SPEAKER_00: Have I got any youth and pathfinders in the room?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you guys can be loud for a minute.
SPEAKER_00: Any youth and pathfinders in the room?
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
SPEAKER_00: You guys can be louder than that.
SPEAKER_00: Do I have any youth and pathfinders and Karen in the room who's putting her hand up?
SPEAKER_00: Hey guys, I have heard great things about what's happening at Youth and Pathfinders at the moment.
SPEAKER_00: We need to be encouraged and excited as a congregation because the people who help and serve in that area are stirring something up for our future.
SPEAKER_00: They're stirring something up.
SPEAKER_00: So, youth Pathfinders in the room this morning, I'm so glad that you're in the room this morning with us.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to speak to you as much as I want to speak to the rest of the room.
SPEAKER_00: So you can put your eyes on screens, but give me your ears.
SPEAKER_00: How's that?
SPEAKER_00: Deal?
SPEAKER_00: Alright.
SPEAKER_00: We are looking at Psalm 126.
SPEAKER_00: We started the year with Psalm 126, and we are already in the second half of the year.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't feel like the second half of the year, but I counted before I came on stage.
SPEAKER_00: It is the second half of the year in the seventh month.
SPEAKER_00: Second half already.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, I asked a question at the start of the year when we looked at Psalm 126 and we said, Sow with tears and reap with joy.
SPEAKER_00: I asked you a question about this year ahead.
SPEAKER_00: We're halfway through.
SPEAKER_00: The question was, What are you sowing this year?
SPEAKER_00: What are you sowing this year?
SPEAKER_00: Because the Bible teaches us we reap what we sow.
SPEAKER_00: However, that doesn't mean we reap as we sow.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't want to confuse us this morning, so I want to be clear what I'm talking about when I use the word sowing.
SPEAKER_00: It's not to do with knitting, needles, repairing of any kind of material.
SPEAKER_00: When I say sowing, that is not what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about seeding and planting.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: Now, the Bible uses that as a metaphor for what we seed and grow in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Now you can sow your time and your possessions into something external, but you can sow into your own life and character.
SPEAKER_00: Alright?
SPEAKER_00: Every habit, attitude, and choice is a seed that you are sowing into your character.
SPEAKER_00: And you will reap in the future what you sow.
SPEAKER_00: Now I want to talk about fruit trees for a minute because when the Bible talks about our character, it talks about bearing fruit and being judged by the fruit we bear.
SPEAKER_00: So it refers to our character as the fruit we produce.
SPEAKER_00: I want to say something really simple and profound for a minute.
SPEAKER_00: If you want apples, don't plant tomato seeds.
SPEAKER_00: It's really simple and profound.
SPEAKER_00: If you want apples, don't plant tomato seeds.
SPEAKER_00: What I'm saying is we need to be clear on what it is we want to produce in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: So that we can sow with that kind of intention.
SPEAKER_00: So we end up with what we want to produce.
SPEAKER_00: Because what we sow today is reaped tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: So we're either currently sowing into our future or sowing against it.
SPEAKER_00: That's a don't like that.
SPEAKER_00: But if we're talking about fruit for a minute, let's let's look at apple trees for a second.
SPEAKER_00: Apple trees need specific things to fruit.
SPEAKER_00: Firstly, they need full sun.
SPEAKER_00: The next thing they need is pollination.
SPEAKER_00: So they need a companion tree.
SPEAKER_00: They need to have deep roots, they need to be planted at the right time in the right season, and they need effective drainage.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's intention to something God's created being able to bear the fruit it's designed to produce.
SPEAKER_00: If we're talking about ourselves, we're not in control of the climate and the conditions around us.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a bigger picture I want to speak to us morning before we narrow back down into the fruit we produce.
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna make the canvas really wide for a minute, and we're gonna go on a big journey, which is not surprising with me.
SPEAKER_00: And then we're gonna come and land back at the fruit we produce, alright?
SPEAKER_00: We ready for that?
SPEAKER_00: So hold on to the person next to you because we're gonna go all the way back to the beginning of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you were really excited to hold on to the person next to you right then.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we're having so many dedications at the moment.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna go all the way back to the beginning of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna go to Genesis, and God created all the heavens of the earth, and it said it was good, it was perfect, and all creation glorified God.
SPEAKER_00: And then he created mankind, and he took us and he put us in the Garden of Eden, and placed in the Garden of Eden, man was in full communion with God.
SPEAKER_00: Man was in full communion with God.
SPEAKER_00: Now, it's said that we were set apart from the rest of creation because we were created in the image of the Creator.
SPEAKER_00: We were also given a mandate to steward creation, to bear fruit, and to multiply.
SPEAKER_00: And then God gave us free will and free reign.
SPEAKER_00: Now that free will was given with instructions on how to achieve the purpose we were created for.
SPEAKER_00: Instructions are important when they come from a creator, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like you could go and buy a toaster from somewhere.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know where you buy toasters from, they keep coming with the houses I move into.
SPEAKER_00: But, or Rachel's buying them, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: But wherever you get a toaster from, I'm certain that if you looked at the manual, somewhere in the manual, it would tell you not to stick a metal knife into the toaster while it's plugged into the wall and on.
SPEAKER_00: That's instructions from the people who created it telling you how to best use what's created.
SPEAKER_00: Now, you can still think you know better and take a knife and stick it into the toaster, and the toaster's not going to stop you.
SPEAKER_00: But you're going to experience the full consequences of your choice.
SPEAKER_00: God gives us free will and then he gives us instruction on how to use it.
SPEAKER_00: In the garden there was a tree, and the instruction was don't eat from it.
SPEAKER_00: But man decided to go against the best advice and eat from that tree.
SPEAKER_00: And you see, that was an act of rebellion towards God and disobedience to the way he designed us.
SPEAKER_00: And God is sovereign, but sin is the willful defiance of God's instructions.
SPEAKER_00: And so what happens is the cost of sin is separation and death.
SPEAKER_00: What we need to understand is God honors your choices.
SPEAKER_00: That's how free will works.
SPEAKER_00: See, the Garden of Eden wasn't like a video game where when Adam ate from the tree, God just reset the level to try again.
SPEAKER_00: That's not free will.
SPEAKER_00: Free will is God honoring your choices and releasing you to them.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean you can't come back to him, but free will is he honors your choices and releases you to the consequences of them.
SPEAKER_00: And so what happens because of their choices and the separation they chose, they were removed from the garden, and that full communion they had with God in the garden is now separated.
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna jump again.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna jump forward in the story now.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna go to the wilderness where we've been a few times this year.
SPEAKER_00: We've been preaching about the wilderness.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you don't understand, let me put you there real quick.
SPEAKER_00: God's people were in captivity in Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: You might have heard some of this, it was miraculous the way he freed them.
SPEAKER_00: There was twelve plagues, Chart and Heston, and the crossing of the Red Sea.
SPEAKER_00: And then God's people were in the wilderness and they came to a mountain, and God, through Moses, made a promise to his people with the twelve Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know where the other two came from, the Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, You, I will be your God, and you will be my people, and you will be set apart from all others, but you will follow my laws, and I will again dwell among you.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we're starting to get a little bit back to Eden, full communion with God.
SPEAKER_00: However, there's there's a but.
SPEAKER_00: Let's bring in the word tabernacle for a minute.
SPEAKER_00: I know it's a big word, it's not a word we use a lot today.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you'll see it on a on a church, they might call themselves tabernacle, but tabernacle means dwelling or tent of meeting.
SPEAKER_00: And so God instructed Moses to build a tabernacle, a tent.
SPEAKER_00: So whenever you made camp, set up this tent, which was known as a tabernacle, in the middle of camp.
SPEAKER_00: So all camp was built around this tabernacle, and God said, My presence will dwell in this tabernacle, so my people will know that I dwell amongst them again.
SPEAKER_00: Very exciting, all right?
SPEAKER_00: So to dwell, you could say, to tabernacle.
SPEAKER_00: Now this was really important to God's people because God dwelling amongst them again was assurance of his promise to protect, guide, to provide.
SPEAKER_00: But he was the center of their social order.
SPEAKER_00: Their whole society, community, and laws were built around God, but it was also about holiness and reconciliation.
SPEAKER_00: So this tabernacle had a garden, then it had a few rooms.
SPEAKER_00: And the final room, separated from the rest with what was called a veil, was called the Holy of Holies.
SPEAKER_00: And that was where God's presence dwelt.
SPEAKER_00: There's something powerful about God dwelling amongst his people again, but there's something sad.
SPEAKER_00: So it said that when his presence was in the tabernacle, it radiated his glory.
SPEAKER_00: But what it meant was people could see the glory of God, but they couldn't go into the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: So in the way Adam and Eve were able to walk in the garden in the presence of God, God's people now could see the glory of God, but they couldn't go into the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: Now, because it's about holiness and reconciliation, once a year the high priest could make an offering of an unblemished animal, because remember, the cost of sin is separation and death.
SPEAKER_00: So we're separated from the presence, but that cost can be paid by the sacrifice, the offering of an unblemished animal, and that high priest temporarily could go beyond the veil into the holy of holies and be in the presence of God on behalf of the people and reconcile them to God.
SPEAKER_00: Are we following?
SPEAKER_00: Now the tabernacle was a tent because God's people were mobile at the time.
SPEAKER_00: God would they didn't have a home.
SPEAKER_00: God was leading them through the wilderness to a home.
SPEAKER_00: When he led them to the promised land, their home, and when they established themselves in the promised land, the tent, the tabernacle became the temple.
SPEAKER_00: It became something permanent.
SPEAKER_00: Solomon, David dreamed it up, Solomon built it, it was a temple.
SPEAKER_00: The tabernacle was on the move with his people, the temple was permanent.
SPEAKER_00: But permanent with a condition.
SPEAKER_00: God said, My presence will dwell in this temple with my people if they don't worship other gods.
SPEAKER_00: And so people abused the free will and the free reign again, became much less set apart and started to chase after things that wasn't God.
SPEAKER_00: And so God honored the conditions of his promise, and his presence departed the temple, the temple was destroyed, and his people were taken away to a foreign land.
SPEAKER_00: Eventually they came back, they rebuilt the temple, but it was never the same again.
SPEAKER_00: And then we hear that there were these three hundred years of silence where God's people didn't hear any prophetic word from God.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna jump ahead again.
SPEAKER_00: That silence was broken.
SPEAKER_00: John 1 14, it was broken.
SPEAKER_00: The word became flesh and made his dwelling amongst us.
SPEAKER_00: The word became flesh and tabernacled amongst his people.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus came as flesh and blood and dwelled amongst his people.
SPEAKER_00: This is different because this is tangible.
SPEAKER_00: He is God's presence fully realized.
SPEAKER_00: We could experience it.
SPEAKER_00: But it was mobile because it moved around the Holy Land, leading his followers as they followed him.
SPEAKER_00: The tabernacle in the wilderness portrayed a place where God and man could meet, even if it was temporary.
SPEAKER_00: But something uniquely different is happening in Jesus tabernacling amongst his people, because in person Jesus was the union of God and man.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're seeing a sign of things to come.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus comes and dwells amongst these people.
SPEAKER_00: However, the cost of sin is still separation and death.
SPEAKER_00: In John 2, the high priest said, Give us proof that shows us you are who you say you are.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says this destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.
SPEAKER_00: Let's be real here for a minute.
SPEAKER_00: That's got to be pretty odd, right?
SPEAKER_00: Solomon took seven years to build his temple.
SPEAKER_00: It took twenty years to rebuild the temple when they returned from exile.
SPEAKER_00: And Herod, who had fancy ideas, extended it for 46 years.
SPEAKER_00: He did a 46 year extension on the temple.
SPEAKER_00: Three days?
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna do all of that in three days?
SPEAKER_00: The people were confused.
SPEAKER_00: But the cost of sin is separation and death.
SPEAKER_00: So a price needs to be paid to break that separation between us and God.
SPEAKER_00: And so in the tabernacle, where they used an unblemished animal and they had to do it yearly, Jesus becomes the unblemished offering that's sacrificed for us once and for all, to bridge the gap between God and man.
SPEAKER_00: See, something is changing in our historical narrative here, which is powerful, that we experience the full benefit of today.
SPEAKER_00: It said when Jesus died on the cross, the veil was torn.
SPEAKER_00: Do we remember the veil?
SPEAKER_00: The veil was the thing that separated us from God's presence.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus died on the cross, it said the veil was torn.
SPEAKER_00: Death has paid the price.
SPEAKER_00: And it makes way for a uh prophecy, it's about to say philosophy, prophecy to be fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: 900 years before Jesus, Joel gave us the prophecy.
SPEAKER_00: God would pour out his spirit on all people.
SPEAKER_00: 900 years.
SPEAKER_00: And then Paul, in his letter to the Romans, trying to explain what's happening to the early believers after the death and resurrection of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: What's happened on the day of Pentecost says this.
SPEAKER_00: But if you don't hear anything else today, hear this.
SPEAKER_00: Because this has a direct impact on your everyday life.
SPEAKER_00: God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
SPEAKER_00: God's love has been poured out into our hearts, not the He's writing to, it's them and our hearts through His Holy Spirit that has been given to we are the Us in that sentence.
SPEAKER_00: Nine hundred years, but God keeps his promises.
SPEAKER_00: That's because 900 years means something different to God than it does to us, because where he sits out of time and where we sit within time, but it also means that some of the prayers we pray now are going to be answered in the generations to come because God's operating from a bigger perspective than we are.
SPEAKER_00: That is exciting.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that exciting when we have a generation to come sitting in this room right now?
SPEAKER_00: So you see, this offering has been made.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' death and resurrection has paid the price of death, has covered the separation, and God's spirit for the first time can be poured out into us.
SPEAKER_00: But it's not the tabernacle.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to this.
SPEAKER_00: Paul writes in Corinthians, do you know that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit who is in you, who you have received from God, you are not your own.
SPEAKER_00: Did you know that your bodies are the temple for the Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is really important because man's temple, Solomon's temple, was made with the finest wood, the finest stone, the finest gold to glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: But God goes, No, my temple is going to be in those who I've made in my image.
SPEAKER_00: You are the finest creation.
SPEAKER_00: You are the most precious to glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: And that the tabernacle was temporary.
SPEAKER_00: It moved with its people, the temple was permanent.
SPEAKER_00: So God coming in flesh was temporary.
SPEAKER_00: He was only in flesh and blood for a temporary amount of time.
SPEAKER_00: But you now, holding the Holy Spirit as the temple is about permanence.
SPEAKER_00: It means that we are now the permanent focal point of the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: The temple, the tabernacle was temporary, the temple is permanent.
SPEAKER_00: God is permanently doing something right here, right now, inside each and every one of us.
SPEAKER_00: Poured out.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go back to that for a minute.
SPEAKER_00: Poured out.
SPEAKER_00: We need to understand that.
SPEAKER_00: It says God's love has been poured out through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: The Greek word for pour out translates as lavish, generous, and abundant.
SPEAKER_00: I'm looking at you all, and if you've experienced baptism because of faith and repentance, if you've chosen to follow Jesus, then God's love is poured out lavishly, generously, abundantly.
SPEAKER_00: Not anyone in this room is operating on a little bit of his spirits.
SPEAKER_00: Not anyone in this room is operating on fumes.
SPEAKER_00: You have the abundant love of God, the abundant spirit of God indwelling in you.
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
SPEAKER_00: So if we know that and we believe that and we live that, let's get back to fruit.
SPEAKER_00: What's the fruit of that?
SPEAKER_00: We're involved in this bit again.
SPEAKER_00: See, we didn't we didn't do anything.
SPEAKER_00: God did all of that for us.
SPEAKER_00: But here comes our responsibility in audit.
SPEAKER_00: What are we sowing?
SPEAKER_00: What are we producing?
SPEAKER_00: What is the fruit of our character?
SPEAKER_00: You see, the forbidden fruit, which we can start to refer to in the New Testament as the flesh, the forbidden fruit is self-reliance, autonomy, which is chosen separation from God, rebellion and disobedience towards God, the Creator, His sovereignty and His way.
SPEAKER_00: But the fruit of the Spirit poured out in abundance is surrendering, obedience, reliance, and recognizing His sovereignty.
SPEAKER_00: Guys, if you want apples, don't plant tomato seeds.
SPEAKER_00: There's flesh and there's fruit.
SPEAKER_00: What are we sowing with intention here?
SPEAKER_00: Because the Bible doesn't leave any uncertainty whatsoever in what that fruit is meant to look like.
SPEAKER_00: The fruit of the Spirit is, and people will you could start quoting this in me because they'll memorize it love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
SPEAKER_00: When we're talking about the fruit that we're meant to produce, there's only clarity.
SPEAKER_00: So I think if we go back to the conditions that's required for an apple tree to bear fruit, I think that's that's something in season for us.
SPEAKER_00: First and foremost, it needs full sun.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we have that in abundance.
SPEAKER_00: We have the abundance of the life-giving Holy Spirit inside of each and every one of us.
SPEAKER_00: The living life flows between our whole being.
SPEAKER_00: So we've got the full sun.
SPEAKER_00: But we need the pollination, the companion trees.
SPEAKER_00: We are saved and rooted in the body of Christ because in community there is fertility, no doubt in this place.
SPEAKER_00: But we need each other to bear fruit.
SPEAKER_00: We need the companionship of the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But it also needs deep roots.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the word of God has never been more accessible than it has in any other time in history than now.
SPEAKER_00: We got no excuse but to build the deepest roots possible in the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, everything I'm saying this morning is the reality of this bigger narrative, this bigger story that the Word of God is trying to tell us about this privileged time in history that we are a part of.
SPEAKER_00: We have complete accessibility to the Word of God and we have His love poured out in abundance.
SPEAKER_00: We got to build deep roots in that.
SPEAKER_00: But then everything needs to be planted in the right time and the right season.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to talk about seasons in the natural, even though I'm using the natural words.
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk spiritual seasons for a minute.
SPEAKER_00: I've always heard it like this from a good friend of mine.
SPEAKER_00: In autumn, we ponder as God speaks.
SPEAKER_00: In winter, he prunes us back.
SPEAKER_00: In spring, we sow, and in summer we reap.
SPEAKER_00: There's a time and place and a season for all things.
SPEAKER_00: So at this moment in your life, what is your current spiritual season?
SPEAKER_00: Is he speaking or pruning?
SPEAKER_00: Are you sowing or reaping?
SPEAKER_00: And then finally, on this tree analogy, fruit trees need full drainage.
SPEAKER_00: Why is that important?
SPEAKER_00: Because as the abundance of the Spirit is poured out into us, we are going to suffocate our roots if we are not releasing the things of our old life that don't need to be there anymore.
SPEAKER_00: We can't hold on to the new and hold on to the old.
SPEAKER_00: So as it gets poured out into us, we've got to have the drainage of the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: The flesh of our old life, our old existence, our old identity before God has got to drain out.
SPEAKER_00: If we are going to sow the seeds of Him into our life, it needs to be the holes we've made inside us from the things we've taken away.
SPEAKER_00: We need the full drainage.
SPEAKER_00: So again, what are we sowing this year?
SPEAKER_00: As the band comes up, I want to spoil the ending.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to really quickly finish by spoiling the ending.
SPEAKER_00: So in the book of Revelation, John is trying to give us a vision of what it all looks like when Jesus returns.
SPEAKER_00: A vision of what our life after this life looks like.
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's really worth spoiling right now, because I think it really speaks to where we're at.
SPEAKER_00: John says, I saw a new heaven and a new earth.
SPEAKER_00: For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.
SPEAKER_00: I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband.
SPEAKER_00: And I heard a loud voice from a throne saying, Look, God's dwelling place is now again amongst his people.
SPEAKER_00: Full communion again, guys.
SPEAKER_00: And he will dwell with them.
SPEAKER_00: They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
SPEAKER_00: And then it says this He will wipe away every tear.
SPEAKER_00: There will be no more death, no more mourning, no more crying, no more pain, for the old order of things has passed away.
SPEAKER_00: The ending is important because when we say to sow with tears and reap with joy, we're asking you to sow into the one who acknowledges your tears, validates your tears, answers your tears, and will wipe those tears away.
SPEAKER_00: What are we sowing this year?
SPEAKER_00: Because we have the full abundance of His Holy Spirit flowing in us.
SPEAKER_00: Let's worship.