SPEAKER_00: Hello, and thank you for joining us on the Sierra Bible Church Sermon of the Week.
SPEAKER_00: We hope you enjoy this message by Pastor Nate Levering.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you know that about a year or so ago, a little bit extra for some of us, we had the sense that God was asking us to care in a unique way for one of our kind of smaller communities in the community we live in.
SPEAKER_01: So a number of people kind of said, Hey, what would it look like for us to just kind of begin to send volunteers and love and care into the community of Jamestown in a way that we haven't done that before?
SPEAKER_01: My sister Bethany was coming off the mission field in Thailand and landing here with like, I want to do some more.
SPEAKER_01: And so that became then, hey, what if we kind of send you as a missionary?
SPEAKER_01: We didn't have any money to do that yet, but we had some individual donors that said, we care about Jamestown.
SPEAKER_01: We'll kind of get this started.
SPEAKER_01: But like, what's God's plan?
SPEAKER_01: Many of you have volunteered there, you've been at some of the events, uh, you are at the school in a regular way, like many of our volunteers are.
SPEAKER_01: And last week, I we just got what we feel like is this awesome confirmation of God's work.
SPEAKER_01: Um, as a part of a community partnership that we have, we received a$60,000 grant to continue the work in uh Jamestown.
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, praise God.
SPEAKER_01: We are so excited.
SPEAKER_01: What you wouldn't know is behind the scenes, we're kind of going, God, is this something you want us to continue to do?
SPEAKER_01: And if so, like how?
SPEAKER_01: We need your direction.
SPEAKER_01: Then God shows up like that.
SPEAKER_01: Many of us are um studying and and reading together in our life groups, um, some uh a book and then a workbook by uh Tyler Staten.
SPEAKER_01: And it's been a great opportunity, I think, because it has been for me personally to get to know the Holy Spirit in some new ways and to uh pray and to think and to in many ways even act differently.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us have said, hey, as a part of this, I'm looking for some other resources.
SPEAKER_01: So I've talked to a number of you who bought, you know, Billy Graham wrote kind of a seminal work on the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us have snagged that and read it.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, there's another book that I was listening to even last week because I snagged them, like, hey, this is what God's doing.
SPEAKER_01: And so um, it's by a guy by the name of uh Lighton Ford.
SPEAKER_01: And um Light, it's he the book's called The Attentive Life.
SPEAKER_01: He speaks of those moments that aren't the huge moments in our life, but the smaller, quieter ones in a way that resonated with me.
SPEAKER_01: And so I want to just kind of start uh with his words.
SPEAKER_01: This is a book called The Attentive Life, and it's how to hear God in every place in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: This is one of the things he says, and I love the way he writes this.
SPEAKER_01: Each of us, he says, is called.
SPEAKER_01: Each of us is called to live a life patterned by Christ, formed from the inside out.
SPEAKER_01: A life, and this was the most helpful part for me, a life not shaped by inner compulsions, which he later talks about as this the ego or the flesh, or he says, captive to the outer expectations of people and jobs and the world around us, but drawn by the inner voice of love, which he would later identify as the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: He says, to listen to this voice, we need to pay careful attention.
SPEAKER_01: And that's our hope as we gather, as we gather around the Word of God, as we gather in our groups, as you walk in and through your daily life, that we would be the kind of people that pay close attention to a God that is present, a God that dwells within us, uh, and is active and at work uh even today.
SPEAKER_01: So, this is sort of the text that we're gonna work from this morning.
SPEAKER_01: So, if you have your Bibles open, some of you know that we've been teaching through this series from uh what some call the upper room discourse.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the time when Jesus is at the very end of his life, his mission on earth.
SPEAKER_01: He gets his disciples together in kind of an upper room and they share a Passover meal.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then he spends uh a while kind of preaching them.
SPEAKER_01: This is like Jesus' longest recorded sort of comprehensive sermon.
SPEAKER_01: And so we've been looking at that, trying to ask, what were Jesus' priorities?
SPEAKER_01: What was he setting his disciples up for?
SPEAKER_01: How is he teaching them what life was meant to look like after he is gone?
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus kind of leans in in a number of ways.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna find ourselves in one of those specific ones uh this morning.
SPEAKER_01: If you have a Bible uh and you brought it, I would just encourage you to open it, John chapter 15.
SPEAKER_01: It'll also be on the screen.
SPEAKER_01: But if you're like me and you like to underline things, there's a couple of places I want us to kind of focus this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Let's read Jesus' words.
SPEAKER_01: And again, this is a little bit later in Jesus' teaching, and he comes back to the theme of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus getting his disciples ready for life after he's gone.
SPEAKER_01: He says, This, when the advocate comes, the advocate is the Holy Spirit, he's the counselor, the friend, the helper, translated different ways in our different translations, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth.
SPEAKER_01: This is one of the names that Jesus gives the Holy Spirit, who goes out from the Father.
SPEAKER_01: And then He gives them this is what he's going to be doing.
SPEAKER_01: He will testify about me.
SPEAKER_01: That one of the primary roles of the Holy Spirit after Jesus is gone is to point people to who?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: They're probably thinking, well, why don't you stick around?
SPEAKER_01: We'll just introduce him to you.
SPEAKER_01: The role of the Holy Spirit is to testify about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: His entire, it's all about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And then he goes on.
SPEAKER_01: He says, You also must testify.
SPEAKER_01: You also have a part in this.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, it's even closer than that, for you have been with me from the beginning.
SPEAKER_01: What is Jesus saying?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is saying, My time is done.
SPEAKER_01: I came with a specific mission.
SPEAKER_01: I came for you, I came to die for you.
SPEAKER_01: Mission accomplished.
SPEAKER_01: Now there's a new age, a new time, something that's actually been promised throughout the scriptures for thousands of years.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if we we look at this, one of the things that Jesus is trying to do is to help them understand beyond the physical world.
SPEAKER_01: Like what's actually happening?
SPEAKER_01: How can we understand this?
SPEAKER_01: And again, this is challenging stuff, but I want to draw us to Jesus' kind of priority because there are some things we can learn.
SPEAKER_01: That we stand in sort of what what the Bible describes as earth, the physical.
SPEAKER_01: And then God, at least the Father and the Spirit, while Jesus is here, live in another dimension that the scriptures call heaven.
SPEAKER_01: So it's not as if it's this other place, it's another dimension here with us.
SPEAKER_01: Here's Jesus is trying to figure this out, trying to help his disciples, people like you and I, figure this out.
SPEAKER_01: What does Jesus say?
SPEAKER_01: He says, I'm gonna ask the Father, and he will give you another helper.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I'm going away, but when I'm away, I'm going to talk to the Father.
SPEAKER_01: I don't understand how all this worked, but it's as if Jesus says, I'm going to show up and I'm going to tell the Father, mission accomplished, it's time to send the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: John 14, in a verse we looked at a couple of weeks ago, the advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name.
SPEAKER_01: The text we looked at today.
SPEAKER_01: When the advocate, the helper, the counselor, the friend, when he comes, whom Jesus says, I will send to you from the Father.
SPEAKER_01: And then at the very end of Jesus' message, we'll come back to this in a couple of weeks.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says this.
SPEAKER_01: He says, unless I go away, which by the way, Jesus notes, will be actually better for you that I'm gone than if I stay and remain, the advocate will not come to you unless I go.
SPEAKER_01: But if I go, I'm going to send him to you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to die.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to go be with the Father, hi-fi Father, mission accomplished.
SPEAKER_01: I died for them, send the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: We've been talking about what that looks like and where he goes.
SPEAKER_01: I want to ask us this question this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Between Jesus, you can just answer this out loud if you want, or not.
SPEAKER_01: Between Jesus and the Holy Spirit, who has a tougher mission and job?
SPEAKER_01: Be honest, I never really thought about that this before this week.
SPEAKER_01: And in some ways, some of what we're going to do by way of thought experiment will tweak a bit of our Trinitarian theology.
SPEAKER_01: And let me just go ahead and say it right now.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think it's true.
SPEAKER_01: So we're going to play with it in our heads a little bit because I think it'll teach us something which has become incredibly valuable for me by way of implication regarding the truth.
SPEAKER_01: So which one?
SPEAKER_01: You think Jesus or the Holy Spirit has a tougher job?
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_01: I always thought Jesus had one.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he went, he died.
SPEAKER_01: Like that seems a lot tougher.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus' job in some ways was tougher, right?
SPEAKER_01: And the Holy Spirit's in some way tougher, and it's we're just trying to ask some questions.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus' job in many ways is dependent on the fact that we would kill him.
SPEAKER_01: Well done.
SPEAKER_01: We killed him.
SPEAKER_01: We were faithful to who we are.
SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit's job, and I hope that we'll see this as we walk out the sort of message today, is dependent on who?
SPEAKER_01: Us.
SPEAKER_01: Me.
SPEAKER_01: He can't do his job unless I do mine.
SPEAKER_01: Unless I am faithful.
SPEAKER_01: Now again, this might mess with things a little bit, but what I want you to imagine is this that you are the Holy Spirit, okay?
SPEAKER_01: So now I get this a bit of a challenge, uh, but just think for a moment that you're the Holy Spirit, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus has done his job, he lived the perfect life, he became the perfect sacrifice, he went to the cross, his blood was spilt, forgiveness has been offered, a way has been made whereby God can now again indwell the life of his people.
SPEAKER_01: They can walk together.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus has done his job, he now leaves.
SPEAKER_01: You and the Father are in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Now, up until this point, you as the Holy Spirit have been active in creation, you have been active in some very unique ways with unique people for unique times.
SPEAKER_01: But it's game time.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is back in heaven with the Father.
SPEAKER_01: The Spirit, according to what Jesus is saying, is sort of on the eve, if you will, of being sent on mission for a new season, the one we currently find ourselves in.
SPEAKER_01: And imagine then for a moment that Jesus comes back, he says to the Father, I'm done.
SPEAKER_01: Father obviously knows this.
SPEAKER_01: We're just playing with this in our heads for a moment.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Hey, it's time to send the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: You, as the Spirit, are like, Yes, it's my time.
SPEAKER_01: I'm in game time.
SPEAKER_01: Here we go.
SPEAKER_01: What do I do?
SPEAKER_01: And the Father and Jesus look back and say, Well, it's actually gonna be a little complicated because you're gonna do it through people like us, people like me, people like you.
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be a little complicated.
SPEAKER_01: But the Father and Jesus say, but we wrote you a job description, Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So here you go.
SPEAKER_01: So I wrote a job description.
SPEAKER_01: I looked at four, sort of the four kind of main texts within the scriptures that describe the role and the practices of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So uh if you were to get that job description because you're ready to go, it's game time, send me in, coach, and the father and the son send you in.
SPEAKER_01: Uh what you'd see, you can go backwards, we're going too fast through this, real quickly.
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, Carrie.
SPEAKER_01: Um, that hey, this is going to be who you report to, right?
SPEAKER_01: In your job, you report to the father and the son.
SPEAKER_01: This is just the job description according to the scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: Your position summary.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what your role is, Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: You are sent by the Father and the Son to dwell within believers, to reveal Jesus, to transform lives, to empower obedience, to produce spiritual fruit, to provide assurance of salvation, to guide believers into truth, and help God's people live as sons and daughters of God while carrying the name of Jesus to the ends of the earth.
SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit's primary mission is to make Jesus known, loved, trusted, and obeyed.
SPEAKER_01: This is your job.
SPEAKER_01: What's your work environment?
SPEAKER_01: It's a question we all ask when we start a new job.
SPEAKER_01: It's in us.
SPEAKER_01: There in is the complicated part at one level.
SPEAKER_01: The work environment is that the Holy Spirit is to be active and actively present in the lives of Christians, to work through scripture, prayer, community, suffering, worship, obedience, moms.
SPEAKER_01: These are the sort of main ways.
SPEAKER_01: But we also know if we were to begin to tell our story about the movement and direction of the Holy Spirit, we would say, man, in some ways, the Holy Spirit seems to be willing to use just about any means necessary to draw us to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And in many ways, he does that in our story.
SPEAKER_01: What are the primary responsibilities you ask?
SPEAKER_01: Because it's like, what is my job when I get there?
SPEAKER_01: Uh, the first thing, these first two are sort of helpful in light of the text we're looking at this morning.
SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit's job is to reveal and glorify Jesus, to make it all about Jesus, to point to Jesus, to let you see and experience and know.
SPEAKER_01: Help me out.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: That's why he's here.
SPEAKER_01: The Spirit of truth will testify about Jesus says about me.
SPEAKER_01: He's going to testify, tell people about me.
SPEAKER_01: That's what he will do.
SPEAKER_01: He will glorify me.
SPEAKER_01: Again, Jesus is getting them ready because he will take what is mine, my grace, my truth, my life, my forgiveness, and declare it to you.
SPEAKER_01: His responsibilities include pointing people to Jesus, making it all about Jesus, making Jesus present and real.
SPEAKER_01: What is spirit-filled worship?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus worship.
SPEAKER_01: What's spirit-filled teaching?
SPEAKER_01: Teaching about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: What's spirit-filled parenting?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is central.
SPEAKER_01: When the spirit takes hold of us, Jesus is made much of.
SPEAKER_01: Seems like if we set that mission, the Holy Spirit gets involved because that's why He's here to help us and those that are far from God know Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The other part of that is that we would make him known.
SPEAKER_01: And this is part of even the text today.
SPEAKER_01: The second thing that Jesus does, he doesn't just sort of do that, he empowers witnesses.
SPEAKER_01: He empowers people that are meant to, as he says to the disciples, to testify on his behalf in his power.
SPEAKER_01: What we see in Jesus, excuse me, as he's getting the uh disciples ready in Acts, he says this.
SPEAKER_01: He says, When the Holy Spirit comes, he says, You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes.
SPEAKER_01: Why that power?
SPEAKER_01: So they can like lift huge weights and do awesome things.
SPEAKER_01: That power will come on you and you will be my witnesses.
SPEAKER_01: They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God boldly.
SPEAKER_01: This is a testimony that Luke gives as he watched what it looked like for the Holy Spirit to do what the Holy Spirit came to do.
SPEAKER_01: They spoke the word of God boldly.
SPEAKER_01: His responsibilities will include empowering gospel proclamation, turning fearful disciples into bold witnesses.
SPEAKER_01: If you're one of those this morning, if your person's like, man, I love it that other people get to hear the message of Jesus, I just don't think I'll ever be the kind of person to like open my mouth and tell them.
SPEAKER_01: I really like the idea that we preach the gospel always and only if necessary, if like it's really, really needed and somebody else does it, we should use words.
SPEAKER_01: I just want to say that the Holy Spirit wants you to know him in ways that he would dwell in you and testify of Jesus' goodness and grace through you.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus' invitation here to testify is also an invitation to experience the spirit working in you.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's go through some of these other ones that I picked up.
SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit's job, this is our job if we were the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Teach your mind, teach your mind, repeat.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus taught or Jesus, huh?
SPEAKER_01: Jason taught on that last week.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, dwell with it within believers.
SPEAKER_01: That we're the Holy Spirit will convict the world.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna look at that text.
SPEAKER_01: I hope you can make it back next week.
SPEAKER_01: Where the Holy Spirit will produce spiritual fruit in us, uh, transforming us from the inside out.
SPEAKER_01: He'll lead believers into holy living, to walk with us, not just point out right and wrong, but actually help walk us into uh the life that God has for us.
SPEAKER_01: He'll give us assurance of adoption, he'll help believers in our weakness.
SPEAKER_01: If you ever sense in the midst of struggle and just those tough times, God's presence, that's the spirit coming near us, and that he will give life and freedom.
SPEAKER_01: This is the job description that the text gives the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So, as we already said uh a bit, whose life is the Holy Spirit's job dependent on?
SPEAKER_01: And in many ways, it's the life of every believer.
SPEAKER_01: It's whether or not I turn, it's whether or not I submit, it's whether or not I listen.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the apostle Paul early on in the church knew that people would be like us, churches would be like ours in different ways, and and we can get distracted and we can get focused on the wrong kinds of things, and we can get apathetic and turn in on ourselves, and and we can sort of stop listening and responding to the Holy Spirit's nudges, and for some of us, we can miss it.
SPEAKER_01: And so he wrote a couple of different times to different churches these words.
SPEAKER_01: He says this to the church in Thessalonica, do not quench the spirit.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's kind of a shocking verse for me.
SPEAKER_01: That in some ways he would write to me, he would write to you and say, Do not quench the spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Like you're talking the spirit of the Holy God.
SPEAKER_01: How could I quench the spirit of the holy God?
SPEAKER_01: If he has a mission to do work in and through me and I don't allow him, this is what Paul is warning us of.
SPEAKER_01: He goes on, he says, Do not grieve the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: He writes this specifically to a community of people that if you look at the context, the way they were using their lives, what they were allowing in, how they were treating each other, the priorities they were setting as individuals in a church.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, Man, you you guys are in danger of grieving the Holy Spirit because he's come to do a specific work in and through your church, but because of the things you're focused on, because of the way you're treating each other, he can't do it.
SPEAKER_01: So wake up, pay close attention, and with that close attention, allow your obedience to follow.
SPEAKER_01: Now, again, with this, it's not meant to be sort of guilt-inducing, like, oh, you know, we I feel bad and other people are great at this.
SPEAKER_01: It's all how do we take a next step?
SPEAKER_01: And part of for me, what that looks like is just kind of the mechanics.
SPEAKER_01: Because when I tell others the good news about who Jesus is and life and forgiveness in him, what they will find if they repent and turn, this might be your story today, is a risen Jesus who's waiting to fill them with the Holy Spirit, to give them life and power and freedom in his name.
SPEAKER_01: But sometimes we get a little bit stuck and we need these sort of words of Paul to say, stop being worried about your own thing and start letting the Holy Spirit work in and through you.
SPEAKER_01: What might that look like?
SPEAKER_01: It might look like this the Spirit comes to point me to Jesus, but I'm distracted by the expectations of those around me or the ego that rises up in me.
SPEAKER_01: The spirit comes to empower my witness, but I'm more concerned about what you.
SPEAKER_01: Might think about me than what you might think about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The Spirit comes to teach and to remind, as Pastor Jason taught last week, that sometimes the noise is turned up so high in our lives that we can't even hear, let alone make out what he's trying to teach us.
SPEAKER_01: He's come to dwell in our lives, but what he finds when he moves in looks a little bit like that show hoarders.
SPEAKER_01: Like the Holy Spirit's like, where am I supposed to even sit down?
SPEAKER_01: How do we begin?
SPEAKER_01: How do we start?
SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit comes to convict us, but we won't repent.
SPEAKER_01: Comes to produce fruit in us, but we're so busy, I'm so busy consuming others' fruit.
SPEAKER_01: He comes to lead me, but I don't actually follow through when it gets tough.
SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit comes to give life and freedom, but I'm content playing around for the purposes of my own pleasure.
SPEAKER_01: And he draws us back and he says, This is what the work of the Holy Spirit is meant to be in and through you.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's look back at the text.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and we'll just go through this and we'll take some application for us.
SPEAKER_01: When the advocate comes, Jesus says, Whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify.
SPEAKER_01: What we see here, though, this is kind of like Jesus at the end of his long sermon.
SPEAKER_01: Now, some of you are already like, okay, I feel it.
SPEAKER_01: Like I'm barely awake, I'm kind of hanging on.
SPEAKER_01: We got Mother's Day things, and we're like, just kind of fade.
SPEAKER_01: I think this is the point where Jesus gets his hands out and he begins to teach about the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, the Holy Spirit's gonna come, wake up, you know, and he's just teaching them.
SPEAKER_01: And they're like, we don't really know understand what you mean.
SPEAKER_01: It's gotten late, the Passover food's kind of settling in, we're sleeping a little.
SPEAKER_01: And so what the Jesus says is he's gonna testify, he's gonna tell people when he shows up, he's gonna point people to me.
SPEAKER_01: And then what Jesus does, and the way the Greek is written, would certainly cause you to believe this: that he goes from teaching about the Holy Spirit, and then he looks the disciples in the eyes.
SPEAKER_01: People like you, people like me.
SPEAKER_01: And he says this, and you also must testify.
SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit's gonna do, and you, you, you, you also, you must testify.
SPEAKER_01: John Brunner, in uh amazing work, I think, on the Gospel of John, he puts it this way when he talks about how Jesus um speaks of these things, he says, this juxtaposition, how he uses testify the Holy Spirit will, you are meant to or must testify, tells us that the Spirit's first clear witness in the world is to, in, and through the testimony of these eyewitnesses through people like us, not first clear witness through the word, not first clear witness through creation, not first clear witness through dreams, not through putting little Jesuses around so that our neighbors will see them.
SPEAKER_01: Through you, through me, we are meant to be the spirit-filled testimony of the truth of what God has done in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We are that mouthpiece to testify, it means to publicly declare by word and deed the truth about Jesus based on what has been seen, heard, and personally experienced, so that others may believe, so that others may come to faith, so that others may find that Jesus who loves them so much, who sets them free, who has good plans.
SPEAKER_01: Not only do we kind of, you know, meet this Jesus who's loved us before we were us, but what does the Bible say happens when we get to stand in that place and the Spirit of God actually speaks through our lives, through our words, and others come to faith?
SPEAKER_01: Let's just remember for a moment this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Dead people.
SPEAKER_01: Dead people come to life.
SPEAKER_01: Lost people are found.
SPEAKER_01: People in darkness get light.
SPEAKER_01: Broken people are made whole, empty people get filled, bound people experience freedom, the self-serving become the purposed for good.
SPEAKER_01: Sinners are declared eternally righteous.
SPEAKER_01: Those that have hearts of stone are turned to flesh, spiritual orphans get a family and a home.
SPEAKER_01: And you might be saying to yourself, you know, I I and maybe the Spirit's saying, Hey, I want you to share the truth of who I am with so and so or such and such.
SPEAKER_01: And you might think, but but those, they're not like hurting and anxious and self-serving and sick.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh, they're good people.
SPEAKER_01: And I just want to say this.
SPEAKER_01: Even when good people come to faith in Jesus, their world will radically change.
SPEAKER_01: Radically change.
SPEAKER_01: And so we get to tell and see what God does.
SPEAKER_01: So I just want to introduce the two things as we kind of land this morning on ways that we can take steps in this direction.
SPEAKER_01: And quite frankly, and you've heard me talk about some of these things before if you're around.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we live at a pretty sweet time when it comes to telling other people that are willing to listen about our faith, about what God has done in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think this was always true.
SPEAKER_01: At least for some of I'm 53 and I look back 20, 30 years ago, there seemed to be a lot more animosity.
SPEAKER_01: Now there seems to be, at least to some degree, a lot more openness for people to have, at the very least, spiritual convictions or spiritual conversations.
SPEAKER_01: So, how do we walk in those?
SPEAKER_01: So that's what we're gonna do in this next little bit.
SPEAKER_01: And so I just want to say, let's talk.
SPEAKER_01: We we need to be people that talk, people that learn to talk, people that, and and when I say talk, talking is primarily what?
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: It's listening, right?
SPEAKER_01: So again, you're like, yeah, but you're up there talking for 35 minutes.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, but primarily, if you're a good talker, you have to be a good listener.
SPEAKER_01: So it's one of the skills we must grow in.
SPEAKER_01: Now, little piece of uh statistics that I think is interesting.
SPEAKER_01: Barna, they do lots of studies and sort of religious studies in the West and in America specifically.
SPEAKER_01: They asked you, open would you at the top love to have a spiritual conversation with a friend?
SPEAKER_01: Now it's fascinating because 79% of your neighbors said this.
SPEAKER_01: They would love to have a spiritual conversation with a friend.
SPEAKER_01: And that's where you get these three things on the bottom because they describe what a friend is.
SPEAKER_01: Here are the kinds of people that your neighbors, 79% of them, would be willing and actually enjoy a spiritual conversation, if this was the context of the spirit of the conversation, that you and I would love without or listen without judging, that we would listen without judging, that we'd allow our neighbors to draw their own conclusions.
SPEAKER_01: And then lastly, that we would have confidence in sharing our own perspective.
SPEAKER_01: When your neighbors were asked, people would say, I mean, they may not agree, they may not at that moment bend a knee, but they're open in new ways to listen.
SPEAKER_01: If you're willing to listen without, or if you're willing to kind of share, excuse me, if you're willing to listen without judging, they're open if you're willing to allow them to draw their own conclusions.
SPEAKER_01: And then if you have some sense of confidence, I remember when I was in junior high still, and you know, I would get so excited, and I just loved, I felt like I always kind of loved who Jesus was.
SPEAKER_01: And so I'd get excited to go to school, and there were times when I would tell friends, and occasionally someone would say, you know, that's very interesting.
SPEAKER_01: Tell me more.
SPEAKER_01: And then I would like start to apologize for Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm really sorry, I don't really know, I'm not really sure I believe this.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not, I just didn't have confidence around being able to say, This is who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_01: This is what he's done.
SPEAKER_01: And so we want to grow in that.
SPEAKER_01: What's one of the ways we can grow in that?
SPEAKER_01: And this is kind of the next uh slide.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, there's a a group in America that said, hey, all of us are called to be God's testimony, to tell others with word or deed.
SPEAKER_01: Not all of us are that good at it naturally.
SPEAKER_01: We get nervous, we get fearful, we get tongue-tied.
SPEAKER_01: And so, what is a way that we could together take some steps in that direction?
SPEAKER_01: Now, you know, at this point in this message, if you have the gift of evangelism, you're already like, Nate, just let us go.
SPEAKER_01: Like, I got some unsaved friends, I'm ready to go, I'm gonna tell them about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: But kind of for the rest of us, we'll talk about gifting in a few weeks.
SPEAKER_01: For the rest of us, like, how do we take steps to begin to learn, to begin to be sensitive to what's going on around us?
SPEAKER_01: And so there's actually uh an app that you can download on your phone, and it's called the Bless App.
SPEAKER_01: And you might consider this.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, the app just kind of is a morning reminder to kind of walk through these five steps, or at least consider them as you consider this role that the Holy Spirit wants to have in and through your life.
SPEAKER_01: And so here's what it is: it's just take a few moments and begin with prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Begin by sort of saying, Lord, give me your sensitivity.
SPEAKER_01: Bring me somebody into my world that I could bear testimony to, that I could share your good news with.
SPEAKER_01: And so we just ask for God to reveal to us a sense of spiritual hunger.
SPEAKER_01: There's a place in Acts, I think it's Acts 14, where Peter says he looked at somebody in the face and saw their faith.
SPEAKER_01: And that's the work of the Holy Spirit in them.
SPEAKER_01: That's a Peter who got up and said, Hey, I want to see faith and I want to be able to step into those places.
SPEAKER_01: Second, as we've said, we've got to listen.
SPEAKER_01: Be a listener.
SPEAKER_01: As we said, part of communication, I mean, the biggest part of communication is listening.
SPEAKER_01: And so learn to ask great questions.
SPEAKER_01: If you think of like, hey, who's the top three people that I say are just great listeners?
SPEAKER_01: It's because they know how to ask good questions.
SPEAKER_01: And so we want to learn to be those kinds of people.
SPEAKER_01: And as we listen, we're listening for those kind of inroads to be able to share the truth of who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_01: So we ask good questions.
SPEAKER_01: We want to become an expert in that.
SPEAKER_01: All of us can grow.
SPEAKER_01: But what does it look like for us to ask good questions?
SPEAKER_01: A week ago or so, I was at this crazy dinner, and I'm surrounded by all these wild people.
SPEAKER_01: And and they're they're people that are trying to address kingdom issues globally.
SPEAKER_01: And across the table from me is this gentleman that works for the Bill Gouts-Gates Foundation, this young, just good-looking dude.
SPEAKER_01: And he's sharing, he's from DC, and he's talking about, hey, you know, I've got about 15 years or 17 years, I think, to give away over 20 billion dollars for some of these needs.
SPEAKER_01: So he they brought the sort of room together with a bunch of pastors.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I'm a small little pastor, but there's some big church pastors there.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure why I was there exactly, except for maybe the end of this conversation.
SPEAKER_01: And so we all share around the table.
SPEAKER_01: People are talking and they're talking about different kingdom ideas and the poor releasing US aid money to uh Christian organizations, some things the government's trying to figure out how to do in some unique ways, awesome time.
SPEAKER_01: And after we got done with this ridiculous meal, I'm sitting there like, here's these kind of government entities surrounded by pastors and Christian men and women who have written the books on this kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: And basically everyone left.
SPEAKER_01: I was gonna go home and spend the night with Pastor Ralph in the hotel.
SPEAKER_01: So I had some free time.
SPEAKER_01: Kathy wasn't there.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I'm here, like, let's hang.
SPEAKER_01: And what I I just got I kind of bumped in to this young African-American brilliant guy from DC.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Man, it sounds like you travel a lot.
SPEAKER_01: I said, You got a family back home?
SPEAKER_01: He's like, No, he's like, just a dog.
SPEAKER_01: And I became so interested in dogs for the next like seven or eight minutes.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, nobody loved dogs as much as I did for about seven or eight minutes.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I learned all about his little weasel dog, and I don't even like little dogs.
SPEAKER_01: But there for a moment, I loved weasel dogs.
SPEAKER_01: And he's telling me about his dog and what he does with him when he travels and what and then I said, about 10 minutes in, what's it like to be surrounded by all these sort of faith-based organizations?
SPEAKER_01: And and what do you think?
SPEAKER_01: And I said, you know, what's your own faith story?
SPEAKER_01: And he said, We're gonna need to sit down.
SPEAKER_01: And we sat there for 20 minutes, and he and then others from these organizations came and sat down.
SPEAKER_01: And I just sat there and they said, This is my faith experience.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, this is mine.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, this is what oh, this is what I think.
SPEAKER_01: Then they they said the craziest thing.
SPEAKER_01: Again, I I shouldn't be at the table.
SPEAKER_01: They said, Nate, what do you what's your experience?
SPEAKER_01: And I just tried to not judge, but I tried to be so clear with the hope we have in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And so as we listen, we look for those opportunities.
SPEAKER_01: Let's do these last three real quick.
SPEAKER_01: We went on.
SPEAKER_01: The last three.
SPEAKER_01: So we begin with prayer, we listen for opportunities.
SPEAKER_01: Who knows how excited you might need to get about little weasel dogs to share the gospel of Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: In the Jesus model, right?
SPEAKER_01: He always sits down and he eats.
SPEAKER_01: He always finds these other places to kind of break the mold, to break the groove.
SPEAKER_01: And that might be taking a walk, that might be, you know, again, Pastor Ralph, he likes to take his people that he's sharing Christ with oftentimes up to, you know, dodge and sits on a chairlift and just, you know, talks about faith and talks about life and does something fun together.
SPEAKER_01: And so, what is that thing you can do?
SPEAKER_01: For some of us, it's it's coaching.
SPEAKER_01: For some of us, it's whatever that might be.
SPEAKER_01: The next of these four, as we begin to begin with prayer, listen, are there some unique spaces I could step into in this day to spend time with those that are far from God?
SPEAKER_01: Is to serve, to simply say, What how can I meet the needs of my neighbors?
SPEAKER_01: What are they?
SPEAKER_01: How can I step in?
SPEAKER_01: How can I love them as I in Christ have been loved?
SPEAKER_01: One of the things we see in the gospels, right, is that good works leads to good will, which oftentimes opens the door for the good news.
SPEAKER_01: And so we look for opportunities to serve.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then lastly, when the door is opened, we share our story.
SPEAKER_01: We tell them this is who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_01: Man, he died to be in a relationship with you.
SPEAKER_01: And we come with an invitation.
SPEAKER_01: And so maybe for us, it's learning to pay careful attention to what God is doing.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe we need to download the app.
SPEAKER_01: It's super simple.
SPEAKER_01: And just each day sort of get a reminder to begin with prayer, to listen, to find these places to serve and to share our story.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe for you, it's this morning turning and saying, I need to know this Jesus who waits even now to forgive my sins, to fill me with his spirit, to give me a kind of power and a hope and a future to walk out this life with, and then to step into his mission.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for joining us, church.
SPEAKER_00: We hope that you enjoyed this message.
SPEAKER_00: To find more messages like this, or to see where you can get connected or to give financially, please visit Sierra Bible.com.