Speaker 1: Well, many thanks to Meredith for telling her story.
Speaker 1: Every church family should be full of stories of faith and stories that point us all to Christ and to the cross.
Speaker 1: Meredith is another one of those people that we rely on, we depend on.
Speaker 1: She's serving leading every single Sunday over at the Pinewood campus.
Speaker 1: Big day for them today.
Speaker 1: They have moved out of the room, they have been in into the gym there and they've got more room.
Speaker 1: They've got it's a really really modern building, really good situation.
Speaker 1: We're grateful for it.
Speaker 1: It's a transition for them over there too.
Speaker 1: So if you're new with us, if you're a guest, if you're watching and you're kind of wondering, you know what's this church all about.
Speaker 1: We value ladies and your leadership here, your input here, just like because God's created you just like he has anybody else, and God speaks to you every day, just like he does others too.
Speaker 1: So that's really what our topic is about today.
Speaker 1: So we want to pray before we get started.
Speaker 1: My name is Randy, by the way.
Speaker 1: How you doing up in the balcony?
Speaker 1: Good, good, good.
Speaker 1: A lot of you up there, so we're always glad to see all of you hanging out up there as well as down here.
Speaker 1: If you're a first timer.
Speaker 1: We especially value you and want to get to know you a little bit better.
Speaker 1: There's a tent out there out front.
Speaker 1: You can just head out.
Speaker 1: If you don't mind, give us a little bit of information on you.
Speaker 1: We'll just contact you with an email to give you some ideas what's coming up in the fall, as well as thank you for coming Today.
Speaker 1: It's going to be easy.
Speaker 1: The Heat Index is only 104, so that ain't no problem, is it so good deal?
Speaker 1: We're in 1 Corinthians, chapter 2.
Speaker 1: First Corinthians, chapter 2.
Speaker 1: In all summer in the book of Colossians, as we talked about the path, the path of following Christ, and how Paul described that Today is similar but different.
Speaker 1: Today, today's big what's on a lot of your minds as well as our minds here at this church, is boy school's coming, isn't it?
Speaker 1: Whether you're homeschooling or you're in private school or you're in public school, school is coming, and so, as faculty administrators out there, as students, we're thinking about you.
Speaker 1: This weekend the message is a little bit geared toward that.
Speaker 1: Paul's got a lot to say about knowledge and wisdom, and today at five, you'll hear more about this at the end.
Speaker 1: Today at five o'clock, we're just asking everybody to come back and spend some special time as the body of Christ, praying over our students, our faculty administrators and others, because we want to kick off the year.
Speaker 1: We want this year to be the greatest year in the history of your lives from the spiritual standpoint, because everything else will shake out underneath that right.
Speaker 1: So let's pray Before we do.
Speaker 1: I just I'd love to have your help, rather than just me praying and you just sitting there.
Speaker 1: Would you stand, please?
Speaker 1: I want us to pray for a special movement of the Holy Spirit, not only in school semester coming up, but just our country, our nation, has some needs and, as Meredith reminded us, as the song said well, we're not enough Individually, we're not enough.
Speaker 1: Our nation is not enough.
Speaker 1: We need a special movement of God, I believe, and I think you'll agree with me.
Speaker 1: So would you reach over and just kind of grab a hand to your left or right for a minute and just pray silently as I pray, by the amazing power of the blood of Jesus Christ, would you move with your spirit across this land?
Speaker 1: Would you restore those who have moved away or been terribly broken?
Speaker 1: Would you renew those that have grown stale?
Speaker 1: Would you be light to those who do not know you yet.
Speaker 1: Would you influence leaders in a way they have never known before?
Speaker 1: Would you open the eyes of the blind?
Speaker 1: Would you repair the hearts of others?
Speaker 1: God, I would ask by your word and by your spirit that you would send an awakening across this land, that we would live long enough to see the day and thousands and thousands who do not know you will proclaim you to be Lord and King of all.
Speaker 1: And God, help us to be ready to be mature enough, to be solid enough, to be hungry enough to welcome them home, and we ask it in Jesus' name.
Speaker 1: Amen.
Speaker 1: Thank you have a seat.
Speaker 1: Well, with schools starting back and in some counties, I realize, out there.
Speaker 1: Thank you all for watching too.
Speaker 1: And, by the way, I realized that in some of your counties, schools already started.
Speaker 1: The new stats are out on reading proficiency.
Speaker 1: If you are an educator, you know exactly what that's all about.
Speaker 1: Fourth grade reading proficiency.
Speaker 1: Last year's numbers are in and across this nation, 33 percent of fourth graders read where they should be 33 percent.
Speaker 1: That's not an indictment of teachers or any of that.
Speaker 1: It is just a statement of fact that only 33 percent of fourth graders are where they need to be.
Speaker 1: Well, that's all right.
Speaker 1: They're only in fourth grade, they'll catch up, right.
Speaker 1: Well, let's look at eighth graders.
Speaker 1: Same study, eighth grade.
Speaker 1: It was 31 percent.
Speaker 1: It's going down by the eighth grade.
Speaker 1: Well, there's always college, right, there's always the university.
Speaker 1: Jacksonville University did a study recently and they were trying to measure.
Speaker 1: My layman's terms are are you smarter as a senior than you were as a dumb freshman coming in?
Speaker 1: And after all their exhaustive studies by their standards and their evaluations, the leader of the study said yes, but barely fractionally, slightly, hardly enough to move the needle.
Speaker 1: But we can make that case that they are.
Speaker 1: This was telling to me.
Speaker 1: One of the people in the study who's on the faculty at Jacksonville said what bothers me?
Speaker 1: Most of my colleagues don't seem to be bothered or even interested in this study, and that's where I'm going with this.
Speaker 1: Could we be in an era when there is a lack of confidence in how to access knowledge?
Speaker 1: Are we in an era when you so suspect institutions and people that you don't trust them enough to believe what is supposed to be true?
Speaker 1: Have we stopped being lifelong learners with growth mindsets and have we just started to go neutral and just get through this life experience we are created to be up and to the right in our spiritual pursuit with God until the day we go home.
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty wise to be of that mindset in all areas of life, to be a lifelong learner.
Speaker 1: But it appears, with some of the stuff that's going on corporately, in marketplace as well as college campuses, that there are some topics or some conversations that are not even allowed to happen anymore.
Speaker 1: And in a day when we should be asking more questions, we are asking less questions that should concern all of us.
Speaker 1: So what do we do about that?
Speaker 1: I'm just me.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you exactly what we should do about it.
Speaker 1: You and I should be hard at becoming as mature as we can be as Christ followers and to be as connected and engaged in a family of God that is also doing that as much as we can.
Speaker 1: Because maybe I'm overly optimistic, but I believe the day is coming when we will be needed to be mentors, to be disciples, to catch those who are suddenly aware that they need to be after truth Thank you and they need to trust somebody who is genuine with that truth.
Speaker 1: So that's a little bit about what 1 Corinthians 2 is all about.
Speaker 1: Are you there?
Speaker 1: And if you're watching out there, get your device or get your Bible.
Speaker 1: It's always better to see stuff than it is just to know it.
Speaker 1: Got good news for you among the bad.
Speaker 1: The Spirit is the greatest resource for wisdom that we have.
Speaker 1: We're going to distinguish just real quickly between knowledge for knowledge's sake and wisdom.
Speaker 1: Those are not synonymous.
Speaker 1: They are different.
Speaker 1: To be very simplistic, knowledge is good, it's an intellectual activity.
Speaker 1: We need that.
Speaker 1: We should be pursuing that.
Speaker 1: But wisdom is knowing what to do with the knowledge right.
Speaker 1: How many of you know really smart people who are dumb in other areas?
Speaker 1: We all do, right.
Speaker 1: It's not about the IQ, it's about the Christ Q, I guess.
Speaker 1: So it's what we do with it and that's what Paul's saying.
Speaker 1: So what is the lead up to verses 6 through 10 that we will be in is simply this Verse, 5 verses he's getting after them.
Speaker 1: This is a church that are new Christ followers.
Speaker 1: They're in a culture that is very antagonistic toward Christianity.
Speaker 1: It's very pagan, it's very much the Greek philosophy type thing and the Greek gods and mythology and all of that and their morality, quite frankly, is not matching the teachings of God's Word.
Speaker 1: They know Jesus but their lifestyle hasn't caught up yet, and Paul's having a hard time condoning that and staying with that.
Speaker 1: He's not, so.
Speaker 1: That's why he's going to go into this discourse, so my one phrase would be what he's saying through these next five verses is grow up, grow up in your faith.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 1: So let's read verses.
Speaker 1: I'm going to make four points real quickly, about how we can distinguish better what he's telling them and what they're dealing with.
Speaker 1: Because we need that for us, because, again, as our band saying so well, I'm not enough and you're not enough, we're all broken.
Speaker 1: If you're a guest here today, you're surrounded by some of my favorite people on this earth, but they're messed up.
Speaker 1: Because I'm messed up compared to God, we're all in pretty bad shape.
Speaker 1: Anybody just wanted to screw it up.
Speaker 1: We'll talk at the tent afterwards.
Speaker 1: I don't think it'll take me long to convince you.
Speaker 1: We need more than we have inside of us.
Speaker 1: And so let's read verse six, because the first point is mature students are going to be looking for deeper truth.
Speaker 1: They're not going to be content, stay where they are.
Speaker 1: We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, or the complete, or the growing.
Speaker 1: That's what that means, but not the wisdom of this age.
Speaker 1: Now they're in the first century AD, but it still applies here.
Speaker 1: They are the rulers of this age who are coming to nothing.
Speaker 1: Is he talking about, like, the spiritual forces of that day that were influencing them?
Speaker 1: Are the human leaders of that day?
Speaker 1: Yes, he's talking, I think, about both of those.
Speaker 1: Both of those are very influential and used to pull people aside, so mature.
Speaker 1: And he says, right off there's a message of wisdom that we ought to be able to get.
Speaker 1: That same word, wisdom, is used in Acts 722, where Paul, same speaker, is talking and he's given a history lesson on Israel and then the advent of Jesus as Messiah, and he says let's talk about Moses.
Speaker 1: Moses grew up a prince of Egypt.
Speaker 1: He had all the conveniences and the power that you could possibly have as a young man and he grew up with all the wisdom of Pharaoh and that empire of that day.
Speaker 1: Yet he goes on to say he chose to pivot and to move out of that into another era, chasing another dimension, because he was aware that there's this Jehovah, god, who is over everything and who has authority over everything.
Speaker 1: And I don't care how smart I get and Egypt was a very advanced society I can get to the end of all I can know here in Egypt, I won't be complete.
Speaker 1: There will be something bad missing inside of me.
Speaker 1: He knew that even as a young man and it caused him some suffering, quite frankly, and 40 years of wandering around.
Speaker 1: But then, bang, when he connected, look out.
Speaker 1: We're still talking about it, we're still admiring what God used him to do.
Speaker 1: So you think this is true Wisdom equals maturity.
Speaker 1: The wiser I get, the more mature I get.
Speaker 1: I think it's partially true, but not complete in this world.
Speaker 1: Why don't we do this?
Speaker 1: Add at the very beginning faith plus wisdom equals maturity, because without faith on the front end, we may not have the motivation or even the right direction to get started toward wisdom.
Speaker 1: The Old Testament proverbs in the New Testament makes the case that.
Speaker 1: Can you really be wise, wise, wise, if you do not know Jesus Christ and you don't have the supernatural part of the Holy Spirit speaking into you?
Speaker 1: How do I access it?
Speaker 1: It starts with faith, which is trust, which is belief.
Speaker 1: Can I illustrate it real quick?
Speaker 1: I know we got some pilots here in our church family, so you're going to smirk at this problem.
Speaker 1: Let's say you're taking a flight somewhere, you're going across the country and you're just minding your own business.
Speaker 1: You're in 21C in the seat there, you know, dozing off.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, someone comes on the intercom and says well, somehow, some way, both of our pilots have passed out at the same time.
Speaker 1: So we have a little issue here.
Speaker 1: We are told through our data, through Washington, that one of the smartest people on this plane is sitting in 21C right now.
Speaker 1: Would you please get up in 21C and head toward, and you're like oh, that's me.
Speaker 1: And so as you dash toward the cockpit man, your mind's just racing.
Speaker 1: You get there, they're waiting on you.
Speaker 1: They sit you at the pilot's seat.
Speaker 1: You've never flown a plane in your life.
Speaker 1: That plane is jam-packed full of people, and your mind is racing and you say what can I call upon from my past experiences or my schooling or my relationships that I can somehow land on this plane?
Speaker 1: We have a cousin in Boston who flew a Cessna for a while, and he used to brag about how he would bring them in for smooth landings and everything, and you can think back to that boy.
Speaker 1: That sure hasn't given you much confidence, though.
Speaker 1: But then a voice comes on through your headset and it's a person from the tower, who is over all the pilots at that hub, at that airport you're trying to get to, and he is calm and reassuring and confident and he says I'm going to bring you in and if you listen to everything I tell you and you just push the right buttons and hold on to that wheel, we will land this plane.
Speaker 1: So which are you going to rely on?
Speaker 1: Someone outside of you who comes in and engages you and leads you in, because he's done it a thousand times and he knows the outcome?
Speaker 1: Or your cousin from Boston?
Speaker 1: Of course You're going to let that guy guide you in, and that's what the Spirit is here to do for all of us.
Speaker 1: Colossians 1 28,.
Speaker 1: Lest you think this is an elitist upper 1% thing where few of us got it, the rest of you don't.
Speaker 1: We're just so sorry, you're out of luck.
Speaker 1: Colossians 1 28,.
Speaker 1: We proclaim admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.
Speaker 1: Did you hear everyone there?
Speaker 1: This message is for everyone.
Speaker 1: This ability to live by the Spirit is for everyone.
Speaker 1: You all, we're all.
Speaker 1: I believe we're all designed from early on in our childhood to basically know the difference between good and evil.
Speaker 1: We get it wrong, get it wrong even now in adulthood.
Speaker 1: But basically we know how to function, that that's the building block.
Speaker 1: We move from there and God's Spirit shows us how to do it from there.
Speaker 1: Ephesians 4 13 might want to write that one down too Until we reach unity in the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the measure of the fullness of Christ.
Speaker 1: So let's dial it in to this conversation now about Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: You cannot be a mature Christian without having a Christ-centered view as best you can and a surrender to that every single day.
Speaker 1: So here's my application for number one.
Speaker 1: Mature people, or those approaching maturity, are always going deeper.
Speaker 1: That means you're never going to be fully satisfied with you.
Speaker 1: I know, the older I get, the less I am impressed with stuff I know and do and say and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: There's always room for improvement.
Speaker 1: So here's my challenge to you.
Speaker 1: It's called the spiritual formations.
Speaker 1: Spiritual formations are nothing more than a daily habit that you develop and you stick to and you commit yourself to.
Speaker 1: That will feed, pour into you the truth of God, activated by the Holy Spirit a little bit every single day, every single day.
Speaker 1: Now, nobody's perfect every single day, but that can be the goal.
Speaker 1: 15 minutes is a good place to start.
Speaker 1: There's plenty of things to help you with that study.
Speaker 1: If you're part of a life group here, you already have a ready-made plan of Scripture reading each week, which will lead up to the discussion with others on Sundays or Tuesday nights, thursday nights, sunday nights, wednesday nights, whenever it's better for you.
Speaker 1: That is a great way to start it, but if you're not investing a little bit every day, you eat food pretty much every day, don't you?
Speaker 1: We drink water pretty much every day.
Speaker 1: Why is that?
Speaker 1: Because we'd like to live Spiritually.
Speaker 1: We should like to live, and the only way to grow is to commit it to that, commit ourselves to that as if it's the most important thing, because really it is the most important thing.
Speaker 1: The Spirit is the greatest resource for maturities.
Speaker 1: Number two you know we won't be mature, but also mysteries are solved through Jesus.
Speaker 1: Look at verse 7 and 8.
Speaker 1: No, we speak of God's secret wisdom.
Speaker 1: That means concealed wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time became so.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute.
Speaker 1: It's a hidden wisdom, it's a mystery, but yet he wants us to have it.
Speaker 1: That makes no sense.
Speaker 1: You would be right Until you reach out by faith and trust and belief and you surrender your life to the person of Jesus Christ, then it makes perfect sense because Paul says there's some really smart people around that are never going to understand it, because it's a spiritual thing and not just an intellectual thing.
Speaker 1: Let's read 8.
Speaker 1: None of the rulers of this age understand it.
Speaker 1: For if they had and I love his proof he said I know a ton of people, thousands of people, did not have no clue about this.
Speaker 1: How do you know that?
Speaker 1: Well, because they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
Speaker 1: He said if they had some wisdom, they would have seen Jesus for who he was and they wouldn't have killed him.
Speaker 1: And he's right.
Speaker 1: He's right.
Speaker 1: So truth leads to the desire for deeper truth.
Speaker 1: Hebrews 5 talks about that.
Speaker 1: If you want to do some devotional work this week on it, truth leads to deeper truth.
Speaker 1: Can I challenge you if you feel like man?
Speaker 1: I've been a believer now for 20 years, been a Christ follower for 35 years, or something like that.
Speaker 1: I put in some time, I put in some study.
Speaker 1: I think I've about arrived.
Speaker 1: That's the first lie of the enemy.
Speaker 1: Who's trying to sidetrack you?
Speaker 1: Nobody has arrived.
Speaker 1: He who began a good work in us will complete it on the day of his return.
Speaker 1: That day has not happened yet, right?
Speaker 1: So we all got a lot of room for growth, and the Holy Spirit helps us with that.
Speaker 1: Where do I start in the Scripture when we talk about the gospel every week?
Speaker 1: Here we are just talking simply about the good news of Jesus Christ Coming to earth, living perfectly, loving everybody, serving everybody, being convicted, dying on a cross as an innocent man, a perfect man, being buried and then being resurrected by God, by the power of the Spirit, on the third day, to atone for my sins and yours, so that in our busted, broken condition, we who cannot earn our way there can reach out, grab that truth, embrace it, believe it and say I believe you are the Son of God, I believe you are the Savior, I believe that you did die for me and by love.
Speaker 1: You don't want to condemn me and send me to hell.
Speaker 1: You want to save me and give me a new purpose to live your purpose in life.
Speaker 1: That's the gospel.
Speaker 1: The place to find it is the first four books of the New Testament.
Speaker 1: Those are called the gospels, so start there If you're not sure where to start Matthew, mark, luke and John.
Speaker 1: I would go in reverse order Start with the gospel of John, go backwards.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you later why you need to do that, but that would be my way of letting Jesus solve the mission.
Speaker 1: So what are you saying, randy?
Speaker 1: Are you saying the more I invest in Jesus and try to follow Him and try to know about Him, the more the things I don't understand might start getting some knowledge about them?
Speaker 1: That's exactly what I'm saying, because guess who wrote the book?
Speaker 1: Why not talk to the author about it?
Speaker 1: Why not get his input on it?
Speaker 1: Special revelations from God come every single time through the Holy Spirit, the third part of the Trinity.
Speaker 1: Can I give you an example from the Scripture?
Speaker 1: A long time ago, first century, in the book of Luke, luke 1, this is recorded there were some amazing things happening.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, two different women got pregnant, and neither one of them had any business getting pregnant.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: One of them was like way too old.
Speaker 1: Her name was Elizabeth.
Speaker 1: One of them was really young, but she wasn't married yet and had never slept with a man.
Speaker 1: So how in the world free the one of them and check it out.
Speaker 1: Both of them were related.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth was the older lady.
Speaker 1: She gets pregnant and they're able to have children.
Speaker 1: She's pregnant.
Speaker 1: She's even told supernaturally it's going to be a boy.
Speaker 1: She's into her pregnancy about six months into her pregnancy.
Speaker 1: Guess who walks into the door to visit her because they were related Mary the girl, teenage girl who is pregnant, although she's not been with a man yet.
Speaker 1: When she entered the room, the Bible says that in utero, the fetus inside of Elizabeth jumped so hard that she instantly knew what was happening.
Speaker 1: And Elizabeth shouted out the mother of my savior has just come in the room.
Speaker 1: How did she know that?
Speaker 1: Well, I didn't finish the verse by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: She said that the Spirit is always going to reveal who Jesus is.
Speaker 1: Then Elizabeth starts just singing this praise song about how fortunate she was to be the mother of the savior.
Speaker 1: How in the world did she know it?
Speaker 1: Earlier, she has a visitation from God through an angel and the Spirit tells her Later, at the end of the chapter, the father to be of Elizabeth, the priest Zachariah, starts to praise God too and say things that he did not know before all that adventure.
Speaker 1: How did he know it.
Speaker 1: It says the power of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: The Spirit will always reveal who Jesus is.
Speaker 1: He may not solve all your problems or give you all the answers or the lies.
Speaker 1: We're on a need to know basis for that.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you will, sometimes you won't, but what we need to know every single day is what the Spirit has to say about who Jesus is right.
Speaker 1: If we are hanging there, we will mature and we will become better in our pursuit as Christ followers.
Speaker 1: So if you have some things in your life that need to be clarified, please go to the source and say I know I might not get all my answers of the wise, but I just need to know what to do with where I am now.
Speaker 1: This has happened.
Speaker 1: This is where I am.
Speaker 1: This is where's not.
Speaker 1: What's not happening?
Speaker 1: Will you just clarify my role?
Speaker 1: Some of you are going to grin because you have been here.
Speaker 1: There are times, if you're really pursuing Jesus through the Spirit, that you'll hear somebody like me reading some scripture or you'll be reading it for yourself and the verse you read has nothing to do with what you feel.
Speaker 1: The Spirit is telling you in your brain and in your heart and you're like how can that be?
Speaker 1: Because he's not talking about this, but this word.
Speaker 1: Somebody told me the other day this happened to them.
Speaker 1: They're being falsely accused of some stuff, and they read in the New Testament a verse that Paul wrote, where he said if we are walking with Christ, we will be free from accusations.
Speaker 1: He was not talking about her situation whatsoever, but she got this unbelievable peace and sense of well-being and like it's going to be all right because she said that applied to my situation.
Speaker 1: So much you following me.
Speaker 1: And he will do that, not every day, but he will do that when he decides to do it as a measure of his love and as a measure of his guidance for us in the challenging times as well as the good times.
Speaker 1: Okay, so what's going to?
Speaker 1: How do I get motivated?
Speaker 1: I mean, how do I know I'm even on the right track of engaging?
Speaker 1: I'm well, that's what we're going to talk about in verse nine, because in verse nine we're going to be introduced to love.
Speaker 1: So here's your deal with number three.
Speaker 1: The third point Love for God opens doors.
Speaker 1: Love for God will always open doors.
Speaker 1: Verse nine however it is written, no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who what Love Him.
Speaker 1: We can't leave out love.
Speaker 1: Paul says in another place man, you can do everything.
Speaker 1: You can be one of the greatest people in the world.
Speaker 1: You can be the smartest, most talented, most adored.
Speaker 1: You can do magical things.
Speaker 1: But if it is not done with love, it is what Useless vanity he says.
Speaker 1: It doesn't amount to anything.
Speaker 1: Love has to be the primary motive for all of us.
Speaker 1: If we're seeking God and the Holy Spirit through love, we will always have doors opened.
Speaker 1: Hey y'all, there's always a hiddenness that we're going to deal with.
Speaker 1: There's things about this old world and about me and you that we'll never know, we'll never fully understand, and if we live to be 110, we're still not going to know it.
Speaker 1: That's just the way it is.
Speaker 1: You know why?
Speaker 1: Because he is God.
Speaker 1: Would you really want to serve a God?
Speaker 1: That's on your intellectual level?
Speaker 1: Come on.
Speaker 1: There are other things that you'll get, this partial knowledge of partial revelation 80 percent, I still don't know, but I know just enough light into this to continue to follow Him and to know that he has my back.
Speaker 1: There's other things that, because we're not mature enough, we can't handle it.
Speaker 1: But in the buying buys.
Speaker 1: We continue to reach out to him and try to mature and grow bang.
Speaker 1: One day we're gonna say why couldn't I have seen this 20 years ago?
Speaker 1: And he would say he would say because you weren't mature enough yet, you weren't close enough to me yet.
Speaker 1: There are things that only are revealed when you get deeper with them, and it's always worth the adventure y'all.
Speaker 1: It's always worth it.
Speaker 1: First thing we got to decide, though, is do I really belong to Jesus?
Speaker 1: Do I really belong to Jesus?
Speaker 1: The Bible, again, is our best authority on that.
Speaker 1: There's three things going on that should give us either confidence or not confidence.
Speaker 1: One is the assurance.
Speaker 1: That's Romans right down Romans 8 16 the spirit testifies with our spirit, capital, capital S spirit with our spirit, that we are sons and daughters of God.
Speaker 1: Right, that's that inner knowledge that gives you peace.
Speaker 1: Another is the term adoption.
Speaker 1: It's used in the New Testament to say that once you become a Christ follower, you're adopted, you're chosen into the family of God.
Speaker 1: That's the verse before that Romans 8 15.
Speaker 1: We have the spirit of adoption, so there's assurance we can look for there's.
Speaker 1: Am I in the family?
Speaker 1: Do I know I'm in the family or not.
Speaker 1: There's also something called in Ephesians 1 13, the seal of the spirit.
Speaker 1: S e a ale, the seal of the spirit.
Speaker 1: It's not like a Baggy wrapping around you, it's more the seal of the, the governor, or the king or Herod had a ring and it would be like in a wax Thing they would if it's belong, if it was an edict he made or something he said or something that he was causing.
Speaker 1: He would press that ring and make an impression Onto that wax.
Speaker 1: Then it hardened and it was called the king or the or the governor's seal, either seal of approval or seal of authority, and nobody would mess with it.
Speaker 1: Nobody would mess with it if he, if you have that on your life and the spirits telling you you do, you're in good shape, you're, you're in the game.
Speaker 1: It's just a matter of running after him, right?
Speaker 1: If you have no peace about that, if you have no Clue what I just talked about, if this is all far into you, I'm so glad that you're listening, because today is a day you can step out and get there.
Speaker 1: You can start that process.
Speaker 1: I'm not kidding you.
Speaker 1: He loves you just like you are.
Speaker 1: He'll kind of get you where you need to be after you make a commitment to it.
Speaker 1: That's all this required, and I hope we'll see you down front it.
Speaker 1: You know, at the end of this or out of the ten, either one, but we got to start with.
Speaker 1: Do we really even belong to him?
Speaker 1: Okay, that's when harmony takes over conflict and that's when your behavior means more to you than your status in the community.
Speaker 1: Those are evidences of I am maturing in Christ, because there's things I used to care about a lot, but now I care about him more.
Speaker 1: And and obedience comes first, the consequences come second.
Speaker 1: How many you don't have to raise your hand?
Speaker 1: How many have been in situations where it clears the bell?
Speaker 1: It's like, oh man, he's asking me to do this, go here, not do this.
Speaker 1: Everything in my world is crying out.
Speaker 1: It would be easier to do that, say that, do that, but he said not to do so.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna not do it.
Speaker 1: I know there's gonna be some Consequences on the other side of you.
Speaker 1: You've been there right.
Speaker 1: If you do it anyway, you're maturing in your faith with Christ, because you're voting for life, maybe to get harder.
Speaker 1: The last thing we talked about maturity.
Speaker 1: We talked about the mysteries open doors.
Speaker 1: If we love God love each other, doors will be open to us.
Speaker 1: The last one's from verse 10.
Speaker 1: The spirit reveals family secrets.
Speaker 1: Every family has secrets, right?
Speaker 1: I Just need probably go ahead and warn you Ronda can back this up.
Speaker 1: If you have like a five year old or a first grader, chances are we probably already know all your family secrets.
Speaker 1: They're pretty open.
Speaker 1: Let's read verse 10,.
Speaker 1: But God has revealed it.
Speaker 1: What his message of salvation and our life intent to us by his Spirit.
Speaker 1: The Spirit searches all things.
Speaker 1: Now look, look, look.
Speaker 1: Now, look, look, look, look.
Speaker 1: Even the deeper things of God.
Speaker 1: He goes on to say there is one person in the world who knows what God's mind is, what's on God's mind, and it's the Spirit.
Speaker 1: So doesn't it make sense that we should pursue a vital relationship with the Holy Spirit to be informed about Jesus well enough to where we can live a life that pleases God and is His calling on our life?
Speaker 1: That's exactly what Jesus did.
Speaker 1: If Jesus, being the Son of God and being all-powerful, said, what I do is by the power of the Spirit, not by the fact that he was the Son of God, man, that's pretty good instruction for us, don't you think we need to do the same thing?
Speaker 1: I think so, because that was exactly His plan.
Speaker 1: Well, how do you know, randy?
Speaker 1: Well, I can give you case after case from the Scripture.
Speaker 1: How about the night?
Speaker 1: He prayed all night long for guidance on who he was going to pick as His twelve followers.
Speaker 1: How about that one?
Speaker 1: He's seeking God through the Spirit all night long in prayer and he comes up with twelve men.
Speaker 1: It'd be like you in the marketplace or something in your role at work like, oh my goodness, I've suddenly got to replace twelve people, like now.
Speaker 1: That's an overwhelming thing.
Speaker 1: So Jesus spends all night and there's some who, after he chose those twelve, would have said man, is that the best you could do?
Speaker 1: But Jesus and His wisdom given by the Spirit got it right.
Speaker 1: But we still like to look at sometimes their incompetence and their inept makes me feel better.
Speaker 1: Makes me feel better to see them slipping and sliding and they're with them in person.
Speaker 1: Right A few years ago, somebody wrote us a spoof.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've heard it ever before, but I enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: The title of it was a memo from the Jordan Management Consultant firm in Jerusalem and it's like they're writing to Jesus.
Speaker 1: They've studied the profiles of who he has chosen and they're telling Him whether he should go pull the trigger or start over, and the bottom line of the first paragraph is you need to go start over.
Speaker 1: None of them are qualified.
Speaker 1: So here's what he writes up.
Speaker 1: He kind of goes person by person.
Speaker 1: He says Simon Peter is emotional, unstable and given to fits of temper.
Speaker 1: Andrew has absolutely no leadership abilities.
Speaker 1: The two brothers, james and John, the sons of Zebedee, place personal gain above company loyalty.
Speaker 1: Thomas demonstrates a questioning attitude that undermines morale.
Speaker 1: We believe it's our duty to tell you that the greater Jerusalem, better business bureau has blacklisted Matthew, james, son of Alpheus, and Thaddeus because of their radical leanings.
Speaker 1: Accordingly also, they both registered high scores on the bipolar scale.
Speaker 1: However, you know where it is going right.
Speaker 1: However, one of the candidates shows great potential.
Speaker 1: He is a man of ability and resourcefulness.
Speaker 1: He's a great.
Speaker 1: He's a great networker.
Speaker 1: He has a business mind and strong contacts and influential cities.
Speaker 1: He is highly motivated, he's very ambitious and he is also well adept with financial matters.
Speaker 1: We recommend that Judas Iscariot be your controller and your COO of your company.
Speaker 1: Thank you, if we can ever help you in the future.
Speaker 1: Aren't you glad that Jesus didn't use the conventional wisdom of the day to help him select his staff Because, as it turned out, eleven of those twelve were used by God to begin a movement that changed the world and is still informing our world today.
Speaker 1: You can expect I don't want to get all mystical on you you can expect, if you are pursuing Jesus hard, there will be these moments of clarity.
Speaker 1: When he does tell you something that you did not know before, it will pertain to you and your path to continue to grow in Christ.
Speaker 1: Other people around you won't know it.
Speaker 1: It may seem to the world and your friends so irrational, so illogical.
Speaker 1: They'll try to talk you out of it.
Speaker 1: But you know what you have heard and that's enough.
Speaker 1: The song is right.
Speaker 1: We are not enough, but if the Spirit moves in your heart and your mind and your own spirit, that is enough.
Speaker 1: You don't need any more affirmation after that.
Speaker 1: You just do it and you let Him take care of the what-ifs and the how-about-this and who's going to pay for it and all that.
Speaker 1: That's not irresponsible.
Speaker 1: That's called being a dynamic Christ follower who is motivated by love.
Speaker 1: Rarely can You're still listening.
Speaker 1: Very rarely do those special knowledges come about.
Speaker 1: Other people, be careful.
Speaker 1: If it does, that means maybe he's created you to be a prophet.
Speaker 1: But you need to be cautious about what people are telling you, about you that God has not told you yet, because there's nothing to back that up.
Speaker 1: Occasionally it will happen.
Speaker 1: Usually it's about a son or a daughter or a grandchild that you love so much, costing you some sleep, or maybe a spouse.
Speaker 1: But we do need to be responsible and mature with what we do, with what the Spirit tells us.
Speaker 1: And here's what gets me all excited.
Speaker 1: It's happened.
Speaker 1: I'm hearing the same message from different ones of you across this campus and at Pinewood and generally they're all the same and it's got to be the Holy Spirit of God and he's dealing with some of you right here as you sit, and I don't know how to coach you from there, because that's between you and the Spirit.
Speaker 1: I just would say please do not resist, please don't fight it, just say yes, lord.
Speaker 1: So what if?
Speaker 1: Question for you what if this culture continues to spin out of control seemingly?
Speaker 1: What if the population of Dorchester County continues to explode?
Speaker 1: What if the needs of the disadvantaged and the poor continues to climb all around us in this neighborhood?
Speaker 1: What are we going to do?
Speaker 1: My guess is all.
Speaker 1: Three of those will continue for the next decade.
Speaker 1: God has put us here for a purpose and a reason and you are a part of that, and if you're disassociated right now with the church family, as a Christ follower my brother and my sister please make a move, as led by the Spirit, to join and get involved and be part of that solution.
Speaker 1: Time is wasting.
Speaker 1: You said my father works in the daylight and because of that I'm still at work too, but then he goes on to say the night is coming and no man can work.
Speaker 1: I dread the night coming.
Speaker 1: We need to be at it while it's still daylight.
Speaker 1: You have a role and I have a role and man together we're going to see some unbelievable works of God.
Speaker 1: But we need you, just like you need the rest of us.
Speaker 1: When you stand and I'm going to ask Brayden and our group to come we can help you with a next step decision Love to celebrate that with you.
Speaker 1: If you need to leave the room, would you do that right now?
Speaker 1: We're not kicking you out.
Speaker 1: We just don't want to interrupt the Holy Spirit movement over the next three minutes.
Speaker 1: Who may be somebody right around you may be convicted to come to come and to give their life to Christ, or to come to the tent and give their life to Christ.
Speaker 1: Will you pray with me, father?
Speaker 1: God, we need you.
Speaker 1: We are only as good as our active relationship with you through the Spirit.
Speaker 1: When we break fellowship, we're not only vulnerable, we've put people we love in a bad position.
Speaker 1: God, there's too much riding on this.
Speaker 1: So, god, give us an incredible conviction by your love, just to be flat out followers of yours, and we'll give you the glory for it.
Speaker 1: We ask it in Christ's name, amen.