Heather Drake: Welcome to the First Love Church Podcast.
Heather Drake: This is a collection of Sunday teachings inspired by the Revised Common Lectionary and recorded weekly in Ocala Florida.
Dennis Drake: Here's my mom and dad.
Dennis Drake: Everybody, Goodbye.
Heather Drake: Bless, bless, bless.
Heather Drake: If you need to wrestle this morning, this is the place.
Heather Drake: I suspect.
Heather Drake: Who taught you how to wrestle with God?
Heather Drake: I think there needs to be a place this is more like a dojo than it is like a theater or a classroom where you do get to wrestle it out.
Heather Drake: But I want to remind you that your wrestling is not with someone who is angry with you, who is upset with you.
Heather Drake: Your wrestling comes like the wrestling of love.
Heather Drake: To be able to say this is what it looks like for love to be in this place.
Heather Drake: You are loved by God, completely and dearly as you are right now.
Heather Drake: The love of God does not change and so, as you remind yourselves this morning, as you come into the house of the Lord, you are loved and you are cherished.
Heather Drake: And may the potter craft us all into what we really are meant to be the true belongings, and may we be vessels of light and vessels of love.
Heather Drake: We're excited to be with you this week, the second week of Pentecost.
Heather Drake: I'm glad Pentecost isn't just only one week.
Heather Drake: Thank you, david, for ministering last week in Pentecost.
Heather Drake: I'm so grateful for that, and it is a joy to be able to have children who are growing up in the faith and turning into or they are already men and women full of grace and full of God.
Heather Drake: I'm one of the times as First Love Church is 25 years old, so when we began this church, our children were littles.
Heather Drake: And one of the times we came into church and there's always a lot of stuff for us to do beforehand and we noticed David had a stack of business cards that said First Love Church and then had the address, and this was before the web.
Heather Drake: The website wasn't on there.
Heather Drake: There was a telephone number and it said Pastor Dennis Drake, and David had taken his little pen and had crossed out Dennis Drake and wrote David Drake in all these little cards.
Heather Drake: And so how sweet, right, how beautiful to be able to say where's my place in the church, and so it was such a joy to be able to have him minister the word, and I was thinking, oh, as a little kid, when you came in, and on a regular basis we had to re-clothe him because he would be unclothed all the time, and so there was a joy for all of us when there's a certain point of maturity in someone who keeps their clothes on, and for you, you're welcomed in whatever state of immaturity you are, and we're gonna, together, remind you that there's a place to grow and to breathe.
Heather Drake: And so again, in this particular season in the Christian calendar, and in reminding ourselves what we're doing, we're listening to, we're learning how, and we're receiving the gift of God's own spirit, the Holy Spirit, with us.
Dennis Drake: He went around handing those cards out to people and saying I'm Pastor David, if you need any help, just let me know.
Dennis Drake: And I think that you know sometimes we wink at that.
Dennis Drake: But from the time he was little he figured where could he find his spot and he trusted that if he offered it would be useful.
Dennis Drake: And I remember one time there was a couple that ran our greeting.
Dennis Drake: We used to have greeters back there and the couple was there every week greeting uh, until the the week that, uh, the husband johnny died and uh, we went through the funeral that week and then come sunday, uh, joan was standing in her spot.
Dennis Drake: But it was very obvious, it's, that uh, it wasn't right, and so everybody kind of looked around.
Dennis Drake: We're gonna tell her she didn't have to greet.
Dennis Drake: Are we going to say something?
Dennis Drake: What are we going to do?
Dennis Drake: And before we knew it, a six-year-old David just walked up to her and said hey, I think I'm going to stand here and greet with you today, and so for the rest of the morning he did that.
Dennis Drake: And there's something about us being able to just kind of be innocent and be open in our hearts to how God would use us, because it's not all about getting into the pulpit, it's about all those little things that you would do to kind of prepare you to be the kind of person that we would want to hear from you.
Dennis Drake: Follow me, you can just be good at speaking or have something to say, but it doesn't mean that we want to or need to hear it.
Dennis Drake: It's really from that place of service, and so I am grateful for my sons and my daughter and their contribution to the church and to all of you that make it happen when we're here and when we're not here.
Dennis Drake: But it's nice to be able to go away and know that things are handled well.
Dennis Drake: We preached at Pastor Wade's church and Julie's church in Claremont and spent the weekend with them and just kind of loved on them and encouraged them.
Dennis Drake: That was their 15th anniversary of the church.
Dennis Drake: And in November we'll be celebrating our 25th.
Heather Drake: Yeah, that's exciting.
Heather Drake: That's a real gift.
Heather Drake: Again, we are grateful for your presence here with us and for those of you who are online.
Heather Drake: We're grateful for that as well, for everyone who brings their gifts, for Amy, who brings us beautiful flowers every week, and I do hope that during the week because this is something that Pastor Dennis and I pray for you, as we do pray for you all the week, because this is something that Pastor Dennis and I pray for you, as we do pray for you all the time is that nature would testify to you of the goodness of your God, of your place in the creation story, of the frequency of God's love and how it is all around us, and the invitation to breathe into the peace, to breathe into the grace.
Heather Drake: This Pentecost season we started last week with Pentecost and this will be a time where we will listen to each other's stories.
Heather Drake: We'll listen to the stories in scripture and we'll practice learning how to listen to the Holy Spirit, to be with each other and to be attuned into God's Holy Spirit.
Heather Drake: What is it like for someone to help you to hear the Spirit for yourself, for you to hear the grace for yourself?
Heather Drake: It was more than 30 years ago that I was in the hospital in Tulsa, oklahoma, giving birth to Thomas, and I was in such exquisite pain that I forgot how to breathe and I mean, breathing is something you don't usually use your brain for.
Heather Drake: But in my pain, I began to hold my breath and in that pain, in in that breath holding, I began to not be able to breathe, something that my body could actually do.
Heather Drake: I became in my anxiety to be unable to do something that I was actually made to do.
Heather Drake: And people were panicking around me.
Heather Drake: Someone was shouting, saying get her some oxygen, and there was all these things.
Heather Drake: And a nurse walked in.
Heather Drake: She wasn't my nurse and she looked at me in that exquisite pain and in my inability to breathe and in everyone else's chaos.
Heather Drake: And she came right over to me and she put her hand right here at the side of my jaw and she said you and me, we're breathing together, breathe now.
Heather Drake: And when I couldn't think to breathe, she helped me breathe and so I began.
Heather Drake: She put her hand right here so I wouldn't be distracted with the crazy that was happening around, with the pain that was in me.
Heather Drake: She said we're going to breathe together, breathe now, breathe now.
Heather Drake: And I began to calm.
Heather Drake: Even the pain didn't leave.
Heather Drake: In fact, the baby was being born, the pain was essential, and so we didn't want that to happen.
Heather Drake: But sometimes, as humans, we are in such exquisite pain that we forget the nearness of God, and what I needed was some woman's presence to come here and say together, we're going to do this, together, you can do this.
Heather Drake: She did not breathe for me, but she gave me a remembrance, an ancient knowing.
Heather Drake: My body was made to be able to breathe, and this is what we see Jesus doing when he sees the disciples in rooms, locked doors, panicked that the same thing that happened to their friend was going to happen to them.
Heather Drake: In their exquisite fear.
Heather Drake: Jesus comes in and he says peace and he breathes on them and he says receive the Holy Spirit For each of us.
Heather Drake: This morning, whatever pain you are in, I want you to hear me say with me breathe, breathe in the Holy Spirit, breathe in the love, breathe in the goodness, because sometimes, when the world around us is chaotic, we forget to take that big breath of God.
Heather Drake: This is how we're made, this is the very beginning of us, this is the remembrance of us when God made woman, when he made man when he made mankind and he said he breathed into them, received God's own spirit.
Heather Drake: And so, during this season of Pentecost, together we remember that ancient breath, that beauty in saying we are not alone.
Heather Drake: Even in our pain we are not alone, we are together, the breath and the power and the creativity of god with us always who is that nurse for you?
Dennis Drake: it can be, uh, pastors, it can be the church, it can be spiritual leaders and people that you have, and it's probably not going to be some book or some TV show you watch.
Dennis Drake: It's going to be someone that knows you and can say to you, can really look you in the face.
Dennis Drake: But I want that for you and I believe that's what our church really is.
Dennis Drake: I think one of the greatest things happened to me not so much Heather and the kids I'm sorry that they had to experience it with me but I was let go from a church after six years of working at a church and it was probably one of the greatest things that happened to me because I was in the church world and you kind of get this idea that, boy, if you work at the church, that's going to be heavenly, you know, know, get away from the, the people, the world, just be with christians, and.
Dennis Drake: But I tell you what, when I was let go from those, uh, those claws and knives that were in my back, it was actually a pretty good day, but uh, but I tell you, I went and I worked at at a.
Dennis Drake: I started selling pianos, among other things.
Dennis Drake: I did a bunch of jobs in that meantime, but I was selling pianos and I thought, well, you know, I'm I'm at the church anymore Now I'm among the heathens.
Dennis Drake: And as I was among the heathens, I began to see the spirit in these people in a way that was stronger than many Christians I knew.
Dennis Drake: And I thought well, that's funny, because I was always under the impression that the church gave these people the spirit.
Dennis Drake: But it turns out they all already have the spirit.
Dennis Drake: God gives us the spirit, and so when you decide to come in relationship with God, he fills you with his spirit, he gives you spirit.
Dennis Drake: And so I began to realize that if we started church and that's what we did instead of us thinking that we're going to give the spirit, why don't we help the people that have the spirit, stir it, or come to know it and look at their faces and remind them, breathe in the Holy Spirit?
Dennis Drake: You understand what I'm saying, you understand where I'm going with this, and I wonder if maybe you have thought the church is supposed to give you that spirit and then, consequently, you're the one who's very disappointed with church, because those leaders failed you, they broke your heart, they betrayed you.
Dennis Drake: In some cases they, they weren't less than than honorable, uh, but maybe we put them in a place and asked them to do something they were never called to do.
Dennis Drake: God's the one who gives the spirit, and but we all can be that nurse and come alongside and say remember to breathe.
Dennis Drake: That nurse didn't breathe for Heather.
Dennis Drake: That nurse didn't put the breath in her lungs.
Dennis Drake: The nurse didn't provide any miracles other than remind her of the gift you know.
Dennis Drake: And so I would really like and hope that as a church, we would help you come into that, and I believe that those people that I was calling heathens were living outside of the best that God had for them, but there was still a spark inside of them and that spark could be fanned into flames if we encourage them with the love of god and with the promises of god and not hand them dogma and and doctrines and that are cumbersome and burdensome and and and try to lace them with the religious things that hold us all back.
Dennis Drake: But if we were encouraging them, and that's what I believe pentecost reminds us and when we celebrate it every year.
Dennis Drake: So remember, wait a minute we're not people of knowledge, we're people of spirit.
Dennis Drake: Now I've seen people with spirit and no knowledge.
Dennis Drake: They're a nightmare.
Dennis Drake: But I come to the church and I find most people so filled with knowledge and zero spirit and they're in many cases a nightmare, because it's the, the spirit that that we experience god and we follow god and we respond.
Dennis Drake: You know, uh, and, and so I, I would challenge you that, while it's good to get understanding, I think as a church of jesus christ in general certainly in america, where I'm very familiar we have exalted knowledge and almost diminished experience, and god really has asked, uh, those things to walk hand in hand.
Dennis Drake: They're, they're both pillars that the church is built on and so both are needful.
Dennis Drake: And I've heard people say you know you can't base your spirituality on your experiences, and I believe that, but in that they have diminished experience to be something that we've maybe fallen asleep on expecting or looking for.
Dennis Drake: And I tell you that is the spice.
Heather Drake: I mean, I have a marriage license but I really enjoy experiencing my marriage with Heather On days when we're pleasant with each other.
Heather Drake: There are other days when we remember that there are good days.
Dennis Drake: She enjoyed that.
Dennis Drake: Yesterday I apologized to her by saying I wasn't pleasant with you and she goes.
Dennis Drake: That's what you call it.
Heather Drake: That's cute.
Heather Drake: That's a cute little word.
Heather Drake: Wasn't Bless for all of us in all of the ways we are unpleasant with the world, in all of the ways that we forgot who we were or we forgot to be able to breathe?
Heather Drake: This is the season of Pentecost.
Heather Drake: It is our joy to be with you here and to remind you of these things.
Heather Drake: I'm going to go.
Heather Drake: If we could talk about all the scripture that reminds us of what the spirit is, we would not have the time, and so I am going to give you a little bit, and then you are going to listen to the spirit who is going to speak to you Because one of the things that Jesus said.
Heather Drake: I'm going to go back and forth, back and forth here.
Heather Drake: We're going to go to John.
Heather Drake: For this reason, in fact, it's best for you that I go away.
Heather Drake: I would have stopped Jesus right there.
Dennis Drake: I think, it's not.
Heather Drake: I think it's not.
Heather Drake: I know you think that it is, or someone told you that it was, but I would like to keep you here with me always.
Dennis Drake: Right.
Heather Drake: But if I don't go, the advocate won't come.
Heather Drake: So if I do go away, then I will send him to you and when he comes he will convict the world of its sin and of God's righteousness and of the coming judgment.
Heather Drake: Side note on this we have the Holy Spirit.
Heather Drake: We have God's own spirit.
Heather Drake: We have the spirit that is capable of raising Jesus from the dead.
Heather Drake: This is the spirit of God that is coming, that is living in each one of us, and the spirit's job is to convict the world of the illusion of sin, of this separation.
Heather Drake: Convict the world and tell the world how there is a restorative judgment coming.
Heather Drake: That is not our job.
Heather Drake: That is the job of the Holy Spirit.
Heather Drake: Our job is to receive the Spirit.
Heather Drake: Our job is to listen to the Spirit and our job is people who will surrender our thoughts so that the love of God that we're going to read about in Romans, that is already shed abroad in your heart through Christ Jesus.
Heather Drake: That love that is already there is something that we live on and breathe out of.
Heather Drake: The world's sin is that it refuses to believe in me.
Heather Drake: Righteousness is available because I go to the Father and you will see me.
Heather Drake: No more Judgment will come, because the ruler of this world has already been judged.
Heather Drake: There is so much more I want to tell you, but you can't bear it now.
Heather Drake: I would have been super disappointed.
Heather Drake: I really would have been.
Heather Drake: I would have been like, but I want to know, and do you hear the ego in that and not the precious spirit who says I trust you to tell me, when I can bear it, how gentle a shepherd we have to be able to say I would give you more to know, but it's too much for you, how gentle a shepherd we have, how good a father, how beautiful a holy parent we have who will not give us too much.
Heather Drake: You cannot bear it now.
Dennis Drake: You know, this reminds us that.
Dennis Drake: You know, the revelation.
Dennis Drake: Knowledge is progressive, you know, and it takes a lifetime, I believe, for us.
Dennis Drake: You know, I know that when I first became a Christian, you know, certainty was what I was looking for and I wanted to know, like, what was right and what was wrong so I could do it, and I wanted certainty.
Dennis Drake: And so, you know, I found the things in Scripture that I thought would give me.
Dennis Drake: That, you know, and I think you know for us, and you know many of us, you might have found yourself there, you might still find yourself there, but since that's not a thing that we're promised, he said that you know whether abased or abound, and all.
Dennis Drake: You know those things.
Dennis Drake: You can have peace, but it doesn't mean that you're not gonna.
Dennis Drake: In this world there will be tribulations.
Dennis Drake: You know those things.
Dennis Drake: You can, you can have, uh, peace, but it doesn't mean that you're not gonna.
Dennis Drake: In this world there will be tribulations.
Dennis Drake: You know there is going to be struggles and so, uh, I was looking for that magic bullet or or whatever, and, and for a while that that appeased me, that pursuit and the revelation that I was getting.
Dennis Drake: But there came, there came a point when, oh when, when I have to, even when I can't see God's hand, I trust God's heart.
Dennis Drake: When you can't sink your teeth into certainty, when you can't even seem to find a handle on your faith, that God has not left you.
Dennis Drake: And there's a progression in my faith and there's a place where that helps me turn loose of my illusion of control that I think I can control my family.
Dennis Drake: I think I can control my future.
Dennis Drake: I think I can tell God what he needs to do in my life.
Dennis Drake: How foolish of us.
Dennis Drake: All of us need to learn to let go of that and really then trust the God of the universe.
Dennis Drake: It sounds great in theory, but none of us want to do it in practice.
Dennis Drake: To really trust the God of the universe with your next breath, yeah, that's great and all.
Dennis Drake: But I still got to put some money in the 401k.
Dennis Drake: And I'm not saying, don't do that, but we tend to fall back on our certainties, don't we tend to to to fall back on our certainties, don't we?
Dennis Drake: And uh, there's, there's this place of, of, of true that I I mean, I live in the natural and I'm called to this place of the spirit.
Dennis Drake: There's no certainty in that, there's no, fully understanding that there's no scripture that you're going to quote and all of a sudden it's all going to fall in line.
Dennis Drake: There's always going to be that place of faith and trust.
Dennis Drake: Amen, and I think you might even find that to be.
Dennis Drake: There might be comfort in that discomfort, there might be knowing that I am growing, that God is revealing things to me that maybe I didn't know before.
Dennis Drake: Amen, amen.
Heather Drake: There are beautiful spiritual practices that the church has given us that help us learn how to hear the Spirit.
Heather Drake: When the Spirit comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you into all truth.
Heather Drake: He will not speak on his own, but he will tell you what he has heard and he will tell you about the future.
Heather Drake: He will bring me glory by telling you whatever he receives from me, all that belongs to the Father is mine.
Heather Drake: So Jesus is saying it's better that I go.
Heather Drake: You will receive a spirit and the spirit will teach you.
Heather Drake: The spirit will be your teacher, because you have a very specific life that is different than mine, and the things that help me may not be the same things that help you, and my path is different than yours.
Heather Drake: But together, as a family of God, we learn how to hear the Spirit, how to attune ourselves to the whisper of the Spirit who is leading us, who is with us always, who is inviting us into the co-creation that is happening between the kingdom that is coming and the one that we already have and so beloved.
Heather Drake: It is a beautiful invitation to learn how to hear the spirit of God.
Heather Drake: I will tell you one of my favorite practices, and it's recent, but it has brought me such awe and I just remind you that awe is really what's needed for worship.
Heather Drake: But I'm not going to tell you, I'm going to rewind it.
Heather Drake: I'm not going to say you should.
Heather Drake: I'm going to invite you to sign up for updates from the James Webb Telescope and you should?
Heather Drake: No, I'm going to rephrase that.
Heather Drake: Help me.
Heather Drake: It would behoove you to look at the galaxies, to stand in awe of the creation of God.
Heather Drake: How incredible it is to look at the heavens.
Heather Drake: Beloved.
Heather Drake: If you need to find that place in spirit that is quickening you, that is reviving you, that is giving you direction, step outside, even into the Florida heat.
Heather Drake: I will tell you, the spirit will meet you there in the fire.
Heather Drake: I know this.
Heather Drake: But go out in the cool of the morning or in the cool of the evening and be able to watch the trees and to be able to listen to this and let God's own creation witness and testify of your place here and of God's care for all the things that are around us.
Heather Drake: There is a holy witness to us.
Heather Drake: The scriptures are a witness to us of Jesus, but the spirit we have been given, god's own spirit, each one of us, alive, creation inside of us, offering us comfort, guidance, truth.
Heather Drake: This is the promise of Jesus and this is why Jesus said it's better for you that I am not here, because you will contain me, the Spirit of God.
Dennis Drake: Are you familiar with church history at all to know anything about Martin Luther?
Dennis Drake: Martin Luther wrote a thesis of 97 things that he thought were wrong with the church and nailed it to the doors.
Dennis Drake: And he was saying I want to have a discussion, but at that time stuff like that got you beheaded.
Dennis Drake: So you ever ask yourself, like what was going?
Dennis Drake: Or is he just a church history person?
Dennis Drake: Or do you ever think about what would cause him to stand up against the entire church?
Dennis Drake: That's amazing.
Dennis Drake: It's the Holy Spirit.
Dennis Drake: But I mean, would anyone do that today?
Dennis Drake: You know, and I was talking to a young lady that attends our church and she was saying in school she went to kind of like a goofy um Christian school that had some weird doctrine and they would like say to her you know, you have to believe this doctrine, and as a little girl she'd be like well, you know, I appreciate what you're saying, but I disagree with it.
Dennis Drake: And do you ever think of this?
Dennis Drake: And it'd make the teacher steaming because they couldn't answer her questions.
Dennis Drake: You went to that same school, I think.
Dennis Drake: So then these two that I'm speaking of now all of a sudden are made to feel like an outcast and begin to question themselves.
Dennis Drake: But they're just, they have a knowing, you know.
Dennis Drake: Now, all of a sudden, are made to feel like an outcast and begin to question themselves.
Dennis Drake: But they're just, they have a knowing.
Dennis Drake: You know that I shouldn't step in, that there's just a common sense there.
Dennis Drake: And then, even when these people are preaching and they're like you've got to believe this, and here's what's happening, most people will go along.
Dennis Drake: There's a study, a controlled study, and they'll go.
Dennis Drake: They'll have two lines a line that stops here and a line that stops here and 19 people are in on it and one person's not.
Dennis Drake: And they'll have the 19 people come up and they'll say this line is taller than this line.
Dennis Drake: And you can see it's not.
Dennis Drake: But 19 people will come up and say this line is taller.
Dennis Drake: And then, when they come up to the subject, they'll walk up and almost always say line A was taller, even when they know beyond the shadow of a doubt line B was taller.
Dennis Drake: That's just how we are.
Dennis Drake: We don't want to be wrong, we don't want to rock the boat, we don't want to make people uncomfortable and I'm wondering why it is that certain people just have that ability to just say this is not right and those people need to help us and teach us, and we need to be around people like that, otherwise we become the people that will stand up and swear that a line is not as tall as the other, you know, just because we want to get along.
Dennis Drake: And so there's something here that I want you to kind of see that the Spirit speaks to us, and sometimes we train ourselves to ignore the Spirit and we need to be trained to respond, and that happens through us experiencing other people and watching their lives and for them to encourage us and look us in the face and remind us in the toughest time breathe, we can trust God.
Dennis Drake: Now it's great to say I trust God in smooth sailing, but when the storm is going and the boat looks like it's gonna sink, can you lay down on a pillow and fall asleep then?
Heather Drake: We pause here for a moment to thank you for joining us today.
Heather Drake: If you're finding this episode meaningful, would you take a moment to share it with a friend?
Heather Drake: This podcast is made possible thanks to the generosity of people just like you.
Heather Drake: If you would like to support the ongoing work of First Love Church and the continued work of our podcast, visit us online at firstlovechurchorg, reminding you to like, follow and subscribe.
Heather Drake: I think one of the powers of Pentecost and one of the things that we forget or don't remember is that the miracle of Pentecost is in the hearing.
Heather Drake: Every time you hear someone and really hear them, you hear their heart.
Heather Drake: You've experienced Pentecost.
Heather Drake: Every time you are heard, you are participating in Pentecost, and there is for us a practice in holy listening, for us to be people who listen to the Holy Spirit of God.
Heather Drake: The Spirit makes our hearing possible, not just the ability to capture sounds, but to be able to really, truly understand.
Heather Drake: This is the message of reconciliation.
Heather Drake: This is the good news of the gospel.
Heather Drake: In fact, all of the scriptures that we will look at in this time of Pentecost is of people who have to go beyond their natural borders.
Heather Drake: In fact, peter, filled with the Spirit, says let me tell you, these people are not drunk, as you suppose.
Heather Drake: This is what was prophesied by the prophet Joel when he said in the last days, I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh.
Heather Drake: Your sons and your daughters will prophesy Again.
Heather Drake: There is a distinction there between sons and daughters, who we honor, who we elevate.
Heather Drake: And Joel said, and Peter says the exact same thing no, in the day that God's spirit is poured out on everyone, all the distinctions are gone.
Heather Drake: And so Peter has to continue to hear these things because he doesn't really believe it.
Heather Drake: A little bit later in the story, he's on the rooftop praying and an angel appears to him and visions appear to him, and then people come to the door and say please come.
Heather Drake: And he has to go to the house of a Gentile which is against all the rules.
Heather Drake: And he gets there and he's going to save the Gentiles because he has an idea that they need to be saved and they need to hear this good news and they need to change from who they are.
Heather Drake: And he begins to talk and the Holy Spirit interrupts him.
Heather Drake: And I want to tell you the Holy Spirit, who is so good, is readily to interrupt you and ready to say you know where you've placed those boundaries.
Heather Drake: It's us and them.
Heather Drake: The Holy Spirit's going to just absolutely destroy those, because love is a reconciliation.
Heather Drake: God is love and God's incredible, radical love, in the power of the Holy Spirit, is what changes our way of being heard and of hearing other people.
Heather Drake: And over and over again we'll see this.
Heather Drake: We'll see this Ethiopian eunuch who is on the side of the road.
Heather Drake: Here is a person outside of the norm and because of this sexual it's something that actually happened to him.
Heather Drake: Nobody makes themselves a eunuch.
Heather Drake: Somebody had decided this had happened and he was changed and because of that he was kept out of the temple.
Heather Drake: He was not allowed to be in.
Heather Drake: He's on the side of the road.
Heather Drake: There's an actual miracle.
Heather Drake: Philip, just absolutely like drops in from outer space.
Heather Drake: We were talking the other day about time travel.
Heather Drake: I think Philip has already experienced that.
Heather Drake: But he's there by the side of the road and this person is already studying the scripture and Philip sees it and says, oh, I see that you're studying this and do you want information?
Heather Drake: And the eunuch just asks him and says, hey, is there any reason why I can't be baptized?
Heather Drake: Is there any reason why I can't be a part of this family.
Heather Drake: Is there any reason why I cannot experience this life?
Heather Drake: According to their culture, there was.
Heather Drake: According to all the rules that were there, there absolutely was.
Heather Drake: And Philip said, by the Holy Spirit, oh, I see no reason at all.
Heather Drake: Sometimes the Holy Spirit will, inspired by the Spirit, say those lines that are between us absolutely not.
Heather Drake: They're not.
Heather Drake: And miraculously by water in the desert, and he's baptized.
Heather Drake: And so, over and over again, through this time of Pentecost, we will see the expansion of love, the expansion of spirit, the expansion of reconciliation, all God's people being redeemed, being able to hear the message and being loved and brought in.
Heather Drake: Our faith in Jesus transfers God's righteousness to us and he declares us flawless in his eyes.
Heather Drake: Let me talk.
Dennis Drake: I just want what I want to piggyback on what you were saying, because I really want us to land on that idea.
Dennis Drake: Pentecost, one of the major miracles is we talk about how they stood up and they began to speak and everyone that was in the city heard, you know, within their hearing, heard them speak in their native tongue, and so you know, within their hearing, heard them speak in their native tongue, and so you know, a lot of people will talk about you know.
Dennis Drake: We kind of narrow it down.
Dennis Drake: Well then, there's only two ways for the Holy Spirit to move.
Dennis Drake: It's like, you know, either in the miracle of you speak and you speak in a language that you don't know but the people can hear it, or you speak in an unknown language and you edify yourself to God, and so then we kind of like, then we kind of spin off into distraction, and I think Heather really brought up a point that that's super profound and I kind of want to say it again, that the miracle can be.
Dennis Drake: It was in the hearing that they heard it, so could that miracle already have happened to you before or be happening to you, or could happen to you if you learn to expect it.
Dennis Drake: I'll tell you something.
Dennis Drake: I had somebody come up to the to me and they just kind of tied into me about how mad they were of of what I did.
Dennis Drake: And they were just going to leave the church and they're kind of insulting, you know, and pointing out my flaws and they are many, and I don't like to think about them and I don't like to be listed to me.
Dennis Drake: But it was so weird that like right in the middle of it, I realized, oh man, what they're doing is they're just trying to reject me because they're afraid of being rejected.
Dennis Drake: And so, after all those hurting things, they said I wanted to defend them all, but instead I didn't defend any.
Dennis Drake: When they finished talking, I said I said that.
Dennis Drake: I said I think you're just, you know, worried that that maybe I'm going to reject you and so you're just wanting to reject me first.
Dennis Drake: And I want you to know I love you and I will always love you.
Dennis Drake: And that person just melted in tears in my arms And've to this day have an incredible relationship.
Dennis Drake: Well, what had happened was that I heard what they said, but I didn't.
Dennis Drake: I heard it in a different language.
Dennis Drake: I heard what was really being said.
Dennis Drake: Do you understand what I mean Now, how many times has that happened with your children?
Dennis Drake: Or how many times has that not happened with your children?
Dennis Drake: And your wife said hey, dennis, your daughter's up in that room crying.
Dennis Drake: And I said no, we had a great exchange.
Dennis Drake: I'm sure I'm father of the year and she goes.
Dennis Drake: If you go up there, that girl's going to be crying.
Dennis Drake: And I go, I'm going to go prove you wrong.
Dennis Drake: I knock on the door and her face is buried in the pillow Are you sleeping?
Dennis Drake: Pulled back and it's wet with tears.
Dennis Drake: And she heard the voice, the interpretation, that understanding, the insight that I needed, and it was revealed to me that was a work of the holy spirit.
Dennis Drake: Thank god for pentecost, thank God for our parenting, thank God for your having the understanding at work.
Dennis Drake: How did you know that those things needed to be adjusted?
Dennis Drake: How did you know that this was something that would help in your marriage, in your relationship?
Dennis Drake: How did you know that?
Dennis Drake: Well, the, the Spirit of God speaks.
Dennis Drake: And then I begin to train myself and learn either to push away those thoughts and those voices you know, or or to recognize oh, that was the Holy Spirit.
Dennis Drake: I can trust the Holy Spirit.
Dennis Drake: And there's all kinds of bad doctors like well you know, if you, you know, don't listen to the Holy Spirit, that's it.
Dennis Drake: You're going to scar your heart and never be able to hear God again.
Dennis Drake: God's going to wait until the next time, because you are loved.
Dennis Drake: He doesn't parent you that way, and for us it is important to repent and to recognize oh, that was the Holy Spirit all day yesterday telling me to put that stuff in my car.
Dennis Drake: And now today I'm in that problem and I think to myself three times.
Dennis Drake: God told me to put those jumper cables in the car.
Dennis Drake: I looked at them when I was in my shop and I was walking by.
Dennis Drake: And now I'm standing out here with my battery dead and people saying I'd jump your car.
Dennis Drake: But I don't have jumper cables.
Dennis Drake: Neither do I because I listen.
Dennis Drake: Now God's not punishing me, but that's a perfect opportunity to go.
Dennis Drake: Next time, when I get that nudge, I'm going to respond and I'm going to train myself to hear, because it might not be jumper cables next time.
Dennis Drake: It might be a life preserver that saves someone's life, amen.
Dennis Drake: And so it is important for us to train and be around people that believe this way and talk this way, because, you know, if we're just getting our heads filled with knowledge and we're not experiencing the god that leads us in this fantastic manner, we miss the glory and power of being followers of christ.
Dennis Drake: We do ourselves to just some student that's working on a book.
Dennis Drake: Oh, we're followers of the living God.
Dennis Drake: Amen.
Heather Drake: Our faith in Jesus transfers God's righteousness to us, and he now declares us flawless in his eyes.
Dennis Drake: Read that again.
Heather Drake: Intentional pause.
Heather Drake: There's much to discuss this morning morning, but I just want to remind you this is the truth you are flawless in God's eyes.
Heather Drake: You might not even be flawless in your own eyes, but in God's eyes, flawless flawless.
Heather Drake: This means we can now enjoy true and lasting peace with God, all because of what our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, has done for us.
Heather Drake: Our faith guarantees us permanent access into this marvelous kindness that has given us a perfect relationship with God.
Heather Drake: What incredible joy bursts forth within us as we keep on celebrating our hope of experiencing God's glory.
Heather Drake: But that's not all.
Heather Drake: Even in times of trouble, we have a joyful confidence, knowing that our pressures will develop in us a patient endurance.
Heather Drake: And patient endurance will refine our character.
Heather Drake: And proven character leads us back to hope.
Heather Drake: And this hope is not a disappointing fantasy, because we can now experience the endless love of God cascading into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who lives in us.
Heather Drake: You can experience this kind of joy, you can experience this kind of peace.
Heather Drake: This is the Holy Spirit holding your chin and saying breathe with me.
Heather Drake: Through this pain that you are in, through this situation that you are in, there is hope for us this morning in learning to hear the Holy Spirit.
Heather Drake: One of the ways I think the greatest ways that we can learn to hear the Spirit is stop talking ways that we can learn to hear the Spirit is stop talking.
Heather Drake: I will give you the keys to this.
Heather Drake: And it is silence, and I just want to tell you that silence is uncomfortable and we know that.
Heather Drake: But it is in that stillness, it is in that breath you take between the torrent of words that you want to pour out on someone and you listen for the Holy Spirit.
Heather Drake: Jesus, living fully human, fully divine, said I don't speak anything that I don't hear the Father say.
Heather Drake: I encourage you the next time you want to say something to someone, ask the Holy Spirit is this what the Father is saying to them?
Heather Drake: I'll tell you what he's saying to them.
Heather Drake: You're flawless in my eyes.
Heather Drake: You are beloved, beloved, beloved.
Heather Drake: You are beloved.
Heather Drake: We get to speak words of truth and love.
Heather Drake: We get to hear words of truth and love.
Heather Drake: The Pentecost reminds us of transformation, of the blessing that comes with fire, of the blessing that comes with hearing the Spirit, of learning to hear our own spirit testify to us of the goodness of God that has already been shed abroad in our hearts through Christ Jesus, according to Romans.
Heather Drake: The love of God that has already been shed abroad in our hearts through Christ Jesus, according to Romans.
Heather Drake: The love of God is already there.
Heather Drake: That needs to be the source of all of the things we do, our source not in ourself, but our source in the love that is already there.
Heather Drake: Returning to love, returning to the good, reminding ourselves, turning to the good, reminding ourselves.
Heather Drake: In that pain, I didn't stop being able to breathe.
Heather Drake: I forgot, and when somebody reminded me, and when someone stayed with me in that reminder, I could do what I could not do by myself.
Heather Drake: This is what God is saying when I'm making a new family, a new community.
Heather Drake: The things that you didn't think that you could do, you can do because you do them together, because this is the glory of what is happening here.
Heather Drake: I'm so grateful this week for all of the ways that First Love Church got to be real miracles in people's lives, and we were able to do that because everyone participates.
Heather Drake: Recently I was traveling down 441 and I was at the stop light right there on 27 and it was hot and a brother of mine had a little cardboard sign and he was standing at the edge of the road and that's a really busy intersection, you guys know that, and so I motioned to him that I had something to contribute to my brother and I held the money out the window so he could see it.
Heather Drake: And he went in front of four cars to be able to get the money.
Heather Drake: And he went to the window and he was on that side of the car.
Heather Drake: So I leaned all the way over and I gave him the money out the window and he said God bless you, I love you.
Heather Drake: And then he said oh, no, no, I'm sorry, you know what, like, sometimes we say things and we didn't mean it.
Heather Drake: I said did you just take back the I love you?
Heather Drake: I said don't take that back, because I love you too, because we're family.
Heather Drake: And he started laughing.
Heather Drake: He goes yes, yes, okay, you could have the I love you.
Heather Drake: And I was like, yes, and you can have my.
Heather Drake: I'm like get out of the street to this man we're having this conversation.
Heather Drake: He goes, spoken like a sister, and I'm like, yes, get here, take your love, take this thing, but don't get yourself harmed.
Heather Drake: And I started laughing and he was laughing as we were leaving this interaction.
Heather Drake: That took about 30 seconds, if it took that.
Heather Drake: And here's someone who's standing on the side in the heat, sweat pouring on the side of the road.
Heather Drake: This is my brother, this is your brother.
Heather Drake: And in this quick moment of release, when we remembered we're not taking our love back.
Heather Drake: I love you, you love me.
Heather Drake: There's nothing weird about that.
Heather Drake: We're family and in our reminder get out of the street.
Heather Drake: Love tells me don't be standing here talking when cars are flying by, and then you just take it.
Heather Drake: You remember, yeah, my sister's reminding me don't be standing here talking when cars are flying by, and then you just take it.
Heather Drake: You remember, yeah, my sister's reminding me get out of the street.
Heather Drake: But both of us were laughing at the end of this exchange and I was thinking look at joy, look at God right there in the middle.
Heather Drake: Not every problem was solved, not everything was changed, but joy, generosity and love was there.
Heather Drake: Beloved love created the world.
Heather Drake: God is love.
Heather Drake: Love is the only thing that's always going to remain.
Heather Drake: When we give anyone love, we give them the eternal, and that is what we are all returning to.
Heather Drake: What does it look like for us to know, to hear and to live in the presence of the eternal?
Heather Drake: There's two things I want to talk about and I want to get to hear and to live in the presence of the eternal.
Dennis Drake: There's two things I want to talk about and I want to get back to that.
Dennis Drake: But beforehand you had mentioned prayer, maybe not directly.
Dennis Drake: You said being quiet.
Heather Drake: Yes.
Dennis Drake: And I just wonder how many of us realize, in our way of being trained to pray, that probably one of the biggest parts of prayer is being quiet.
Dennis Drake: You're looking at me like maybe you don't know, maybe we were trained that prayer is that time for you to give your wish list to God, or to maybe impress Him with the scriptures you know, or try to repent hard enough to make him like you.
Dennis Drake: All these things, I think, are amiss to that place of, and the hardest thing to do for me is to just sit down with intention to pray and be quiet and empty my mind and let the spirit fill it.
Dennis Drake: Let the spirit give me ideas and we're not, and then recognize the difference between distractions and stop and and and let uh the spirit.
Dennis Drake: Maybe you might want to comment on that that kind of reflective uh prayer, uh, but um, I really, you know, in the verse that we were just looking at, I really want you to see, there's a method to heathernize madness every week.
Dennis Drake: How is it possible that they preach a message about love?
Dennis Drake: It's Pentecost week and we're talking about love.
Dennis Drake: Well, you know, uh, I really believe that that love makes way for you to connect with the spirit, because if you wouldn't love that man enough to have stopped and said something, uh, you know, or provide, you know, or gave a gave generously, then we wouldn't have seen the spirit do what the spirit did and bring back, you know, the spirit of gratitude and joy, you know.
Dennis Drake: And so there, there's, there's, you know, there's sort of like yeah, the engine can run, but not without fuel, not without oil, it seizes up, you know.
Dennis Drake: And so there's, god has given us the holy spirit and then, through love is is how we maintain our heart tender.
Dennis Drake: Uh, because, imagine, you know, uh, I just watched you look at heather with a very interesting look.
Dennis Drake: It said a million things that I'm not going to repeat.
Dennis Drake: But when you, when you're about ready to give somebody the business at work, and then you ask God, first, what do you think about them Exactly?
Dennis Drake: And then there's, and then God said I see them as innocent, I see them as whole, as lovely.
Dennis Drake: And then what if we then started repeating that versus the thing we had queued up?
Dennis Drake: Now, I'm not just picking on robert.
Dennis Drake: Every one of us have these situations, right, and love is is what will prepare our heart to make that tremendous leap that's.
Dennis Drake: That chasm is so great.
Dennis Drake: It takes love in order for us, to empower us to do that and for us to even hear that voice, because isn't that the miracle of Pentecost, that I heard the voice.
Dennis Drake: In my understanding, I'll never forget that the other day I was sharing that story about being in the tractor supply and the lady started cursing and yelling at the lady at the desk and I was in my good mood and everything.
Dennis Drake: And boy, her yelling and cursing.
Dennis Drake: It changed the whole energy in the whole tractor supply.
Dennis Drake: Everybody got quiet, everybody got, you know, small, and it was just so awkward to hear all the cursing and yelling and immediately I thought, oh, I acted like that lady.
Dennis Drake: I hate that.
Dennis Drake: I wish she'd just leave.
Dennis Drake: The lady was the bad lady and what had happened was the spirit said do you see her?
Dennis Drake: No adult acts like that.
Dennis Drake: She's acting like a child.
Dennis Drake: Do you see?
Dennis Drake: That's not some adult lady that you despise.
Dennis Drake: That is a little girl that was hurt by somebody and was trained.
Dennis Drake: The only way she's going to get care is if she gets loud and gets violent, and so she's just.
Dennis Drake: That's a little girl just doing what she was trained to do.
Dennis Drake: But I didn't see it.
Dennis Drake: I heard mean person who I need to get away from and who needs to get out of our world.
Dennis Drake: We don't need people like that, god, do we?
Dennis Drake: But the spirit of the Lord caused me to hear a hurt sister and all of a sudden I had compassion.
Dennis Drake: To hear a hurt sister, and all of a sudden I had compassion.
Dennis Drake: Oh then, all of a sudden, the spirit started to flow.
Dennis Drake: Everything I needed for that situation.
Dennis Drake: I was no longer unsafe and uncomfortable and now I can understand what's going on.
Dennis Drake: God, I see, and now I can be used to help out, because I was blind.
Dennis Drake: But now I see the Spirit revealed that to me.
Dennis Drake: Don't you want to see past the angry face of your husband or your wife, or the rejection of your you know, maybe your parents or your children, or the way you've been treated by somebody?
Dennis Drake: Don't you want to see past that?
Dennis Drake: See what God sees?
Dennis Drake: That's better.
Dennis Drake: Preaching your amen, and I'll tell you right now.
Heather Drake: This hope is not a disappointing fantasy.
Heather Drake: Sometimes hope is very difficult, or what feels difficult.
Heather Drake: When I was little, someone told me I hung on to it like truth.
Heather Drake: I recently gave it up.
Heather Drake: You're going to be proud of me.
Heather Drake: When I was little, someone said don't get your hopes up.
Heather Drake: Manage your expectations, don't give your hopes up.
Heather Drake: So I did a really good job of creating suffering for myself and not getting my hopes up.
Heather Drake: The Holy Spirit is hope, not in the expectations of others or in their ability to change, but hope.
Heather Drake: My hope is in Christ.
Heather Drake: Not in the expectations of others or in their ability to change, but hope.
Heather Drake: My hope is in Christ.
Heather Drake: My hope is in the power of love, love that created the worlds, love that created the galaxies not just this one, the millions of galaxies beyond this, love that is still creating.
Heather Drake: My hope is in love beloved and that will never be disappointed.
Heather Drake: This hope is not a disappointing fantasy because we can now experience the endless love of God cascading into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who lives in us, the invitation into this divine frequency, into this flow of love that comes to us and that we can give out to the world.
Heather Drake: It's an invitation to step into that and to feel the holy and to live into the holy and to live in the presence of love, to live in the presence of God, to walk with him.
Heather Drake: We pray together, the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Heather Drake: And Jesus said the kingdom is so close to you, it's in your mouth.
Heather Drake: It's not some far away thing, it's here within us.
Heather Drake: God's good kingdom and the invitation in the spirit is learning how to attune our hearts so we stay in the Spirit and we hear the witness of God's Holy Spirit.
Dennis Drake: You know, isn't it amazing that right now there's all kinds of songs flowing through the air.
Dennis Drake: There's country music, there's classic rock, there's even Christian contemporary worship, but you don't have a radio and, furthermore, you don't have it dialed in to the channel to that frequency, and so you're not hearing it.
Dennis Drake: And I'm telling you something that we have made being a Christian, just your get out of hell free card, just your ticket to heaven, and that's it, and we're, you know.
Dennis Drake: The rest of them they'll just figure it out when we get there.
Dennis Drake: And just get them saved, get them, you know.
Dennis Drake: And we have missed the opportunity and the beauty, the true mystical part of being a Christian.
Dennis Drake: And so I hope that Pentecost, in these weeks that we talk about, would remind you of that mystical part.
Dennis Drake: And all of us have seen people that are hyper-spiritual, and we used to call them granola Christians because they're filled with nuts and flakes and fruits are filled with nuts and flakes and fruits, and that may or may not be your experience with certain people, but I tell you that there is a mystical part of your Christianity, your spirituality Even to say I have spirituality and for us to not ever surrender to the Spirit or ever hear the voice of the Spirit or ever say I, I've discerned this or I'm feeling this.
Dennis Drake: Leading this way, we're missing out on such a big part of our Christianity.
Dennis Drake: And one time I went to a big dam and it had these big openings and if the water got too much they would open these openings.
Dennis Drake: And there was three of them and they had one of them kind of cracked open and a little bit of water was coming out.
Dennis Drake: And then another time I came back and the thing was wide open and that water wasn't just pouring out, it was shooting out just, I mean, just like half a football field.
Dennis Drake: That water was shooting out.
Dennis Drake: You know, and I think to myself that I'm this follower of God and there's these opportunities that I have to let God loose in the world, and I trickle every once in a while and then sometimes you guys get me riled up in this pulpit and I start opening up that and it starts pouring out.
Dennis Drake: But then I get a funny look from somebody, so I back it back off there and some people say, no, I have a flow and I have a flow and I'll read the Word of God, but this whole spirit thing, I'm closing it off and what we're talking about during this time is learn how to open that up without your granola bars.
Dennis Drake: How do you do that in a way that now becomes fruitful for your life and for the lives of everybody that's around you?
Dennis Drake: I think the path is love.
Dennis Drake: That is certain, and that we really do open up our hope and our expectation for God.
Dennis Drake: Could you leave this place with a hope that God would speak to you, or is that only for somebody that's more spiritual than you?
Heather Drake: I do want to say there is a cofete in learning how to hear the Spirit.
Heather Drake: If it's not loving, it's not the Holy.
Dennis Drake: Spirit.
Dennis Drake: Oh, thank you.
Heather Drake: I just want to say that If it's unloving, it is not God's Spirit, because it cannot come from God, because God is love, oh that's a good thing.
Heather Drake: So if you were feeling something, a deep something, and you felt prompted and it was unloving.
Heather Drake: hold that word and then, bring it to somebody else who hears the Spirit too, and say this is what I heard, and how do we feel about this?
Heather Drake: Or how do we process this?
Heather Drake: But if it's not loving, it is not God.
Heather Drake: God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believed in him would not perish but have eternal life.
Heather Drake: God did not send Jesus into the world to condemn the world, but that the world, through Jesus, might be saved.
Heather Drake: Reconciliation has always been the thing that God offers to the whole world through Jesus and through us.
Heather Drake: Would you bow your heads with us for a moment?
Heather Drake: I'm going to pray over you and I'm going to speak peace over you, the same way that Jesus did.
Heather Drake: I am going to, but in the name and in the authority of the church and in the authority of Scripture that is given to us, and in the authority of God's own Spirit.
Heather Drake: I speak peace over you even right now.
Heather Drake: I pray that the spirit would fall upon your friendships, on your families, on your communities, on our nation, and grant us the understanding, a miracle of hearing, hearing the heart of God for all of us.
Heather Drake: Hearing, hearing the heart of God for all of us.
Heather Drake: A miracle of the sort of hearing that reconciles siblings and spouses, and friends and leaders, and brings us into holy peace.
Heather Drake: Lord in your mercy, heal our ears For the person who needs to be heard from their heart, for the person who needs to hear the other from their heart, for the miracle of expansion and understanding, for all of the good that flows from the spirit of understanding, the spirit of truth.
Heather Drake: We pray to you, lord, jesus Christ.
Heather Drake: Have mercy on us, send your spirit to us again.
Heather Drake: We receive your peace.
Heather Drake: We hope you've enjoyed this week's sermon.
Heather Drake: If you would like more information about us, visit us online at firstlovechurchorg.