SPEAKER_00: There's a moment in the spiritual life that almost no one likes to talk about.
SPEAKER_00: It's not when you reject God, it's when you almost accept him, but in the wrong way.
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what's happening in the first reading.
SPEAKER_00: Paul heals a man who has never walked.
SPEAKER_00: A real miracle, undeniable, the kind of moment that should open our hearts to the truth.
SPEAKER_00: And yet the crowd completely misses it.
SPEAKER_00: They see power, but they misinterpret the source.
SPEAKER_00: They immediately fall back into what they had already known.
SPEAKER_00: Their old categories, their old beliefs, their old idols.
SPEAKER_00: They say the gods have come down to us, Zeus, Hermes.
SPEAKER_00: They try to sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas.
SPEAKER_00: It sounds almost ridiculous until you realize how often we do the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: We encounter something real, something from God, something that should change us, and instead of allowing it to convert us, we reinterpret it to fit our existing life.
SPEAKER_00: We do not reject God, we try to domesticate him, we shrink him, we make him manageable.
SPEAKER_00: Paul and Barnabas react with almost violent urgency.
SPEAKER_00: They tear their garments, they say this is not theatrical, that is biblical grief, because they understand what is at stake.
SPEAKER_00: If the people keep going down this path, they will miss God completely while thinking they have found him.
SPEAKER_00: They say, Why are you doing this?
SPEAKER_00: Why are of the same nature as you?
SPEAKER_00: We are of the same nature as you.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, stop projecting divinity onto the wrong things.
SPEAKER_00: Stop trying to worship what is comfortable, what is familiar, what fits your expectations.
SPEAKER_00: Turn instead to the living God.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if we go to the gospel, because Jesus goes even deeper, he says, Whoever loves me will keep my word, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.
SPEAKER_00: That's staggering.
SPEAKER_00: God is not looking for a crowd that admires him from a distance.
SPEAKER_00: He's not interested in people who are impressed by miracles but unchanged in life.
SPEAKER_00: He's not Zeus on a pedestal receiving sacrifices.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to live in you.
SPEAKER_00: Not symbolically, not poetically, actually, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit making a dwelling place within your soul.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a condition, and it's not negotiable.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever loves me will keep my word.
SPEAKER_00: That's where most people quietly walk away.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because love, in the way Jesus defines it, is not a feeling.
SPEAKER_00: It's not admiration.
SPEAKER_00: It's not occasional inspirational.
SPEAKER_00: Love is obedience.
SPEAKER_00: Love is alignment.
SPEAKER_00: Love is a life that actually begins to take on the shape of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the tension you have to face honestly.
SPEAKER_00: We want the indwelling presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: We want peace.
SPEAKER_00: We want clarity.
SPEAKER_00: We want the Holy Spirit to guide us, but we often resist a path that leads us there.
SPEAKER_00: We want revelation without obedience.
SPEAKER_00: We want consolation without conversion.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is very clear.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't work that way.
SPEAKER_00: The reason the world does not recognize him, the reason he says he does not reveal himself to the world is not because he's hiding, it's because the world refuses the condition that makes recognition possible.
SPEAKER_00: You do not live his word, you will not see him clearly.
SPEAKER_00: Not because he's absent, but because your life is out of sync with his presence.
SPEAKER_00: But see, here comes the promise.
SPEAKER_00: He says the advocate, the Holy Spirit will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have told you.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit is not just a comfort, he's a teacher.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one who takes the words of Christ and makes them real, concrete, unavoidable in your life.
SPEAKER_00: He convicts, he clarifies, he brings back to your memory exactly what you need to hear.
SPEAKER_00: Often at the moment you would rather ignore it.
SPEAKER_00: So here's a real question as we start this week, and it's not abstract.
SPEAKER_00: Where in your life are you trying to shape God into something that fits you instead of allowing his word to reshape you?
SPEAKER_00: Where are you admiring Jesus but not actually obeying him?
SPEAKER_00: Because the difference between those two is the difference between a crowd that shouts, The gods have come down, and a soul that actually becomes the dwelling place of God.
SPEAKER_00: And one of those changes everything.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.