guys. I get excited. I'm like talking too loud. So I'm intentionally trying not to shout today. But the Holy Spirit speaks in a small, still voice. Sometimes I don't hear it because I'm too busy. Sometimes, honestly, me, I talk a lot. So I don't hear it because I'm talking. You're in prayer and you're just talking, talking, talking, talking, talking. You ever been in a conversation with me? I'll say, I would say somebody else, but you can't get you trying to get your people like trying to jump in. The Holy Spirit is like, Krista, if you would be quiet, then I could get a word. The word, the old saying is like, I could get a word in edgewise, right? The Holy Spirit wants to get a word in, but we need to listen and be quiet. Lord, show us a sign. So I I know last week that Pastor Ty said the Holy Spirit challenges us, right? He's challenging us, he's challenging us today to listen, to hear, to obey, not to ignore, not to have heart and hearts. And so I want to give you three points, three different signs of the Holy Spirit. We know that we talked about him as a comforter, we know we've talked about him as a teacher, we know we've talked about him as our as our our protector. Today I want to give you, talk about three other signs. The first sign is the outpouring, a pouring out, and it comes from Acts 2, 14 through 18, and it says, then Peter stood up with the eleven, raised his voice, and addressed the crowd. Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you. Listen, Linda. Listen carefully to what I have to say. And then this part, he says, These people aren't drunk as you suppose. It's only nine o'clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel in Joel 2.17. In the last days, God says, I will pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons and your daughters will prophesy. And that just means that they will speak God's message. It doesn't mean that they're going to tell the future. Sometimes we think prophesy means, and you know, girl, I see it, I see it, I see it, girl. And in one week he's coming. You're gonna meet him or to him. In one week you're gonna meet her. But prophecy is just a proclamation of the word of God. And then it goes on to say, Your young men will see visions, and this part cracked me up. It says, Your old men will dream dreams. Why? Because they probably tired. They're probably tired. He said, Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my spirit in the last days, and they will prophesy. Now, one thing I heard God saying as I was studying for this is, I have a plan for your life. I heard the God saying through the Holy Spirit, I have a plan for your life. The Holy Spirit affirms us, it equips us to proclaim the word, and it empowers us. And when he said, you know, like I said, your sons and daughters will prophesy, but guess what? Something else that stood out. The enemy also has a plan for your life. The enemy has an alternative plan that he's always trying to interject and insert. Now, Peter, when he Peter said, These people are not drunk as you suppose, they are filled with the spirit. Ephesians 5 18 says this don't get drunk with wine, but be filled with the spirit. Notice he didn't say don't drink wine. I know some context we come out of it says don't drink wine. But he said, Don't get drunk. You know what the word drunk means? It means to be impaired. It means to be impaired. God doesn't want us to be impaired. It goes on to use a word that we don't often use in our in and culture today. It says, because it leads to debauchery. Now let me tell you what debauchery means. It's it's not a common word, as I said. It's a Greek word for asotia or asotia. And it means it carries this idea: no self-control, reckless living. But this part really is like the Holy Spirit just showed me something. He illuminated my mind. Wastefulness. Somebody say wastefulness. So debauchery and getting drunk represented wastefulness. The enemy wants to fill our lives up with everything, other things, people, possessions, pursuits, and positions, so that there is no room for God's presence, his peace, or his purpose. Let me say that again. The enemy wants us to fill our lives up with, to be reckless with, to waste our time being filled up with people, possessions, pursuits, and position, power. But when we do that, when we're drunk, when we're drunk, when we're uh encumbered, when we're filled with those things, then there's no room for the presence of God. And when there's no room for the presence of God, we wonder why so many times we don't have peace. You know, peace comes from his presence. Peace comes from his presence. And we wonder why, like, what's my purpose? Why do I feel like I'm just spinning my wheels? I'm just on a hamster, I'm just on that hamster wheel because we filled our lives up with other things. Another way to describe someone who is drunk is they are under the what? Come on, talk back to me. They're under the what? The influence, right? Ever been pulled over? He's like, have you been drinking? Are you under the influence? God doesn't want us to be under his influence, he wants us to be filled and full of the Holy Spirit. To be baptized in the Spirit means this. The word baptism means baptizo in the Greek. It means to be submerged, a drowning, a water grave, right? So when we're filled with the spirit, it means we're we're drowning in the spirit. We're we've been submerged in the spirit. The water baptism, how many of you have been baptized? Okay, if you haven't been baptized, I want to encourage you, we baptize probably about a once a month, right? So a few weeks ago, we uh at Easter time, I think um Pastor Ty baptized little Ty and a bunch of his friends. So we know that God is moving here at Midtown. Can we just praise him for that? The spirit is being poured out on babies, the spirit is being poured out on you. The spirit is being poured out. He wants us to be filled, he doesn't want us to waste our lives. I want to say there was an old commercial, this will tell my age, but it would say, a mind is a terrible thing to waste. It was a it was a commercial about drugs, son. It would say, Don't do drugs, a mind. Well, I want to tell you, your mind is a terrible thing to waste. Your life is a terrible thing to waste. When God put you in your mother's womb, when he put me in my mother's womb, he gave us so many rich gifts that were already inside of us. He already had the plan for our lives. It says in Psalms 139, you knew me before you put me in my mother's womb. Don't waste your life. The spirit baptism, the public water is a public outward identification with Christ. The spirit baptism is a private, inward submerged in Christ. Not only are we submerged in Christ, but we're submerged in the family of God. Say, Lord, show me a sign. The second symbol that I want to explain, or the second thing that I want to explain, the second sign that shows up and says, This is the Holy Spirit is the dove. The dove. In Genesis 8 and 11, when after the flood of Noah, right? So Noah gets on the ark, God tells him, I'm gonna destroy everything. He gets on the ark with his family, his you know, wife and kids, and the animals. And so 40 days, 40 days is pretty significant because Jesus was fasted for 40 days, so that 40 days is significant, but that's for another sermon. But he first sends out a raven. He's like, Oh, can we get off this boat yet? Can we get off? Can we get off? And then the raven um comes back with something he knows. And so then a dove comes. So the second time he sends the dove, the dove comes back and he lets him let it signifies that it's not time yet. Finally, the dove comes back with something very significant. He comes back with an olive branch in his beak. This is like God's way of saying peace on top of peace. Peace to the tenth power. The dove already represents peace and healing and purity and innocence. But the the olive branch was a sign of, it's a universal sign of peace, right? When you say to someone you've been fighting with, I extend the olive branch, that's where we get that saying, I'm extending the olive branch. What does it mean? It means I'm laying, I want to, I want to reconcile. I don't want to fight no more, right? Ever come to your spouse and be like, hey, olive branch, I messed up. Sometimes I just text my husband when I mess up. You know, I'm I'm gonna text him. Babe, I'm sorry. Or sometimes he really texts me. But the olive branch, the olive branch, peace on peace, the dove represented peace. So God is saying, I'm I'm offering you peace on top of peace. And I thought about it like sometimes we go to yoga and meditate, you know, we meditate, that's cool. But that ain't the kind of peace he's talking about. He's not talking about the yoga piece. He'll give us that kind of peace too, but he's talking about you and I were enemies. You were you were over there, and I was over here. He said, the dove, the Holy Spirit, is a sign that we are no longer enemies. You now belong to me, you have my peace on top of peace. And how many of you know we need that kind of peace? The dove represents being reconciled to God. Some of you are here today, some of us have been reconciled to God. I imagine in a room this big, including with our students, there's somebody here today that needs that kind of peace. You need the Holy Spirit because you need to be reconciled with God. Maybe you've been running from God, maybe you've been blaming God, maybe you've been angry with God, or maybe you think God is angry with you. He's saying today, I come to give you peace on top of peace. And then when we go to the baptism of Jesus in uh Matthew 3, we see the dove again. Here's that dove, here's that sign again. The spirit descends on Jesus and rests upon him. And when so John the Baptist is out baptizing people, water baptism, and the spirit, the Holy Spirit, told him, When you see the one that the dove sends upon, now that's him. Somebody say, That's him. Is he him or is he him? That's him. That's the sign that he's him. So Jesus comes and he gets baptized by John. Now only John and Jesus see it, but it's significant. They heard this voice saying, This is my beloved son. In him I am well pleased. Can I tell you what the word beloved means? Can I tell you what that was a sign of? Beloved means my one and only. Many of us, you know, if you're in a relationship, you're like, looking, am I gonna be your one and only? Because if not, I'm not, I'm, I don't, I don't need this relationship. I don't need this relationship. And we're in this big crowd, right? We wonder, how can God speak to you and you and you and you and you? How can God speak to all of us at one time? How can God say, You're my beloved, but he means you're my beloved and you're my beloved because he is God. So he's saying today, you're my one and only. And I don't know about you, but that gets me excited that I'm God's beloved, I'm his one and only love, and he loves y'all too. So the dove becomes a sign of God's love and affirmation and of our relationship with him. This leads me to point number three, the promise. Somebody say the promise. The promise. When you think of famous TV moms, I know I wrote some down, and they're gonna, it's gonna depend on who you think of, depends upon your age. And so y'all shout out some names to me. Who's your favorite TV moms? Favorite TV moms? Claire Huxtable. Um thank you, Carol Brady. Some of y'all remember June Cleaver. Don't raise your hands. I actually, for some reason, watched The Beaver, so I don't know. And I was born in '67, but Claire Huxtable, somebody said Claire from the Outlander. They were like, you gotta include Claire for the Outlander. How many of y'all watch The Outlander? I'm not watching it. So she said, I need to go home and watch it. Okay. So Claire from The Outlander, right? But when you think, when you if you just Googled iconic mothers, I'm gonna tell you the picture of this person would come up. And it's a little hint in her name. Is it showing? There you go. Who is this? What's her name? Mother Teresa. Did Mother Teresa have a bunch of children? She didn't give birth, she didn't, she doesn't have any bio kids, as we would say, right? But she's one of the most iconic mother figures of all times, even though she never had children of her own. Now listen to what the signs of what a mother does or who a mother is, especially a mother like Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa comforted, she nurtured, she protected, she taught, she guided, she encouraged, she sacrificed, she defended, she showed compassion, she calmed fears, she gave affection, she created safety, she stayed awake when others were asleep. Think about that. Sometimes even in the spirit, you know, even in the spirit. She cared for orphans during their sick time. She loved unconditionally. Mother Teresa was a reflection of God's heart for us as his children. All those things, the Holy Spirit is a sign of. And this was kind of like revealed to me, or something I never thought about before. But in John 14, the Holy Spirit is portrayed as another parent. As I was preparing, and we were even thinking about Mother's Day that happened a couple weeks ago. Not everybody can say that they had a mom like this. Some people have had amazing moms. You're blessed. Some of us have had has have had less imperfect mothers, and we're still blessed. But listen to this: this is John 14, 15 through 18. It says, If you love me, keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate, another parent, the Holy Spirit to help you, and he will be with you forever. The spirit of truth, the world cannot accept him because they don't see the signs and they don't know him. But you know him, for he lives in you. And this is the part why I say the Holy Spirit is like another parent. Jesus says, I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you. The Holy Spirit is the presence of God over us, nurturing us like a parent. I don't know how I'm coming to a close too, but how many of you remember watched the movie The Shack? And Octavia Spencer, who has been in all kinds of movies, was she played the character of God, and many people were in an uproar. First of all, to say God was black, they was like, what? Uh-uh, uh-uh, not having it. And then on top of that, insult to injury to say God was a black woman, they were in an uproar about that movie. But then there's a part of that movie where she, I don't remember the character's name, but she he's gone through a lot. He's lost a child, he's depressed. And she says, I came to you in a way that you could receive. God comes to us in ways that we can receive him. Yes, it makes sense that God would be mother because we've been made in the image of God, not a physical image. He's not Octavia Spencer, he's not me, but he has those characteristics of mother and father. So the Holy Spirit is a sign of a second parent. In Isaiah in Psalms 57, it says, I will take refuge in the shadow of your rings, your wings until disaster passes. Isaiah 49, 15 says, The Lord has not forgotten us, never, and had an explanation point. Can a mother forget her nursing child or a baby at her breast? I mean, it doesn't get no more intimate than a mom breastfeeding her baby. He says, and have no compassion on that child she gives birth to, though she may forget, God says, I will not forget. I have engraved you on the palm of my hand. There is God comparing himself to a mother, comparing the Holy Spirit to a mother. God says, Your mama may forget you. It's rough times for you. If your mother forgets you, God said, though she may forget, I'll never forget. I don't know who that's for today. I don't know who that's for today. God said, I'll never forget you. I have engraved you on the palm of my hand. And then listen to this Psalm 32, this is for all of us. Says this blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven. And hear this part, whose sins are covered. Blessed are those who are covered. The Holy Spirit is a sign of his covering. God said, I've blessed you, I've covered your sins. And when he showed me that, there was just such a sweet presence of the Holy Spirit. Do you know how blessed we are to be under the covering of God? To be under the covering of his mercy, to be under the covering of his grace, to have our sins covered. There's some stuff I would never tell y'all. I would, I tell y'all, I, you know, I wrote a book, but I ain't put everything in there. I ain't, I ain't that silly. I'm not gonna put everything on my business in this. Some of my business is out there, but there's some things, you know you've done some things that you don't want nobody to know, right? You may not have even told your best friend some of that stuff, or your your spouse, or the person you're dating. You keep you taking that stuff to the grave. But Jesus said, I already saw it, I know it, and I love you, and you are covered. I will never forget you, I will never leave you, I will never forsake you, I will never judge you, oh, I'm protecting you, I'm caring for you, I'm saving you, I'm guiding you, I'm loving you, oh, you are my beloved, you are my woman and only. I don't care what you've done, I don't care how far you try to run for me, I don't care how long you run for me. He said, I have got you covered. Final sign, the characteristic of a dove. They made for life. That's why he didn't use a pigeon. Also, too, it said pigeons come, they they live in urban environments. It's like pigeons is hood. That's where Monty was like. Pigeons grew up in my neighborhood. There were lots of pigeons. I mean, my cousins used to keep pigeons and coops, and they would send them out with the I'm like, we live in a hood. Why you got a pigeon coop? But anyway. So they made for life. God is committed to you forever, He is committed to us through eternity. The final sign of the Holy Spirit that we don't often talk about is a seal. And there's a little image that's gonna come up. Back in ancient days or in countries where there's still a king and a queen, they use that seal, right? When it's sealed, it's sealed. Cannot be changed. This seal is a mark that we belong to God. This seal is the seal of not just any king, it is the seal of the king of kings. You are sealed by the king of kings. Ephesians 1 13 through 14 says this he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit. He is the guarantee, he's the earnest. If you if you bought a house, you have to put down an earnest money deposit. The Holy Spirit is the earnest money deposit that we have been chosen by God, that we have an inheritance with him. In Romans, it says, nothing can separate us from the love of God. It says, death nor angels, nor principalities, nothing. Trials, tribulations, say nothing. God said, nothing. You have been sealed, you have been marked by God. I have been marked by God. We belong to the King of Kings. We are His. In Revelation, when the angels break the seals, they said, Who is this? It said, Who was worthy to break the seal? Who was worthy to open the seal? It says, The Lamb of God. The Lamb of God, who is worthy, who can go, who can, who can save, who can redeem these people that have been broken and that are messed up? It says the Lamb of God, He takes away the sins of the world, and then all those that were marked, that were marked by the blood of Jesus Christ are there in heaven and they're worshiping, and they're the angels are crying, holy, holy, holy, and I'm out there crying, Lord Jesus, oh my gosh, how did I get here? Girl, I'm looking at you and I'm saying, How'd you get here? And how'd you get here? Should you even be here? I'm thinking to myself, whoo, I shouldn't even be here. Oh, but he sealed us with the Holy Spirit. He sealed you with the Holy Spirit. So finally, as I'm really closing, he didn't sprinkle us with the Holy Spirit, he poured it out on us, he gave it to us generously. The dove makes it clear that we have peace on top of peace. We are beloved, we are the only person in this room when in God's eyes, how he sees us. And finally, he hasn't left us orphans, we are covered. And as I close, David said in Psalms 86 17 Show me a sign of your favor.