SPEAKER_01: My name is Randy, and I'm a prayer information pastor here.
SPEAKER_01: And this morning, it's my privilege to talk about something that's very dear to me, maybe the thing that's most important to me in a lot of ways.
SPEAKER_01: I get to give the final two messages in this series we've called Paraclete, which has been a couple of weeks of us exploring who is the Holy Spirit, what does the Holy Spirit do, and what does it look like for us to be filled with the Holy Spirit, empowered by the Holy Spirit, really surrender to the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So in these next two weeks, we're going to look at at least two roles of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer and in the life of the church.
SPEAKER_01: That first role is the formation role of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit forms us into the image of Jesus for the sake of the world.
SPEAKER_01: This is inner work.
SPEAKER_01: This is the Holy Spirit knowing who we're meant to be in Christ and doing all that needs to be done to form us into the image so that literally we walk around and we look like Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: A second role of the Holy Spirit is to release power and uh an awareness and manifest experience of his presence into the believer and into the church so that we release the love and the power of God into the world.
SPEAKER_01: It's our mission statement.
SPEAKER_01: We encounter God's love and power, that's inner work, and then we demonstrate it, we give it away to the world.
SPEAKER_01: That's the external work.
SPEAKER_01: I think one way we can, I actually want to say thank you to Melissa right here, who gave me a book on the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: I've been reading about the Holy Spirit for a few decades, and I just want to say, Melissa, it was really helpful.
SPEAKER_01: So I'll say some more about that next week.
SPEAKER_01: But within our body, we have people who know what the Holy Spirit does and then release that to the church so we can walk in it.
SPEAKER_01: So what I got from what you wrote this idea that um we can see formation and power as fruit and gifts.
SPEAKER_01: And I actually don't know that I'd ever thought of it that way before.
SPEAKER_01: That we can see the inner work of the Holy Spirit in us, forming us into the image of Jesus as manifesting the fruit of the Spirit through us from Galatians 5: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control.
SPEAKER_01: And so what the world sees when we are manifesting the fruit of the spirit from inner work is people that go around and think and love and act and obey just like Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And you can go on and surrender their lives and love when it's hard, just like Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And that power work, when the Holy Spirit comes on us in external power, that's the way that the Holy Spirit releases his presence into the world.
SPEAKER_01: And that's where the gifts of the Holy Spirit come out.
SPEAKER_01: I uh I've also learned this in the last few years from Adam.
SPEAKER_01: I love the way Adam says there are gifts of the Holy Spirit, but the real gift is the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And the Holy Spirit does his work in us and through us to bless the church, to encourage the church, and to release the word of God into the world.
SPEAKER_01: So we're talking about fruit from the inner work and gifts in the external work.
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, it's not either or.
SPEAKER_01: They go together.
SPEAKER_01: And we don't get to, I'm just gonna tell you what you're not allowed to do, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Usually pastors are telling you, you gotta do this.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what you're not allowed to do.
SPEAKER_01: You don't get to say either or.
SPEAKER_01: You don't get to say, you know, I'm just kind of an inner formation contemplative.
SPEAKER_01: That's just kind of the person I am.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure about that power, gifts, all that business.
SPEAKER_01: Just let me go into the desert and be by myself or with my wife.
SPEAKER_01: Or you can't also say, you know what, that inner work, that navel gazing, like we've had enough of that in the world.
SPEAKER_01: We gotta reach the world, we gotta serve the poor, we gotta get into the world.
SPEAKER_01: We need power.
SPEAKER_01: Holy Spirit, come with power, right?
SPEAKER_01: The beautiful thing, in my humble opinion, about the vineyard as a movement is we take them both.
SPEAKER_01: We say the word of God is powerful and prayer is important, and we've got to allow God to do his inner work so we become like Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: But we don't become like Jesus for the sake of ourselves or even the church.
SPEAKER_01: We become like Jesus for the sake of the world.
SPEAKER_01: So Robert Mulhalland, um, in one of in a book called Invitation to a Journey, he describes um spiritual formation as the process of being formed into the image of Christ for the sake of the world.
SPEAKER_01: We could do a series on that sentence right now, and maybe sometimes I sometimes I will.
SPEAKER_01: But I just want to let you know it's a it's a both and.
SPEAKER_01: We get to do them both.
SPEAKER_01: We can't say one or the other, not as a church and not as individuals.
SPEAKER_01: Formation in Christ is not just for us to be like Christ, though that is amazing.
SPEAKER_01: If we're like Christ, we will be Christ to the world.
SPEAKER_01: It's so important that we walk down that radical middle.
SPEAKER_01: You know, Bill Jackson, who planted this church 40 years ago, wrote the book, literally wrote the book, the uh initial history of the vineyard, and it was called the quest for the radical middle, which means we take the best of evangelicalism, that's kind of a dangerous word these days, I know, but we're it because we believe that the gospel is needed to transform people in the world, and the word of God is powerful, comes straight from God through men, and the spirit, that all the spiritual gifts given in the New Testament, seen all through history through the believers, are also for us today.
SPEAKER_01: We get it all.
SPEAKER_01: It's so easy to live in the extremes.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can just think in your life, it's so easy to go all the way this way or all the way that way.
SPEAKER_01: And it takes a gift of God, I would say it takes humility and faith to live in the radical middle and be sometimes misunderstood by both.
SPEAKER_01: That's kind of where we live.
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the vineyard.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, one more preface before I talk a little bit about formation.
SPEAKER_01: Whenever we talk about the formation work of the Holy Spirit to make us like Jesus, or we talk about the empowering work of the Holy Spirit to release gifts, remember this the source and the means and the goal of all of this is love.
SPEAKER_01: We don't do any of this outside of love.
SPEAKER_01: It's not to show everyone who we are or how great we are to lift ourselves up.
SPEAKER_01: It's the love of Christ that compels us.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Paul says.
SPEAKER_01: It's the love of Christ, his love for us, our love for him, that pushes us and compels us.
SPEAKER_01: So that inner work of transformation that you see happening in your life is the fruits of the Spirit are released, and that outer work of power where you carry the presence of God into the world, that you see with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, for both of those, the source of those is love, the means of those is love, and the goal of those are love.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we're here for.
SPEAKER_01: God defines himself by one word in one strange way.
SPEAKER_01: He says he's love.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what Jesus came to show us.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: Long preface, why don't we pray?
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Father, that as it says in Romans 5, you have decided to pour out your love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom you have given us.
SPEAKER_01: Do it today.
SPEAKER_01: Do it again today.
SPEAKER_01: Holy Spirit, come again today and fill each of us.
SPEAKER_01: For those who don't know you yet today, Lord, but are drawn here in some way, pour out your love into their hearts today that they might see and know Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Spirit of God, come and speak through the Scripture and through my words that we might become more like the one who gave himself for us.
SPEAKER_01: In the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: So the Holy Spirit is forming us into the image of Jesus for the sake of the world.
SPEAKER_01: Right now, literally as we speak, you are being formed.
SPEAKER_01: We're all being formed in some way.
SPEAKER_01: We're in formation and have been from the day we were born.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes in counseling and inner healing work, we call that first formation, the good that comes from our parents and the and our culture and then the other stuff.
SPEAKER_01: Where that first formation is so strong, sometimes, many times, always, we need to ask the Holy Spirit to come and break some of that and melt some of that and then encourage the good so that we become more like Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We're always being formed.
SPEAKER_01: We're either at any point becoming more like Jesus, love, joy, peace, patience, etc., or we're becoming like something or someone else.
SPEAKER_01: And there are plenty of examples of that out in the world, and plenty of examples sitting in the room and standing on the stage.
SPEAKER_01: Ways that we have been deformed by the world because we've looked to someone or to something else in order to find out who we are and what we're supposed to look like.
SPEAKER_01: What we're being formed into depends entirely upon what or who is receiving our attention.
SPEAKER_01: What are we gazing on?
SPEAKER_01: What do we fix our attention on?
SPEAKER_01: What are we listening to?
SPEAKER_01: And I don't mean just like the podcasts or the media.
SPEAKER_01: I don't of course that's it.
SPEAKER_01: But who are we listening to when we walk into our workplace?
SPEAKER_01: Are we listening to, in my case, the inner critic that says, something bad's gonna happen today?
SPEAKER_01: Watch out.
SPEAKER_01: Or are we listening to the Lord who speaks so kindly?
SPEAKER_01: I've anointed you and established you and gifted you.
SPEAKER_01: Go be me in the world.
SPEAKER_01: It's who we're listening to.
SPEAKER_01: It's who we're paying attention to.
SPEAKER_01: So who are you cooperating with right now in your formation?
SPEAKER_01: Who are you listening to?
SPEAKER_01: Who are you surrendering to, giving your mind, your body, your soul, your spirit to in this time?
SPEAKER_01: Please hear this.
SPEAKER_01: I don't mean like, you know, get down on your knees.
SPEAKER_01: Well, you can get down on your knees, but I don't mean go in and search your soul to find the dirt.
SPEAKER_01: Legalistic, judgmental.
SPEAKER_01: I don't mean that.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, Holy Spirit, is there any place in my life where I'm looking to someone else to define me or instruct me rather than the one who created me?
SPEAKER_01: That's a beautiful prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Dangerous, but beautiful.
SPEAKER_01: And God loves it.
SPEAKER_01: I think God just loves that prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Speak to me, do what you want in me because I want to be yours.
SPEAKER_01: David wrote it in Psalm 139, search me and know me, see if there's any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way that's eternal, an eternal kind of life.
SPEAKER_01: God's goal and plan for us, who've been made right with God through the redeeming work of Jesus, is that we are formed into his image.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 8, Paul says this.
SPEAKER_01: We probably, many of us have heard the first part of this, and we kind of don't know what to do with it.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we just slap it on people at a funeral, don't do it.
SPEAKER_01: But the second part is kind of the goal of God underneath it.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says, And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who've been called according to his purpose.
SPEAKER_01: There's a reason for that.
SPEAKER_01: For those God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.
SPEAKER_01: It's the eternal plan and purpose of God that we look like Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Every single one of us.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, possibly a bold statement, but we'll see if it's true after I say it.
SPEAKER_01: I would say that everything in your life right now is being used by God in some way to invite you to cooperate with the Holy Spirit so that you can become like Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Think of the things in your life.
SPEAKER_01: Think of the glorious ones.
SPEAKER_01: My grandchildren, they're making me more like Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Think of the hard ones, back surgery.
SPEAKER_01: Making me more like Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And all the examples you have, everything in your life, right now, God is using to conspire in your life, to give you an opportunity to become more like Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Don't hear me say God gave you cancer.
SPEAKER_01: That's not what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying God can use everything.
SPEAKER_01: And every choice we make in response to what happens.
SPEAKER_01: Every place we place our attention during those times has an impact on who we're becoming.
SPEAKER_01: And you got good days and you got bad days because it turns out we're humans.
SPEAKER_01: We're made from dirt infused with the Spirit of God Himself, and so we're being formed.
SPEAKER_01: One role of the Holy Spirit is to form us into the image of Jesus for the sake of the world, manifesting the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So, how is he inviting us to cooperate with him?
SPEAKER_01: And briefly, how is it that he does that?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: If you're still awake, you thought, well, that's a pretty good speech, Randy.
SPEAKER_01: Well, how does God do that?
SPEAKER_01: And what's my part in that?
SPEAKER_01: God recreates us in the same way that he created us in the beginning.
SPEAKER_01: So if you remember Genesis 1, Genesis 1 it says that in the beginning the earth was formless and void.
SPEAKER_01: There was kind of nothing.
SPEAKER_01: It was just nothing and silent.
SPEAKER_01: And then the word of God spoke, and he said, Let there be light.
SPEAKER_01: So from the Spirit hovering and from the Word of God, all that is was created.
SPEAKER_01: And I think that God recreates us, He forms us into the image of Jesus in the same way that He created all things.
SPEAKER_01: So here we are.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody here feel formless and void?
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes, right?
SPEAKER_01: And here's the Spirit of God hovering, and here's the Word of God, the written word of God, and the incarnate word of God, Jesus, saying, I want to make you into something.
SPEAKER_01: It just popped into my mind, I think it was Spurgeon or Chesterton or someone smart and large like that, who said, God created the world out of nothing, and if we'll become nothing, God can make something out of us.
SPEAKER_01: He's talking about humility.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying if you'll surrender and you'll let me be who I am in your life, you'll invite the Holy Spirit and you'll listen to the word of God that I'm going to make you into the image of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: It's the way God first created, and it's the way God continues to create.
SPEAKER_01: You won't be conformed to the world anymore, looking like the world, you'll be conformed to God, looking like Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And so it's the both and.
SPEAKER_01: He uses them both.
SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit transforms us as we allow our minds to be renewed by the Holy Spirit and by the Word.
SPEAKER_01: John 6, Jesus says, The words I have spoken to you, they're full of the Spirit and life.
SPEAKER_01: Listening to Jesus in the Bible and prayer bring life.
SPEAKER_01: So I could throw out a whole bunch more Bible verses, and probably in the notes on the website, I will.
SPEAKER_01: But if you just notice those couple that I've mentioned, every one of those is passive.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's our part of it, but everyone is passive.
SPEAKER_01: Be transformed.
SPEAKER_01: Do not be conformed.
SPEAKER_01: But we're being transformed into the image of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: These words are spirit and life, and they have impact on you.
SPEAKER_01: They change you.
SPEAKER_01: We don't change ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: We've tried.
SPEAKER_01: What we do is cooperate with the one who can change us.
SPEAKER_01: So all of the historic spiritual disciplines that maybe you've read about silence and solitude and prayer and different forms of reading the Bible, honoring your body as the temple of God, discernment in community, fasting, giving to the poor, self-examination, celebration and worship, all of those disciplines, they don't make us like Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: What those disciplines do is they put us in the place where God can come and do what only God can do, form us into the image of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So there's the work of God, which we are passive to, and then there's the call of God upon us in which we cooperate and act.
SPEAKER_01: So I don't get to say, God, you want to make me into Jesus, that's fine, I'm gonna go get a pizza and you know, stare at the wall.
SPEAKER_01: No, he says, here's how you can cooperate.
SPEAKER_01: You want me to transform you, put your place where you can hear my word.
SPEAKER_01: Be quiet for a moment so I can be present to you.
SPEAKER_01: Say no to food for a while so that you can focus uh focus your attention on me and I'll give you real food.
SPEAKER_01: Let the Holy Spirit search you, see what he wants to say to you, so that you can then cooperate with what he's doing to make you like Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: As we give attention to Jesus, the paraclete makes us more like him.
SPEAKER_01: We think and we act more like him.
SPEAKER_01: And then the world sees in and through us what?
SPEAKER_01: The fruit of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: John 15, it's not on the screen.
SPEAKER_01: John fifteen, five and seven.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, Those who remain in me and I in them will produce much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
SPEAKER_01: But if you remain in me, and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted.
SPEAKER_01: If anyone can explain that verse to me, I'd really appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01: The words of Jesus, very hard to understand, and yet very hopeful.
SPEAKER_01: In verse 8.
SPEAKER_01: When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples, and this brings great glory to my Father.
SPEAKER_01: Those who remain in me and I in them will produce much fruit.
SPEAKER_01: In that scripture, I see prayer and the word.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, if you'll remain in me, I just see that as standing still and talking to God, speaking with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And if my word will remain in you, I think that's the scripture.
SPEAKER_01: I think the foundation of all spiritual growth, not the only thing, but the foundation is our daily meeting with God.
SPEAKER_01: Like every day, sometimes set aside to read the scripture and talk to the one who wrote it.
SPEAKER_01: I just can't think of anything else that's more foundational to our lives as followers of Jesus if we really want to be like him than a daily meeting with God in the scripture and in prayer.
SPEAKER_01: And nothing, nothing has had a more transformational impact on me, anyway, my spiritual life than that daily practice.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing.
SPEAKER_01: I have had healings, I have had inner healing, I have had demons cast out of me, I have had power encounters, I have fasted, I have prayed, I've done a lot of things like that, but nothing, those are all good, living in community, but nothing has put me in the place where God can change me more than that daily habit, the scripture and prayer.
SPEAKER_01: I just can't emphasize how important that is.
SPEAKER_01: Because in that scripture and prayer, I'm truly giving my attention to God.
SPEAKER_01: We become like that which we continually gaze upon.
SPEAKER_01: The more I look at him in the scripture, the more I look at him in prayer and in worship in my closet, that's figurative, for you it might be literal, in my closet without anyone else.
SPEAKER_01: The more I do that, the more I train my attention on him, the more I become like him.
SPEAKER_01: It's not all easy.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes you have a beautiful time, read the scripture, and you got illumination all over the place, and you feel so close to Jesus in prayer, and then you walk out the door, and then the world smacks you.
SPEAKER_01: But from that place of intimacy, we can be changed in the world in spite of the stuff that comes against us.
SPEAKER_01: This daily remaining, remaining in Christ and letting his words remain in us, abiding, is like the like the dirt of our spiritual life.
SPEAKER_01: It's like the the the fertile soil of formation.
SPEAKER_01: And I just can't stress it enough.
SPEAKER_01: So from here, probably you're expect expecting that I will assault you with a thousand ways and lots of guilt on why you should be in the word and be in prayer, but I'm not gonna do it.
SPEAKER_01: Because I actually think there's something more important or maybe foundational to that most important practice.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna tell you what that is, if you're ready.
SPEAKER_02: I just did.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, you guessed it.
SPEAKER_01: Silence.
SPEAKER_01: Because what happened right there?
SPEAKER_01: You paid attention.
SPEAKER_01: You listened.
SPEAKER_01: You're like, what's he gonna say?
SPEAKER_01: It's the magic bullet.
SPEAKER_01: And then he said nothing.
SPEAKER_01: Silence.
SPEAKER_01: I think silence is the foundation underneath scripture and being with Jesus because it's where we come to Jesus to let him be who he is.
SPEAKER_01: First and foremost, before we say a word or do anything.
SPEAKER_01: Now, for whom in this room is silence easy peasy?
SPEAKER_01: Great.
SPEAKER_01: The two of you s you the two of you can lead us.
SPEAKER_01: Sounded like I was from Pittsburgh, didn't I?
SPEAKER_01: It's it's challenging because even when we're alone and quiet, it is so noisy in here.
SPEAKER_01: And so that's why I say the practice of silence, I think, is the foundation of all the other practices.
SPEAKER_01: In the early 1600s, there was a French philosopher, uh Blaise Pascal, and here's what he said all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.
SPEAKER_01: Very smart guy.
SPEAKER_01: Christian.
SPEAKER_01: Twelve oh, I think he meant women too, just to make sure.
SPEAKER_01: Twelve centuries before that, a desert hermit named Abba Moses, people would come to him to learn, how can I be in union with God?
SPEAKER_01: How can I become like Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: And he says this go sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.
SPEAKER_01: Go be alone, get away from people for a minute, be quiet, and let the silence, God in the midst of the silence, teach you all things.
SPEAKER_01: Eight centuries before the desert hermit, a prophet named Habakkuk said, The Lord is in his holy temple.
SPEAKER_01: Let all the earth be silent before him.
SPEAKER_01: Guess what?
SPEAKER_01: We are the temple.
SPEAKER_01: So sort of translate that one.
SPEAKER_01: Four centuries before that prophet, a king named David, said this while he was dealing with an active rebellion against his reign.
SPEAKER_01: My soul in silence for God alone waits.
SPEAKER_01: The world's about to cave in on him.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, My soul, my whole being, in silence for God alone waits.
SPEAKER_01: Just go back, who knows how much longer and farther to creation and what happened.
SPEAKER_01: Formless and void, silence.
SPEAKER_01: And then the creator God speaks and all that is is created.
SPEAKER_01: Literally every book I've read on spiritual formation, and there have been a few, every single one when it starts to talk about disciplines and practices, it starts with the practice of silence and solitude.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because before you do all the stuff and hear all the words and practice all the stuff, you just have to be.
SPEAKER_01: And more important than you being is God being who He is in you and around you.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, isn't silence the most humbling thing?
SPEAKER_01: You ever been at a party?
SPEAKER_01: Anyone ever go to a party?
SPEAKER_01: Or some gathering?
SPEAKER_01: You're there and you're talking to someone and you and you know, all of a sudden it gets silenced, and you're like, Well, just to be honest, you guys did it.
SPEAKER_01: I said, Do you want me to tell you?
SPEAKER_01: There was a moment and then it's like yes.
SPEAKER_01: I appreciate your fervor, but also isn't the silence awkward?
SPEAKER_01: Isn't the silence humbling?
SPEAKER_01: I don't bring any action, I don't bring any words, I'm just here.
SPEAKER_01: It's from the place of silence that our attention is focused and trained upon God.
SPEAKER_01: And then from God, in that place alone, every other practice comes.
SPEAKER_01: The early desert fathers would say that the foundational virtue all over under all the other virtues was humility.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know what is more humbling than silence.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus was humble, right?
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says so.
SPEAKER_01: When people attacked him and came after him.
SPEAKER_01: What were the what was the question?
SPEAKER_01: Why don't you defend yourself?
SPEAKER_01: His humility was silence.
SPEAKER_01: Silence demonstrates our humility before God.
SPEAKER_01: In silence we sit before God, just a soul before God, not an active being striver, pursuer, just a soul before God, dependent, trusting, consenting in body, soul, and spirit to his presence and his action in your life.
SPEAKER_01: In silence before God doing nothing, we let God be God on His terms rather than ours.
SPEAKER_01: I just um Delena gave that word this morning when I heard it as one group of discerners, I thought, boy, that word's for us this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Let go of our limitations on God.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you took that as, and perfectly appropriate, God can do more than you ever asked or imagined.
SPEAKER_01: Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons, provide miraculously.
SPEAKER_01: He can do all that.
SPEAKER_01: Let's not limit him.
SPEAKER_01: Let's not limit what God can do if we'll just be his people and be quiet.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a very charismatic thing to say.
SPEAKER_01: But we get the both hand, right?
SPEAKER_01: What if what if we believed that God could do anything he wanted if we were just silent?
SPEAKER_01: What if we learned how to train our attention on God by just being in his presence?
SPEAKER_01: It's a hard thing.
SPEAKER_01: I uh I will give some practices.
SPEAKER_01: I'm silence is hard, so I'm gonna ask you to go after it.
SPEAKER_01: And and the first part of that is go to the website.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to listen to the message again, but get the notes and I'll put some practices in there.
SPEAKER_01: I'll put some helps, some ways to begin practicing silence, because I guarantee it guarantee that if you have never really practiced like a minute or two or three of silence and actually tried to let the words and all the thoughts go, not become an empty mind, that's Buddhists, we're not Buddhists, to recognize the thoughts and let them go and bring our attention back onto Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: You'll recognize it's hard.
SPEAKER_01: Why are you all all of a sudden thinking about that one class in junior high?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, Jesus, I forgot, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Man, that zucchini wasn't any good at Trader Joe's.
SPEAKER_01: I'd better get a new one.
SPEAKER_01: I live with a dietitian.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not allowed to think about Twinkies.
SPEAKER_01: Why do we go there?
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's because uh we have trained our attention everywhere except silent beholding of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm just gonna challenge you with it, as I'm challenged by it.
SPEAKER_01: The plan and the purpose of God is to form us into the image of Jesus for the sake of the world, manifesting the fruit of the Holy Spirit so that the world can see what Jesus looks like with skin on.
SPEAKER_01: And it's the paraclete, the Holy Spirit, that does this work.
SPEAKER_01: There are ways for us to cooperate with the Spirit's work that have been given to us through centuries and millennia.
SPEAKER_01: They're the spiritual practices and disciplines.
SPEAKER_01: I can give you many resources to look and read and learn about those.
SPEAKER_01: And I think the invitation for us this morning, right under the primary of prayer and scripture, is silence.
SPEAKER_01: To be willing to let God be who God is on God's terms and be the soul before God that He created and wants to recreate.
SPEAKER_01: Julie, do you want to come forward?
SPEAKER_01: One of the ways that God speaks to us before we go into a time of ministry is through art.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's, oh gosh, I'll get it wrong because I wasn't thinking.
SPEAKER_01: Exodus 32, something 32, where um the scripture says that the Spirit of God came upon Bezalel, who was an artist, and and the Spirit gave the artist power and ability to create beautiful works of art that give glory to God.
SPEAKER_01: So behold, Julie.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody, uh thanks, Randy, and thanks for having me here.
SPEAKER_00: It's so exciting whenever I can come back to Indie Vineyard.
SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, well, Randy did give me his brief notes.
SPEAKER_01: I'll hold it so everyone can see.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00: He gave me uh kind of just a sketch of what he was gonna talk about, but um it was uh Holy Spirit that um that gave me the image of the butterfly as kind of an analogy of transformation.
SPEAKER_00: And um I thought, well, that's that seems pretty like people are gonna think of a butterfly, you know, but that's what he gave me.
SPEAKER_00: So um, yeah, and I saw the butterfly image originally, uh like the stages of the butterfly trans uh kind of over the top of a human form.
SPEAKER_00: And um so he just began speaking to me about um going through uh like a butterfly is not thinking, oh, if I could just be a butterfly, you know, if I could just, oh, I'm gonna try really hard and these wings are gonna pop out of me, and you know, it's all gonna be on my effort.
SPEAKER_00: No, it was it's you know, thinking back to the the basics of creation, I love how it went with what you were talking about is you know, just being uh knowing who we are, knowing that that God has called us to be His and just sitting in that place really.
SPEAKER_00: And the receive mode is really important, I think He was pointing out to just keep receiving.
SPEAKER_00: And um I s it's kind of hard to see from here, but um remain in your chrysalis.
SPEAKER_00: So remain in your secret place with the Lord, and that's really the the part that where the most transformation uh occurs.
SPEAKER_00: And again, it's not us trying to sprout wings, it's us being letting him do his work.
SPEAKER_00: He knows how butterflies are made, he knows how they start from an egg to you know popping wings, and so um, but I was also reminded of several scriptures, and um first of all, just coming boldly to the throne of grace, and um the green to me represents the throne of grace, and also that's the good soil.
SPEAKER_00: And Randy mentioned the good soil, but that's what I was hearing as well was good soil, stay, keep yourself in the good soil, so that's how we can uh participate with what God is doing in our lives, just keep receiving from Him, and then uh one side um then the wings will sprout, you know, we'll be transformed in that place.
SPEAKER_00: So one side is kind of representative more of a butterfly wing.
SPEAKER_00: Um the chrysalis is kind of transposed over this.
SPEAKER_00: If you saw it close closer, you could see.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then the other side um, you know, at the beginning of the Galatians uh 5.22, which is where the fruits of the Spirit are mentioned, uh the beginning of Galatians 5, it starts by saying um that Christ has made us free.
SPEAKER_00: And I just feel like the message is to this is how we stay free, you know, is remaining in the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And just uh so that the other side, the wing are really like wings um that we stay free.
SPEAKER_00: So I just encourage you all to stay free and thank you for receiving me today.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Julian.
SPEAKER_01: Let's stand.
SPEAKER_01: If I could ask the ministry team to come forward, a few couples here, a few couples here.
SPEAKER_01: Um some of you felt an invitation from the Lord when you walked in this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Somebody greeted you kindly, and some during worship, and some during communion, some of you heard the invitation of the Lord during the message, and some of you heard it right here as Julie was speaking about um this art form.
SPEAKER_01: So I would invite you to respond to the Lord in any way that seems appropriate.
SPEAKER_01: If you've got a specific need, you need a physical healing, you you really need some encouragement from the Lord, come forward and let somebody pray for you.
SPEAKER_01: They won't counsel, they'll pray, they'll ask the Holy Spirit to come.
SPEAKER_01: If uh if it's best for you to kneel or to just wait, whatever it is that will uh serve as your consent to God's presence and action in surrender, I encourage you to do it.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: God, we thank you for your goodness to us, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the work that you're doing in our lives to make us like Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And we just surrender once again and say, Do it.
SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: If you'd like someone to pray or just need some time and space to be with God, you can come forward.
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, I pray that you go in peace to love and to serve the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.