SPEAKER_00: Morning, y'all.
SPEAKER_00: Morning.
SPEAKER_00: How y'all doing?
SPEAKER_00: Good.
SPEAKER_00: I know I did this last service, and I was like, Are y'all really good?
SPEAKER_00: Because you can't really answer that question when I'm up here.
SPEAKER_00: And then Jamie said the same thing, and I'm like, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Well, he's like, How you doing?
SPEAKER_00: Fine, fine, everything's fine.
SPEAKER_00: But really, like, how do we come into this space this morning?
SPEAKER_00: We all come in with our story, our soul, our heart into this space.
SPEAKER_00: And we're we are welcomed into, invited into the presence of God this morning, who loves us.
SPEAKER_00: So everything that we sit in today is out of his love.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna start in the book of Acts this morning, in the chapter of 17.
SPEAKER_00: I've literally never said it that way.
SPEAKER_00: The book of Acts, the chapter of 17, starting in verse 24, I'll be reading from the ESV version.
SPEAKER_00: Says this the God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
SPEAKER_00: This is the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks be to God, God of heaven and earth, the creator of all things.
SPEAKER_00: We pause in your presence this morning.
SPEAKER_00: You are here and we are here for you.
SPEAKER_00: I ask, Holy Spirit, that you speak to us this morning from your word, from your heart.
SPEAKER_00: That you would give us ears to hear and eyes to see.
SPEAKER_00: Hearts ready to receive whatever it is you want to say to us today.
SPEAKER_00: God, I pray that you empty me as your vessel and fill me and just say what you want to say through me.
SPEAKER_00: And I just lay down all the racing of my mind and my heart this morning as we practice being in your presence.
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, God, would we just know that you are love and that we can sit in that?
SPEAKER_00: May you be worshipped and glorified and honored and blessed this morning.
SPEAKER_00: We love you, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for loving us first.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I get to come into your series on Lectio at the Crescindo.
unknown: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: At Contemplatio.
SPEAKER_00: The end of these movements of being in the Word of God and learning to listen to His voice, we end up in Contemplatio, receiving and resting in God.
SPEAKER_00: The God who made everything and gives life and breath and everything to us, who does not need us to make him a place to dwell or to serve him with our hands.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't need us, but he wants us.
SPEAKER_00: This God of love, I am to receive and rest in his presence.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't know about you, but when I think of receiving, I think of like getting something.
SPEAKER_00: So often when I come to receive from God, it's like Jesus plus something.
SPEAKER_00: Coming to get an answer to a question, coming to feel better about myself, Jesus plus my comfort, Jesus plus the direction in which I really would like an answer to nowhere to go.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus plus crying out and knowing that I'm heard.
SPEAKER_00: All of those things do come from our King, but receiving and resting in Him, this contemplatio is actually just being.
SPEAKER_00: And out of that will come everything else that we need because He gives us all that we need, but it's just being with I am.
SPEAKER_00: This journey of Lectio, where you are in the Word, and we need the Word.
SPEAKER_00: The Word is God's word to us.
SPEAKER_00: The God of the universe who spoke everything into being with his word, words, gave us this word.
SPEAKER_00: And then he sent Jesus in flesh as the word in flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Like the word is important and he will speak to us.
SPEAKER_00: It's sharper than a double-edged sword.
SPEAKER_00: It pars between spirit and flesh, joint and marrow.
SPEAKER_00: It shows us what's true.
SPEAKER_00: But often, at least as believers in my experience, we come trying to do and to learn and to package and do all these things.
SPEAKER_00: And then we're like still doing the thing, and we're invited in this lectio to co-labor.
SPEAKER_00: It's a slow movement, it's still a doing, it's it's a working with the Holy Spirit and waiting for him.
SPEAKER_00: But contemplatio is the release of all of that and just silence and being inviting, I am to just be everything.
SPEAKER_00: And he can speak, he will speak, but if he doesn't speak, my encouragement to you is not to grow weary or discouraged, because sometimes you just gotta be with the people you love.
SPEAKER_00: Right now, my best friend lives with us, she's over there.
SPEAKER_00: Hey girl.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and we end up in the room together sometimes with no particular thing to do, just to be.
SPEAKER_00: Like my husband and I will end up on the couch together at night, and we're not necessarily saying anything or doing anything, we just be.
SPEAKER_00: And don't get me wrong, there are times we say things, there are times conversations like have to be had, or we have fun together and we laugh.
SPEAKER_00: But there is something about the treasured space of being so near someone, so full of trust, so safe that you can just be.
SPEAKER_00: Say and do nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Our God can and will speak.
SPEAKER_00: He speaks in a whisper.
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes he just wants to be.
SPEAKER_00: I am who I am, Yahweh, Jehovah.
SPEAKER_00: I am who I am, says God to Moses.
SPEAKER_00: I am who I am means the one whose self-exists.
SPEAKER_00: The one who has no beginning and no end, but the one who is the beginning and the end of all things.
SPEAKER_00: The one who created everything and said that's enough.
SPEAKER_00: Literally, I am in Hebrew has the nuance of in certain aspects of enough.
SPEAKER_00: And if God is the I am, the one that exists on his own and created everything in existence, then every definition of identity of I am exists in who he is.
SPEAKER_00: And he is the one that will say enough.
SPEAKER_00: Enough to sin and death and pain at the end, and the one who said enough through Jesus, who came in flesh and said enough of this eternal separation of me from my people who I love.
SPEAKER_00: That God, that I am, he bees.
SPEAKER_00: He is a being, and in his being he is love, and he is life.
SPEAKER_00: And out of who he is, comes everything else.
SPEAKER_00: God spoke everything into being in the created order with his words, save one thing, us.
SPEAKER_00: And he spoke everything, and then he reached down into what he had spoken into being into the dirt, and he made humanity with his hands.
SPEAKER_00: What intention and love and care.
SPEAKER_00: And then on the seventh day, he rested.
SPEAKER_00: That was God's seventh day, man's first.
SPEAKER_00: And in the ancient Hebrew world, and still in the Middle East today, in Israel, night is actually the beginning of a day until the next evening.
SPEAKER_00: So mankind was created and they immediately rested.
SPEAKER_00: They weren't created to do and to accomplish and to become something.
SPEAKER_00: They were made to be with I am.
SPEAKER_00: God reached down, made mankind, and then breathed the breath of life, the Holy Spirit of God Himself into mankind, and Adam woke up to the presence of the living God.
SPEAKER_00: Life and community.
SPEAKER_00: God is communal in and of himself.
SPEAKER_00: And then if we are made in his image and his likeness, the only thing in the created order made in his image and his likeness, we are made to have his essence and his character and his heart, then we are made for life through his breath.
SPEAKER_00: We are made for community.
SPEAKER_00: And then the other two things humanity needs just to clearly survive, we weren't even made without clothes, y'all, is just food and water.
SPEAKER_00: There were just these very few things humanity needed, but the first two were the life of God Himself through the breath of the Holy Spirit in community with I Am.
SPEAKER_00: And with each other, because it was not good for man to be alone.
SPEAKER_00: So God made Eve.
SPEAKER_00: We were created to be.
SPEAKER_00: And in this contemplatio, in this lectio journey, I would say it kind of mirrors creation that you have these movements of intentional things, intentional creativity, intentional imagination, asking the Holy Spirit to speak the way he spoke, created order into being, and then rest.
SPEAKER_00: But even in this rest and this receiving of just being in the presence of God, we find ourselves super itchy.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's hard to be.
SPEAKER_00: And if the essence, guys, this is literally the very core center of who we are.
SPEAKER_00: So my thing for us today is not to do more things, it's to do the thing.
SPEAKER_00: Just this thing with I am, and in the being with I am will come everything we're to do.
SPEAKER_00: What we're invited to co-labor into, what we're invited to become and who he made us to be, that in this new life he lives in us through Jesus, when we submit and surrender to him and the Holy Spirit lives in us and transforms us, in this, we become who he made us to be.
SPEAKER_00: We begin to interact with the world differently.
SPEAKER_00: We begin to hear his voice and see him at work in ways we can't when we're busy, busy with the noise of the world, busy with the overstimulation.
SPEAKER_00: So much so that even when we do take time to be with God, it's sometimes just a checklist because I feel like I gotta get through it, or I do want to practice a discipline, but like I'm just kind of racing through it, or I'm wondering, like, man, I'm at the end of this Lectio thing.
SPEAKER_00: Did I do that right?
SPEAKER_00: Did I actually imagine that correctly?
SPEAKER_00: Like, Holy Spirit, what are you saying to me?
SPEAKER_00: And this rest is a breath or a lot of breaths of just being.
SPEAKER_00: And we will find ourselves restless here.
SPEAKER_00: And you can't rest with I am without silencing the noise of the world.
SPEAKER_00: But you also can't do that without resting in I Am.
SPEAKER_00: They have to happen together and all the time.
SPEAKER_00: This is the journey of the rest of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: To learn to get back to our identity.
SPEAKER_00: God says in Isaiah, and returning and rest is your salvation.
SPEAKER_00: And quietness and trust is your strength.
SPEAKER_00: How many of us trying to find rest and strength in the other things, gaining more, being comfortable, having peace in the way we want to have peace, having finances, having answers, having strength in like maybe working out literally or eating certain foods or whatever?
SPEAKER_00: But what if it's just here?
SPEAKER_00: And out of being here will come all of that stuff that he designed us for.
SPEAKER_00: And we are so busy, literally, physically hurried, but also mentally hurried.
SPEAKER_00: If the essence of our being is to be, then absolutely 100% the enemy is gonna press against that the opposite direction and tell you that you are made to do.
SPEAKER_00: So much so, he will even use the word.
SPEAKER_00: Be like, well, your faith shows works, right?
SPEAKER_00: And we start to justify, well, I gotta be doing works to show my faith.
SPEAKER_00: Um truth there, but it starts with being, with I am because he tells you who you are, he tells you what he made you for, he tells you where to go, what to say, what to do.
SPEAKER_00: He tells you.
SPEAKER_00: But we often want to inform ourselves through the filling of the world, because we're all made to hunger.
SPEAKER_00: We will all hunger.
SPEAKER_00: We were made in our essence to hunger and thirst for righteousness, to hunger for the bread of life and the living water, but our flesh in our broken state, we keep coming over here to fill ourselves up.
SPEAKER_00: And we do that in so many ways that we don't even know we're doing it as humanity.
SPEAKER_00: And again, this is this is a call to less.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a shot in shame and guilt this morning because y'all that is from the enemy.
SPEAKER_00: God's conviction is love and grace, but a calling out because he loves.
SPEAKER_00: That this ushering into a new place of the closeness of God, this is not always the question of what is sin and not sin.
SPEAKER_00: It's sometimes, is this a weight that I'm meant to bear?
SPEAKER_00: Will this draw me closer to the heart of the king?
SPEAKER_00: And in our flesh, and just so you know, I'm literally preaching to myself this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I'm prayerful that the Lord is gonna speak to y'all too.
SPEAKER_00: But guys, this is for me for sure.
SPEAKER_00: I'm really good at coming over here to take little snacks instead of feasting on the word.
SPEAKER_00: On I am, I come over here and I'm like, yeah, that was nice.
SPEAKER_00: And my flesh feels good for a minute, but in the same way that drinking salt water will literally make you more thirsty till you die, if we just keep inputting more things over here, like, yeah, we can come over here sometimes and we're like, ooh, that was like really good, and I get some nutrients, and then we come back over here and we're filling ourselves with this junk, we forget what it's like to be healthy.
SPEAKER_00: Similarly, to like if you guys have ever had to get rid of certain foods in your diet, or you've just wanted to, or you're like, I don't want to eat the added stuff or the sugar or whatever, and you start to get rid of it out of your diet, and you realize pretty quick how much you were maybe drawn to that thing, or the side effects of not having it anymore.
SPEAKER_00: And then you start to live in that habit, and you're like, wow, I actually feel pretty good.
SPEAKER_00: But then maybe you like cheat a little bit, you know, and you're like, sugar.
SPEAKER_00: You're like, oh gosh, I'm foggy, my stomach hurts, like ugh.
SPEAKER_00: And then you keep doing it and you keep doing it and you keep doing it, and you get so used to the symptoms of your body being this way, you forgot what it was like to be here.
SPEAKER_00: We get so used to living in this world, our first world culture of America world, we have no idea for the most part what it's like here.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the fullest you will ever be.
SPEAKER_00: It's the fullest I will ever be.
SPEAKER_00: And it is this side of heaven impossible to totally shut out all noise of the world because we live in a world and we're driving.
SPEAKER_00: Like, even driving here this morning, I'm like trying to abide in God's presence and ask him to speak to me and to just be.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm driving and I'm like, oh yeah, I gotta get over in this lane.
SPEAKER_00: There's a cop over there, and like, oh, check my speed.
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, yeah, I'm fine.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: And then there's just like stimulus, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because we do exist in a world where we are made to go do things, but we have to start with the rest of God, resting in him, Sabbath rest, so we can go out and do.
SPEAKER_00: But the Sabbath rest is not just one day a week.
SPEAKER_00: Though if you're not doing that, I encourage you to because it's a reminder we cannot produce things on our own.
SPEAKER_00: Or we can, but it's eventually gonna be dead fruit.
SPEAKER_00: We're reminded that the God who gave life and breath and everything is everything.
SPEAKER_00: And we cease from work.
SPEAKER_00: But that Sabbath rest is to go in our hearts throughout the entirety of the week.
SPEAKER_00: So we return to it in smaller ways rather than taking all our days off ever for Sabbath.
SPEAKER_00: We abide in God's presence the way he abides in us by coming back here on purpose.
SPEAKER_00: And not like a drive-by, like, ooh, quick snack.
SPEAKER_00: No, God can fill this up in those ways too, in the sense of like, God, I have one minute right now, I'm just gonna be.
SPEAKER_00: But we do justify.
SPEAKER_00: This is one of my like pet peeves of humanity, including of myself, where we like justify, we're like, ooh, quick snack is good.
SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
SPEAKER_00: My life is not your life.
SPEAKER_00: God will not speak to me the same way he speaks to you.
SPEAKER_00: So, like, I don't have time to just like be with him.
SPEAKER_00: So, like, I can just drive by, it's fine.
SPEAKER_00: And you can make that choice.
SPEAKER_00: Because out of all created order, we're all made to worship, we're all made to hunger.
SPEAKER_00: Humans get the choice.
SPEAKER_00: What are you gonna fill yourself with?
SPEAKER_00: What will you worship?
SPEAKER_00: Where are the attentions and affections and adorations of our hearts?
SPEAKER_00: That is the direction we'll go.
SPEAKER_00: And if you want your direction to be back to the king of the universe, we with the Holy Spirit's power have to return here again and again on purpose.
SPEAKER_00: We are made in his image and his likeness, transformed, but it's our job as people with his power to expose ourselves to him again and again and again.
SPEAKER_00: So you might be thinking, like, I don't have time.
SPEAKER_00: You do, because your time is not your time, it's his.
SPEAKER_00: There's Kairos time, which is kingdom time, and there's Kronos time, which is the crunching of the clock.
SPEAKER_00: The enemy's gonna tell you Kronos time is gonna get you.
SPEAKER_00: And your time spent being with I am might look different than mine.
SPEAKER_00: My time looks different sometimes than what I wish.
SPEAKER_00: Like I am a morning person, I want to sit in silence with the Lord then.
SPEAKER_00: But often my kids are up before me.
SPEAKER_00: So, what does that look like in the middle of my day or at night?
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes, even in the middle of the day, if you're at work or on your lunch break, just taking five minutes, that can reset our hearts and our minds with I am to be, so we can actually go out and do more than we ever thought possible in his power because he's filling us.
SPEAKER_00: And we don't come here so we can go do more in your power.
SPEAKER_00: We come to receive the bread of life to be.
SPEAKER_00: But we come over here a lot.
SPEAKER_00: And guys, it's easy to access this because this is quick, this is everywhere, it's accessible.
SPEAKER_00: This long feasted meal feels a bit harder to prepare for sometimes, but the more we do it, the more normal it will become.
SPEAKER_00: And when we don't do it, then we'll know we're hungry for it.
SPEAKER_00: But these quick snacks over here.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, how many of us are like have to have phones or computers for work, but then we're using it all the time.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're at a stoplight and you're poking your phone and you're looking, and then you're doing it while you're driving.
SPEAKER_00: Guys, don't do that.
SPEAKER_00: It's terribly scary because we're just like so, we can't concentrate for more than two to eight seconds.
SPEAKER_00: This is a Haley fact, not necessarily a scientific fact, but we are literally conditioned in our world to not concentrate more than two to eight seconds at a time.
SPEAKER_00: God has had me in a lot of different spaces, like moving all over the place, and I don't remember where I was or what I was doing, but I was learning about social media content and like producing like a video or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: And just so you know, like I cannot be on social media.
SPEAKER_00: This is something that maybe one day I hope the Lord will allow me to do because I know He can use it, but holy smokes, it fills up the ears of my spirit so much.
SPEAKER_00: Hearing the voice of God reminds me of ears.
SPEAKER_00: And we hear physical things, but our spirits have ears too.
SPEAKER_00: And our spirit ears are filled with the things of the world, just like they're filled with spiritual things from our father.
SPEAKER_00: But my spiritual ears get so full so fast when I'm like on social media because then I'm like seeing all these like cool things and like comparing things, and like it's not all bad, right?
SPEAKER_00: Again, not all about sin or not sin.
SPEAKER_00: Like, some videos are really funny, some of them are super inspirational.
SPEAKER_00: You're like, wow, I'm gonna take that nugget with me.
SPEAKER_00: That's precious.
SPEAKER_00: But also, like, wow, look at that outfit.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I wish I had that outfit.
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, what a highlight reel.
SPEAKER_00: And I really know what you're going through.
SPEAKER_00: So you're lying.
SPEAKER_00: So then I'm judging, and then I'm over here, like, oh my gosh, look at that, look at that.
SPEAKER_00: And then we start to doom scroll or death scroll, and we're like scrolling down and scrolling down, and then you can stop here and you can scroll this way and this way.
SPEAKER_00: We literally are so trigger-fingered in our spirits, we can't sit still.
SPEAKER_00: So, in this learning to make videos, I don't remember who said it or where I learned it, but I was like, do not allow a picture or a video to last longer than two seconds so you can keep someone's attention.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, you've got to be joking.
SPEAKER_00: I've never met so many people in my life that have been diagnosed with ADHD as I have in the last year.
SPEAKER_00: I'm one of them.
SPEAKER_00: I'm neurospicy.
SPEAKER_00: I just had to start taking meds for it.
SPEAKER_00: Which Fine, I'm appreciative for a tool right now, but I'm literally curious with the Lord so much that and I I'm learning.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's not always neurospicy that's handed down to you by your family, it's environmentally created.
SPEAKER_00: Holy smokes, we've created a lot of ADHD spirits who cannot pay attention because we don't practice rest.
SPEAKER_00: This is gonna feel itchy when we just be, but we won't know how to do it unless we do it.
SPEAKER_00: And you won't do it until you're honest about where you are with the king.
SPEAKER_00: Do you trust him?
SPEAKER_00: Truly, do you trust him to provide all that you need, to tell you who you are, to tell you the next thing to do, to fill you with life, energy, capacity?
SPEAKER_00: Do you trust who he says he is?
SPEAKER_00: Not what that person in your life told you he was, not what that experience tried to tell you about our king.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't trust someone, you're not gonna want to be with them.
SPEAKER_00: And you won't know if you trust him or not until you until you ask him fully to reveal that to you, probably.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you might know.
SPEAKER_00: But you also won't learn to trust him unless you be with him.
SPEAKER_00: So he can tell you who he is.
SPEAKER_00: But until we're fully honest with ourselves and with the king, and he can hold that, we won't be well.
SPEAKER_00: There's so much about the created order that's just like four things we need.
SPEAKER_00: Not in our first world country and culture.
SPEAKER_00: It's just like spinning and offering you more news, more information, another TV show, another article, another movie, another thing to consume, another thing to change in your house so you have more equity, another investment over here, so one day maybe this thing will produce that thing, not more comfort, not more security, not more of what everyone else thinks of you.
SPEAKER_00: We want more and more and more of these things when we're actually not here first.
SPEAKER_00: Because the enemy wants us to work backwards from our doing into the being.
SPEAKER_00: Like maybe I can just prove myself so much to me that when I end up here, I'll feel okay.
SPEAKER_00: It's backwards.
SPEAKER_00: We'll never feel okay coming this way.
SPEAKER_00: Because we were made to be and be filled and fulfilled here by I am first.
SPEAKER_00: Contemplatio, the practice of the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: And then we can turn this way and go this way into the world and ask him in things like liturgical prayers.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't have to be a memorized wrote word, but things that remind us that God is king and he reigns and he speaks and he's moving.
SPEAKER_00: So before we consume media, stopping.
SPEAKER_00: God of the universe, before I consume this, would I remember that you are the bread of life that fills me?
SPEAKER_00: If you do not want me to be consuming this, would you make it evident to me?
SPEAKER_00: The things that I do come across, would you show me your heart and how to pray?
SPEAKER_00: Again, not all sin or not sin.
SPEAKER_00: Is it gonna help you run towards Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Or better, is it gonna help you be with Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Before I start to parent my children, and especially in moments of meltdowns, and I'm exhausted and overstimulated from all of the sound that makes me so much more irritated and my inside's itchy.
SPEAKER_00: God of peace, who shepherds us well.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you that you're more patient with me than I need to be with my kids right now.
SPEAKER_00: When our spiritual ears are full of stimulus, we're more anxious and irritable as well, just in general.
SPEAKER_00: Because we are made to be and out of being to do.
SPEAKER_00: But we get really anxious when our stimulus is full.
SPEAKER_00: How about when we're scrubbing the toilets?
SPEAKER_00: Because I I love that God has blessed us with a home where we can host and offer restoration and healing in a place that is safe.
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes I'm like, oh my gosh, I gotta do my chores.
SPEAKER_00: And even writing my my vision towards I am in those moments.
SPEAKER_00: God, as I scrub this toilet, that's how you cleanse my soul.
SPEAKER_00: Cleanse me again.
SPEAKER_00: God, as the wind is blowing through the trees, Holy Spirit, move in me like that.
SPEAKER_00: Those things that the Holy Spirit reminds us of, because again, we can't do this on our own.
SPEAKER_00: You can't come up with all the reminders.
SPEAKER_00: I ask the Spirit on a regular basis, would you alert me?
SPEAKER_00: But then we have to obey and we hear Him.
SPEAKER_00: But it's hard to hear Him when our ears are full and we wonder why we can't hear God, but our ears are so full in our spirits, and we're running and we're restless and we're hurried on our insides because we're trying to do, and often we will even stamp it with the word, I'm trying to do for you, God.
SPEAKER_00: But He's like, I want you to be.
SPEAKER_00: Because that is who we are.
SPEAKER_00: And out of the being, we're invited into the co-laboring.
SPEAKER_00: And guys, I gotta be honest, I'm kind of a broken record when I say things like this, and then I can act the opposite because I'm a human and I really struggle.
SPEAKER_00: But I kind of sit in this place where I'm very Holy Spirit-led, and then I will get kickback from people like, yeah, but you gotta do.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but you gotta invite.
SPEAKER_00: Like we're planting a church, people aren't gonna come unless you invite them.
SPEAKER_00: You have to do the things.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I I didn't say I didn't.
SPEAKER_00: I said God will bring the people.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean I'll just sit here and wait, Lord, bring them.
SPEAKER_00: If I'm being with I am, he'll tell me what to do.
SPEAKER_00: He'll tell me who to invite.
SPEAKER_00: He'll bring conversations and relationships.
SPEAKER_00: Here he tells me what to pray for, how to contend for the spirits of people, how to battle in the spiritual realm with the word of God, and how to be fulfilled as a person.
SPEAKER_00: But so often I come here saying, like, God, I trust you.
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit, you lead my life, and then I'm trying to do all the things.
SPEAKER_00: Like, God, but am I doing okay?
SPEAKER_00: Am I doing enough for you?
SPEAKER_00: I feel like I'm not good at this, guys.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't pass church planners assessment.
SPEAKER_00: Real.
SPEAKER_00: Like it wasn't a fail, but that's how it felt.
SPEAKER_00: Like you feel you can't church plan.
SPEAKER_00: But because you're doing it with your husband, you're okay.
SPEAKER_00: Literally wasn't good enough on paper to do it.
SPEAKER_00: That has followed me almost my whole life.
SPEAKER_00: Not that I just had that happen a year and a half ago.
SPEAKER_00: But this like not being good enoughness, anyone else, come in light of the enemy.
SPEAKER_00: You're not doing enough.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because that's the opposite of our being.
SPEAKER_00: We can't be enough.
SPEAKER_00: You can't do enough.
SPEAKER_00: I can't do enough.
SPEAKER_00: You can't be awesome enough.
SPEAKER_00: You can't shut down stimulus enough.
SPEAKER_00: You can't accomplish enough to ever work your way here.
SPEAKER_00: You start here because this is the most natural part of your spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And out of that we inform our flesh.
SPEAKER_00: This is hard, but it's a muscle we have to practice to set aside time to just be.
SPEAKER_00: And not rush through it in the sense of like, I just gotta do it.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's that.
SPEAKER_00: There's the self-discipline of just doing it, but God help me to just receive your presence.
SPEAKER_00: To just be, to feast on you.
SPEAKER_00: We are um foodies, me and my husband, and I had I had a dream of going to Paris from the time I was four, and someone um blessed us with a trip to Paris a few years ago.
SPEAKER_00: Me and my husband.
SPEAKER_00: Like literally, amen.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't know who say amen.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so such a kind gift, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Foodies, croissants in Paris, are you giving me yes?
SPEAKER_00: And then we go to a Michelin star restaurant, a dream of ours.
SPEAKER_00: Cobbled streets.
SPEAKER_00: It's nighttime, the lights are on, the environment, right?
SPEAKER_00: I've had some good, good, good meals.
SPEAKER_00: I've cooked some good meals.
SPEAKER_00: I've lingered, lingered in good meals in people's homes.
SPEAKER_00: We've laughed, we've talked about it.
SPEAKER_00: But man, when someone else cooks for you, it's different.
SPEAKER_00: The amount of intention and time this Michelin star chef had put into his food for I don't know how long, the ingredients that he mixed together, the experience took probably two and a half hours, course after course after course.
SPEAKER_00: And y'all, they came out and the bites were this big.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Oh, we are going to be hungry when we are done.
SPEAKER_00: And we weren't.
SPEAKER_00: You know why?
SPEAKER_00: The richness of that food was filling.
SPEAKER_00: The taste in your mouth that lingered.
SPEAKER_00: We walked back to the hotel, like, what was that?
SPEAKER_00: Made us hunger for it again.
SPEAKER_00: That's our that's our king.
SPEAKER_00: That's the feast.
SPEAKER_00: He prepared it for you.
SPEAKER_00: You just show up and then you take it with you.
SPEAKER_00: Because we linger and we talk about it and we come back to it, but he's the feast, and not the feast of consuming him as fast as we can, but the one that helps us quiet all the stimulus and the noise in our spirit so we can be with I am and become more like him.
SPEAKER_00: Not because we did it, but because he's done it.
SPEAKER_00: Continuing in this idea of food, we're gonna read a story in Matthew where Jesus does something with food.
SPEAKER_00: Because our God cares about the whole self, right?
SPEAKER_00: Breath, community, food and water are essential necessities.
SPEAKER_00: We try to fill ourselves with the food and water often, but that's actually our king.
SPEAKER_00: There's so much in the word that actually can speak back to our spirits, but it also is about our physical selves because God cares about the whole thing.
SPEAKER_00: You can go a long time without food before you die.
SPEAKER_00: And at first you'll be really hungry and you'll feel it.
SPEAKER_00: And then you become more used to it.
SPEAKER_00: You kind of forget what it was like to eat, and then you eventually just die.
SPEAKER_00: You can live without water a way shorter amount of time.
SPEAKER_00: The same is true here.
SPEAKER_00: We can come here, we can have this and and not do it, and you know, kind of get by, but we'll eventually die inside, not bear good and living fruit.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus is like, watch.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 14, verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself.
SPEAKER_00: But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns.
SPEAKER_00: When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, This is a desolate place.
SPEAKER_00: The day is now over.
SPEAKER_00: Send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus said, They need not go away.
SPEAKER_00: You give them something to eat.
SPEAKER_00: They said to him, We have only five loaves here and two fish.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Bring them here to me.
SPEAKER_00: Bring what you have.
SPEAKER_00: Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass, and taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said, A blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.
SPEAKER_00: And they all ate and were satisfied.
SPEAKER_00: And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over.
SPEAKER_00: And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
SPEAKER_00: That means somewhere between 15 and 20,000 people.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus abundantly fed physically after healing them, emotionally, physically, mentally, touching their spirits, all of them.
SPEAKER_00: And he came somewhere to be alone.
SPEAKER_00: And then they followed him, and he was moved with compassion, gut-level compassion, like that Luke study said for women.
SPEAKER_00: It means like the depths down here, you are moved.
SPEAKER_00: That's our king.
SPEAKER_00: He is moved in compassion for us and wants to fill us, wants to heal us, but we have to come.
SPEAKER_00: And the disciples came and they're like, hey, Jesus, so they're hungry, you should go ahead and get rid of them.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe the disciples carried that maybe Jesus was tired, but the disciples who have seen him do miracle upon miracle upon miracle and create an abundance of wine out of water, they weren't like, hey, Jesus, you should feed these guys.
SPEAKER_00: They were like, send them away.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, You feed them.
SPEAKER_00: Guys, we don't have to leave I am to go get full, so that we can bring him something.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't need us, he doesn't want anything from you.
SPEAKER_00: He wants you to be.
SPEAKER_00: And we can bring all that we have, which honestly is a little.
SPEAKER_00: And you can go do all the things and bring those too, but it's still a little.
SPEAKER_00: We are to consume food and water to survive.
SPEAKER_00: And yet at the same time, that is actually Jesus Himself, spiritually speaking, the only one that can fill us is our God.
SPEAKER_00: So he blesses it and then he multiplies it.
SPEAKER_00: And before he feeds them, he commands them to sit down.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what I read this week about that.
SPEAKER_00: This command suggests that this was more than just putting food in their stomachs.
SPEAKER_00: That could be done by standing up.
SPEAKER_00: The idea was that there was a bit of a banquet-like atmosphere of enjoyment.
SPEAKER_00: Guys, we can feast.
SPEAKER_00: Like a banquet and enjoy it.
SPEAKER_00: Our flesh is going to push against that.
SPEAKER_00: Want us to get out there and do, you're not doing anything right now, and you have all these things to do, bring that to the king.
SPEAKER_00: The muscle you practice using, you'll learn to use it more and more through the power of the Holy Spirit, and you will hunger for this.
SPEAKER_00: I read this this week too.
SPEAKER_00: It said, the people were hungry, and the empty religionist offers them some ceremony or empty words that can never satisfy.
SPEAKER_00: The people are hungry, and the atheists and skeptics try to convince them they aren't hungry at all.
SPEAKER_00: The people are hungry, and the religious showman gives them video and special lighting, cutting edge music.
SPEAKER_00: People are hungry.
SPEAKER_00: And the entertainer gives them loud, fast action, so loud and fast they don't have a moment to think.
SPEAKER_00: The people are hungry.
SPEAKER_00: Who will give them the bread of life?
SPEAKER_00: The world's gonna tell you you're not hungry at all, or that it will satisfy you.
SPEAKER_00: But the only thing that will is the bread of life.
SPEAKER_00: But you have to come.
SPEAKER_00: This is what it says in Isaiah 55.
SPEAKER_00: Come to me.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and he who has no money, come buy and eat.
SPEAKER_00: Come by wine and milk, without money and without price.
SPEAKER_00: Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
SPEAKER_00: Listen diligently to me and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.
SPEAKER_00: Incline your ear and come to me, hear that your soul may live, and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast sure love for David.
SPEAKER_00: But you have to come.
SPEAKER_00: It's an invitation to come and to partake, to eat of rich food at no cost to you, except to lay down the fleshly desire to be somewhere else.
SPEAKER_00: And even then, that's not really a cost because really our inheritance is here.
SPEAKER_00: You can come buy wine and milk and bread without cost, without price.
SPEAKER_00: Why go about our lives striving for the things that will not satisfy?
SPEAKER_00: Why spend all of our time and money and effort and resources and thoughts and dreams on the things which will disappear when here, when we come, and we partake of our daily bread and our living water, and I am himself.
SPEAKER_00: He will give us everything else we need.
SPEAKER_00: But we can't hear him unless we practice knowing his voice.
SPEAKER_00: And we won't know his voice unless we come.
SPEAKER_00: And then we take him with us into the world, where we practice hearing his voice around us.
SPEAKER_00: And it's one of the reasons we need community.
SPEAKER_00: You need other people who sit with I am and know the word, because we can be by ourselves with I Am and make up some things that God's not saying.
SPEAKER_00: If it doesn't check with the essence of his character and heart in the word, it's not him.
SPEAKER_00: I've known some people who say God said this and it was not God, y'all.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't match his character, his heart, his word.
SPEAKER_00: So we need each other to keep each other accountable, to test the spirits, the word says.
SPEAKER_00: Because we live in a spiritual realm, and our God is speaking, and so is the enemy.
SPEAKER_00: And our enemy likes to sound like God, but he's not.
SPEAKER_00: And we have to have each other the living breath of life through the Holy Spirit, God's word in us, community and our daily bread and living water.
SPEAKER_00: That is where we be.
SPEAKER_00: So my my thing for us this morning, the question is, how are you being how or what do you need to do to silence the ears of your soul so you can hear the voice of God?
SPEAKER_00: What is God revealing to you that you need to lay down that might not be a sin, and maybe it is, but what might be keeping you from Him?
SPEAKER_00: The fullness of life in Him.
SPEAKER_00: Two questions I take from Jamie Winship that have been really helpful because sometimes contemplatio is just sitting and waiting.
SPEAKER_00: But there are other times we're asking God to speak and we can say, God, what do you want to say to me about blank?
SPEAKER_00: About silencing fears in my heart, about resting, whatever it is.
SPEAKER_00: And then what do you want me to do?
SPEAKER_00: Because he'll tell you.
SPEAKER_00: But this morning, as we respond, my invitation to you is to be.
SPEAKER_00: Just be in his presence.
SPEAKER_00: And you can, you can ask him to speak, ask him to move, ask him to reveal things, but not so you feel better.
SPEAKER_00: But so you can partake of the fullness of life.
SPEAKER_00: But first I invite you to just be.
SPEAKER_00: To abide.
unknown: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: And out of that, he will show you what to do.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna pray for us.
SPEAKER_00: King of the universe, I am the breath of life, our daily bread and our living water.
SPEAKER_00: Would you come and fill us afresh?
SPEAKER_00: Would you teach us to come to you?
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit, give us the capacity, the power to push against the flesh and just sit in our being with you.
SPEAKER_00: Because out of that, you will tell us what to do, you will speak.
SPEAKER_00: But God, help us to silence the ears of our spirit, to hear from you, to be moved by you.
SPEAKER_00: Would you use us, God?
SPEAKER_00: But first would we just be, because you're our inheritance.
SPEAKER_00: It's not you plus anything else.
SPEAKER_00: You're it.
SPEAKER_00: You're the fullness of life.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for filling us.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for making us and being the only one that can truly satisfy, increase our hunger and thirst for righteousness found only in you, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We pray.