Holy Spirit Week 1 by Pastor Philip Keller

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Transcript

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On the Holy Spirit. And I need you to know this morning: the Holy Spirit is not just a feeling to experience, but a person to know, a person to welcome, a person to invite into every area of your life. Some people would say, well, it's the Holy Ghost and not the Holy Spirit, but can I tell you? What's important is that you know it's the Spirit of God. If we fully understood every part of God and every mystery of God and every question about him, then he wouldn't be God. Because he would be simple enough for us to understand. So I'm not gonna get up here and pretend like I can explain every mystery to you about God the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit or the Trinity. I'm not gonna do that today. I'm not going to be a pastor who gets up here in this pulpit and pretends that I can control the Holy Spirit when it falls, who it touches, how it touches them. But what you need to know this morning is this, and we're gonna give you the simplified version today because I believe God is calling us back to the altar, back to pray for some big things. And so, point one is this the Holy Spirit, you need to know is part of the Trinity. Many people know about God the Father, many know about Jesus the Son, but they struggle to understand God the Holy Spirit. One God, three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. How do we know that? Jesus Himself acknowledged the Trinity when he gave us the great commission. Matthew 28, 19, therefore go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not just something, it's not just some vibe, it's not just some goosebumps we feel, He is not emotional music, He's not something we can control, He is God, the Holy Spirit. John chapter 14, 16 through 17 says this, and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him because it isn't looking for him and doesn't recognize him, but you know him because he lives with you now and later will be in you. Jesus acknowledges there's another advocate besides himself from the Father. He's acknowledging the Trinity, he's acknowledging the Holy Spirit. Jesus spoke of the Holy Spirit as a helper, a counselor, an advocate, a comforter. The Holy Spirit speaks to us, leads us, comforts us, convicts us, and empowers us. I like the egg illustration, and I think we have it up on the screen. We can put it up there. All three parts different, but still makes up the egg. When researching this and just trying to figure out how and why God was wanting me to explain this more this morning, bringing in the triangle visual illustration. Put that up there. And so I'm trying to zoom through this as quick as I can, but also make sure I catch everything that God is wanting to say. So hang with me. Genesis chapter 1. Verse 26 and 27. And then God said, Let us make man in our image. After our likeness. Genesis chapter 1, verse 2, the spirit was there at creation. Acts chapter 2, the spirit filled up Pentecost. But then in Psalms 139, they're talking about where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? Because God is omnipresent. Today the Holy Spirit is active in the earth and inside believers. 1 Corinthians 6.19 says, You are now a temple of the Holy Spirit. The Old Testament people visited the presence of God, but in since the New Testament, the presence of God visits us. And the Spirit of God continues to work in the lives of believers and within the church. And when you feel conviction, it's the Holy Spirit. Can I get an amen right there? When you feel peace, it's the Holy Spirit. When you are having those moments in worship, it's the Holy Spirit. When you're really connecting to the Father in prayer, it's the Holy Spirit. Those moments where you just know God is near, that's the Holy Spirit. If you are truly a follower of Christ, you've accepted him. You believe in on him as your Lord and Savior, and you've accepted him as your Savior. You've confessed your sins and he's forgiven you because of what he's done on the cross and through the resurrection. Your name has been written down in the Lamb's Book of Life. But I believe and I know that the Spirit of God is now within you. But this is where we begin to set up the meat of this whole sermon today because there's more for us. The deep part of this message today is that God has more for us. Because how many of you know when you accept the Lord, when you say that prayer, when you believe, you become a child of God. But can I tell you this morning, the story's not over. This is just the beginning of your story. We have too many Christians across our country who believe that's the end of the story, and the rest of the time we're just waiting to go to heaven. But God has more for us as believers. Just like a seed that has been planted in our hearts as we learn and grow, and as we read the word of God, as we pray, as we worship, as we continue our relationship with Him, we begin to walk it out and live for Him. We start to see that seed that was planted getting watered. We start to see the seed grow and roots start growing down deep in the soil of God's word. And as our faith grows, we start to realize there's a whole lot more to this Holy Spirit thing. This is where I feel like God is taking us. This is where I feel like this message starts to become more relevant. This is where some of you might be challenged or start to understand more. This is where a lot of religious people begin to throw in the towel because they don't want to deal with it. This is where people begin to contemplate well, how much do I really want to surrender to God? It's really good to go to church on Easter and Christmas and all these other things, but I don't know if I can surrender everything to Him. I don't know if I can go that deep with Him. I don't know if I can commit to that level of spiritual awareness, and this is where a lot of people start stalling out in their faith. And the enemy comes and starts to distract them. Why? Because God is calling you to more, He's calling us deeper, He's calling us to let go of the steering wheel of life, and He's asking us to hand it over to Him. Maybe it's something you've been doing since you were 12 years old and no one else knows about it. God's saying it's time to get rid of that. Get it out of your life. Maybe it's a grudge you've had with someone your whole life. God's saying you gotta forgive them and move on. Maybe it's a friendship or a connection you have, or it's an abusive or a toxic relationship you're in. You need to walk away from it. Maybe you have a calling on your life, and God is wanting to take you to the next step in your calling, but you have to make some life changes in order to do that, and you are not sure if you want to. Point three is this the Holy Spirit must be invited. This is where we come into play. This is where the rubber meets the road. You have to choose. See, this is the heart of today's sermon. God is a gentleman. He don't have to be, he doesn't have to be, but he is, and he wants you to want him, he wants you to choose him. The Holy Spirit wants to be invited. If you were planning a wedding or a birthday party or some sort of a get-together, the invitation matters. How many of you ever been somewhere before and you're like, that person was not invited to this party? Come on. That uncle was not invited, but he showed up anyway. But if you want people to show up, if it's for gifts or food or uh celebrating an achievement, whatever the reason is, you have to invite people. Invitations make them feel well wanted and welcome and create expectation, and invitations show value. And I wonder how many churches have services planned every Sunday morning and they forget to invite the Holy Spirit to be a part of what they're doing. I wonder how many Christians want the power of God without the presence of God. See, it's possible for you to have the Holy Spirit, but for you to have the Holy Spirit on lock, and the Holy Spirit don't have you. What does that mean? The Holy Spirit wants to guide you, wants to lead you, wants to help you. But if you're always in control and doing everything the way you want to do, he's not gonna move and do the things he needs to do. God's presence is not something we schedule, it's someone we welcome. Why? Because he needs to be invited, included. You have to trust him, you have to ask him, you have to include him if you want the blessings and the gifts and the fruit of the Holy Spirit. God can go where he is unwanted, he can go where someone doesn't even want him to be, but he manifests where he is welcomed. You might say, well, we have a lot of people coming to this church, but I don't feel the Spirit of God moving. Did you welcome him here? Did you invite him here? Did you quit worrying about your own things and start worrying about God for a moment? We must start inviting the Holy Spirit into our worship, into our prayers, into our ministries, into our church, into our marriage. Come on, church, into our parenting, into our decisions, into our conversations, into our private life. I'm gonna ask the band to come back up because we're almost done. Why does it all matter? Because the Holy Spirit is the difference maker. We've talked about who the Holy Spirit is, we've talked about where the Holy Spirit is, we've talked about inviting the Holy Spirit. Let's talk about why the Holy Spirit matters. Because the Holy Spirit is the difference maker. Churches can have great music, churches can have great preaching, churches can have beautiful buildings, churches can have great programs, churches can have wonderful people, but without the Holy Spirit, all we have is human effort. The Holy Spirit is the difference between a gathering and an encounter. The Holy Spirit is the difference between religion and relationship. The Holy Spirit is the difference between information and transformation. The Holy Spirit is the difference between church as usual and life-changing power. And I want to say something today because I love our church. People tell us all the time your church is so friendly, so welcoming, so loving. We felt like family when we were there. And I thank God for that because I've been in a bunch of churches that didn't make me feel that way. And that's something worth celebrating. We should never lose that. But church family, I believe God has more for us. Not because we're doing something wrong, but because God is calling us deeper. I believe our worship should be filled with the Holy Spirit. If you believe that, say amen. I believe our prayers should be filled with the Holy Spirit. If you believe that, say amen. I believe our response to altar calls should be filled with the Holy Spirit. If you believe that, say amen. I believe all that we do when we show up to church, we should be with an expectation that the Holy Spirit is going to move. I believe when we gather together, we shouldn't just hope that God shows up. We should expect Him to show up because He's been invited. Moses understood this in Exodus 33, 15. He said, If your presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. Moses was saying, God, I don't want the promise without your presence. I don't want the destination without your presence. I don't want success without your presence. Church, I feel that way today. I don't want church without the presence of God. I don't want sermons without his presence. I don't want worship, whatever style it is, without his presence. I don't want ministry without his presence. I don't want to wake up in the morning without his presence. I want the Holy Spirit. AW Toze said, we go astray when we attempt to do spiritual work without spiritual power. When the Holy Spirit shows up, chains break, lives change, marriages heal, families heal, addictions lose their grip, people are saved, people are restored, people hear God's voice, the impossible becomes possible, the presence of God changes everything. Perhaps that's the invitation today. Not just inviting the Holy Spirit into the service, but inviting him to every part of your life. Not just in this room, not just in this service, but in us. Let today be the spark that is needed to set a wildfire in our hearts for the Holy Spirit to move and to do what He wants to do. That revival, that the Spirit of God would be poured out in our community, in our families, and in this church. God, we hold up the invitation today to tell you you're invited, that you're wanted, that you're welcomed, that you belong here. Instead of asking you for thanks today, God, we simply just invite you to just get closer to us. We tell you today, God, we want more of you. Holy Spirit, you are welcome here. We invite you into this place, God, into our hearts, into our families. In a minute, they're gonna sing and they're gonna play. I am not gonna get up here today and beg you to come to these altars. I'm gonna let the Holy Spirit do that. But here's what I'm going to do. I'm gonna lift up his name and invite him in this place. And if you feel led to come and find a place to pray up here, if you're ready for revival, if you're ready for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, I don't care if you're up on the stage, if you're a board member, I don't care if you're running live stream or a sound, I don't care where you are, I don't care if your kid's in the back and you gotta go get your kid and bring your whole family up here. You do what God is speaking to you to do. I'm just gonna be obedient. I'm gonna let the Holy Spirit draw you. Sing this with me. Come on, church. Come on, if you're hungry for God, come on, just respond to him. Show him he's invited, come on, show him that you're hungry for him today. Come on. Oh. Church, I want us to pray for a moment. There's been a message in tongues. I want us to pray for an interpretation. If you have that interpretation, we release the authority for you to say it right now. If we can just bring the music down just a little bit. Just worship him right now, Church. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. If you're here this morning and what is going on? This a gift of tongues, gift of a message, and gift of an interpretation. You have questions about that, we can talk after church. We can show you in scripture and 1st and 2nd Corinthians, where it talks about the gifts, it talks about all these things. But God tells us when this happens that we have we have to believe and we have to listen to what he is saying and we need to receive that. And so here's what I feel like on my heart. I feel like if you're able to stand, to stand, if you're not, you can stay seated, but grab the hand of the person next to you and we're going to pray together. We're going to ask God to align us to his heart. Whatever that looks like. I think I skimmed over this earlier, and God just brought it back to my heart and my mind. But I always want you to know the humility that God has given me as a believer and now as a pastor of a church, I need you to know that this isn't just something that we come together on a Sunday morning and throw together and fly by the seat of our pants. We pray about this. You can ask my wife, even last night until I fell asleep, I had such a conviction and a stirring for today. And I just kept telling her, I don't know if I can do this, I don't know if I'm good enough. I don't know if I'm worthy of this. I don't know, but I'm gonna do my best. And so this isn't something that, oh, we're professionals at this, or we we are following some some man-made book or something. No, this is this is the Spirit of God. This isn't something that we've come up with on our own because we're not capable of that. And so I just want to challenge that because I know the enemy likes to bring those things up in our mind and our heart. Oh, here we go, just another religious thing going on. Please know that's not what we do here at Family Worship Center. We protect as much as possible the holiness, the genuine truth, and and just the word of God and and the way he tells us to do things. And sometimes it sometimes it causes hard conversations to happen. Sometimes you have to talk to people about things, and and and I just want to let you know with this humility thing, there has been so many times, not just in my life, but even the last year as a pastor, that God has took me out to the woodshed and said, Hey, this is stuff that you need to work on, Philip Keller. This is stuff you need to do. And can I tell you, I I'm I'm bet I'm begging you, but I'm asking you to receive the things that have been said and done today in this service as a good thing. This isn't some other thing to add to gossip or going around town or something like that. This is, hey, God showed up today at a family worship center and he's on the move. And I know everyone has preference and and everyone has their own thing, and that's great. I'm I'm I'm thankful for that freedom that we all have. That's why I don't go spend five thousand dollars on a suit, and I don't try to look some perfect person up here, and because I'm not a perfect person. I am just who God created me to be, and I'm just trying to do what he wants me to do. I'm not trying to offend someone, I'm not trying to run people off from the church, I'm not trying to change everything. From the very second that we were told by God that this is where we were supposed to come as pastors, we we said, God, we cannot do this without you. And then we're only gonna do it if you're a part of everything we do. So I hope you see that humility and that you know that it's not just some some other pastors getting up and doing their thing. No, I don't want to be that kind of a person. I want to be someone who's connected to God. And even if this our whole service took a direction that none of us expected it to, and maybe some of you didn't like it, but can I tell you, I'm just trying to do God's will. And so I I just want to encourage you with that, and I wanna I want to encourage you, grab the hand of the person next to you, even up here on the worship team. You guys grab hands, come over here and grab my hand too. Grab the hand of the person next to you. Let's pray. And you know what God is speaking to your heart to pray about. But I'm asking you to pray for whatever it is that's on your heart, whatever it is God's speaking to you today, but also pray that the Holy Spirit is a part of every service that we do from now on. And if He has to, if He has to convict us the second we walk in the door, let it be. If He has to if He has to bring us to our knees, and and it's happened to me a hundred times. If He has to take us to the woodshed, whatever it is, it's not always pleasant, it's not always happy, but God knows how to align our hearts to Him so that we are filled with the Holy Spirit and so we can live a blessed life. And so pray right now. Just begin to lift your voices across this room. Saints, begin to lift leaders, those who are called in the ministry, begin to lift your voices. We pray out loud, not because it's a it's pleasant or it's something that we love to do, it's because the enemy can hear us. So pray out loud and let the enemy hear you today, Father. We take back what the enemy has stolen and we take back our church, we take back this community, we take back our families, we take back these uh moments, God, that are are so full of uh distractions and things that we could be distracted by. And we ask for you to move, Holy Spirit, begin a takeover in our church, a takeover in our hearts, a takeover in our lives, and God, let today be the moment that something changed because we decided to start inviting the Holy Spirit into every part of our lives, into our church, into our families, God. I thank you for your presence that has been here so strong today. I thank you for using me. I thank you for what you're doing in our lives, God, and I ask for you to do more. God, as we come back next week and we step right back to where we are today, God, we hope that we take up that mantle and continue what it is that you are trying to teach us about the Holy Spirit, continue pushing in, bringing a hunger, bringing the lost into this place. God, we want to see the world changed in Jesus' name. God, we declare it, we claim it this morning as children of God. We claim it today, God, that you are gonna have your way. Let your will be done at family worship center. God, let your will be done in Morgan County as it is in heaven. In Jesus' name we pray today. And the church said, Come on, church, put your hands together one last time. I'm gonna have Pastor Jeremy dismiss us in prayer, and if he wants to say anything, he can say whatever he wants. But Pastor Jeremy's gonna pray, and that'll give me and my wife a moment to sneak in the back so we can greet you all on your way out. We love you and appreciate you so much. He hands me a mic and wants me to probably be short. And you know, I I will. I will. But I do want to say a couple things. How many would love to see what God's doing? Amen. How many know that it is not that young couple that is doing it? How many know that it's God? How many know that God will use who he wants and who he will if they are willing? And the key word in all of that was if we invite. If we invite the Holy Spirit in. If we invite God's presence in. God says, Hey, I want to be with you. Just ask me to come in. And then he's gonna be in each and every one of our lives, each and every one of our lives, and that's gonna flow through us into our communities into our wherever we go. Be ready. Because God wants to use you. God wanted to use this church in this community. I'm gonna do this before I continue to ramble too much. I love you. Love you each and every one. God is good. And all the time. God, Lord, we thank you, Lord, for this day. We thank you, Lord, for the opportunity that we have to come and to be in your presence, Lord, that you would just speak to us. God, we thank you, Lord, for your spirit. Lord, each and every day we want to invite it into our lives, Lord, that we can just experience that more and more, and we can bring it back and we can share with each other. God, we thank you, Lord, for this day, for what you have in store, and what you're gonna do in this in this church, Lord, that we can just share with one another. In your name we pray.