Hello, City First Church family! Man, we're so glad that each and every one of you are here today.
Hey, if you are a lady in the place and you are not signed up for the Original Conference happening this weekend, I want to encourage you to be there. If you have not been personally invited, consider this your personal invitation. It's also online.
Well, today we are continuing our series, "Stranger Things," and Pastor Ryan Lee kicked it off last week with such a phenomenal message. After service, I was talking to a couple, their grandparents, and they were sharing with me, "Lisa, our grandkids were able to come to church last week for the very first time in their lives."
So, on the way to church, they were telling the grandkids, "This is what you can expect at City First. Okay, you're gonna have a lot of fun. It's a friendly church, but we're not just a friendly church; we're also a family church. There's gonna be worship and music. You're gonna meet Jesus. It's gonna be so awesome."
And so, the youngest grandchild was four years old, and they ended up staying in the main auditorium. She's sitting in service, and she's like, "Man, everything that they said is happening! People are friendly, we have worship, there's music."
And then Ryan gets on the stage, and she leans over to her grandma and she's like, "Is that him?"
She said, "Is that who, baby?"
She said, "Is that Jesus? You said I was gonna meet him here."
She said, "No, that's Pastor Ryan Leak."
And I told Ryan afterwards, he's like, "I've been called a lot of things, but I've never been called Jesus."
But if you missed the message last week, make sure that you go back and check it out. Such a great message! We talked about the Holy Spirit, who He is, and what are some of His attributes.
And today, we're going to continue that conversation. I'm personally really enjoying this series because, if I'm honest, I grew up thinking the Holy Spirit was kind of one of those stranger things. I grew up in Ohio. O-H-I-O! Any Buckeye fans in the place?
Okay, but in Ohio, my church was very Pentecostal, very charismatic. My mama had us in church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, nighttime services. There was no childcare; we sat still for two hours. And then the altar call started.
We always loved the altar call because all the parents came to the front, and all the kids got rowdy in the back with the pews. But while I'm grateful to have grown up understanding what it was like to feel and experience the power of the Holy Spirit, there was rarely, if ever, an explanation paired with it.
And that left me a little bit confused. It was a little off-putting, and some things felt strange to me because I didn't understand it. But it also set me on a trajectory to study the topic of the Holy Spirit.
And while we're never going to fully understand everything about the ways of God—because if God is small enough to understand, then He's not big enough to worship—we can certainly engage our brains around the topic of the Holy Spirit.
So today, and during the series, we want to biblically explain to the best of our ability who the Holy Spirit is and provide insight and understanding of what that means in our everyday, ordinary life. Because the Holy Spirit produces much more than just goosebumps and feelings.
So I want to start off today explaining why we have the need for the Holy Spirit, right? This is really important because, whether we can articulate it or not, I believe we all have a deep longing for the Holy Spirit to be active in our lives.
And you might be thinking, "Okay, Lisa, well, I've already made Jesus the leader and the forgiver of my life. Isn't that enough? Like, I believe that Christ died for my sins, rose again, gave me a brand new start. I've experienced salvation, so why do I need the Holy Spirit too?"
It's a great question. Well, we often call beginning a relationship with Jesus "salvation," but why is it called salvation? What are we being saved from? We're being saved from a Christless eternity, praise God!
But God knows that until that day comes of heaven forever as our home, we are most certainly going to need some help while we are here on this earth. And everyone said a big "Amen!"
We're in the middle of navigating some very interesting, contentious, divided, difficult times. There's concern for our health, our children, our finances, for our world. And what I know to be true is this: we need God's heavenly power in order to have earthly success.
God does not just want us to survive until we get to heaven. He does not just want us to white-knuckle it in our own strength, just trying to make it through another day, living in fear and worry about tomorrow, living in defeat.
No, our God has so much more for each and every one of us—so much more! And we often forget about it. In the New Testament, in John chapter 14, we see that before Jesus ascends to heaven, He's leaving the earth, and He's talking to His disciples.
He says, "I'm not going to be here anymore, but I'm not going to leave you alone. I'm not going to leave you abandoned. I'm going to give you the gift of the Holy Spirit."
So we know that while salvation is for eternity, the Holy Spirit is for life on this earth. Last week, we talked about how the Holy Spirit is our helper, but the Holy Spirit also gives us power.
I talked to someone this week, and they were sharing with me, "Lisa, I don't know what to do. I'm on the brink of a divorce. I'm debating whether I should get the divorce or not. What are the implications of that for my marriage, for my children? What should I do?"
And more than any good advice that I can offer, I said, "We need the help and the power of the Holy Spirit in this situation."
How about any parent trying to raise kids in this crazy world? Or any student trying to navigate classmates and peer pressure and social media pressure? Or anyone who's facing a relational issue, health issue, financial issue?
We need not just the help of the Holy Spirit, but we need the power of the Holy Spirit in our everyday life. Because in the natural, our best efforts will always fall short.
There's a disciple of Jesus; his name was Paul, and he's a great demonstration of someone who lived beyond their own strength and beyond their own power. See, Paul faced many, many hardships. You can read about it in the book of Corinthians.
He said that he was beaten over and over again, he was shipwrecked and abandoned, he was in prison multiple times, went hungry, went thirsty, was a pioneer of the early church, burdened to spread the news about Jesus.
How did he endure hardship after hardship after hardship while living a life full of mission and purpose? Not by his own strength, not by his own power, but by the power of the Holy Spirit was he able to endure hardships and keep a life of mission for Jesus.
And this is what Paul wrote for us in 1 Corinthians chapter 2. He's talking about how he would travel and speak to churches and plant churches, and he says this: "I came to you in weakness and in fear, with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with intellect, persuasive and wise words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom but on God's power."
We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or the rulers of this age who are coming to nothing. No, we declare God's wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.
Now, that word "glory" in the original writing, the original translation, would read "the full weight of who God is." God wants to give us the full weight of who He is—to give us His wisdom, His understanding, His perspective, His power. He wants to reveal to us that which has been hidden.
Another translation of the same verse says that God has secret wisdom for us. Do you know that God has secret wisdom that He wants to make known to you? That thing that you are scratching your head about, that you are waking up in the middle of the night trying to figure out, that you keep trying to your best ability to come up with the best solution?
God has secret wisdom specifically for you—for your business, for your marriage, for your finances, for that relationship, for that child that you are concerned about, for your path forward, for your future. God has secret wisdom available to each and every one of us.
But God knows that in our humanness, our human minds and bodies can never carry that kind of weight because He is God, and we most certainly are not.
And so we have a problem. We can't receive in our humanness all that God wants to give us. There's a gap. We've talked before about how God is a triune being made of God the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. In the same way, we're made up of three parts: body, soul, and spirit.
And see, on this earth, we have limitations. We're like, "Amen," right? Our body has limitations. Some of you, you don't even know—I got asthma, I got a hip replacement, knee replacement, whatever. We all got stuff going on. We've got limitations with these earthly bodies of ours.
Our soul has all kinds of limitations. Our soul is made up of our minds, our will, and our emotions, right? We've got limitations in our willpower, we've got limitations in our minds, we've got limitations in our earthly soul.
But our spirit does not have those same earthly limitations. So every single one of you has the Spirit of God living on the inside of you, and it's the only part of you that is unlimited in its capacity to receive all that God has for you.
So we have this need for the full weight of God, but we have this dilemma that we can't handle it in our body or in our minds, our will, or emotions. Only our spirit can.
So God created a way for your spirit to connect with God's Spirit and bypass the part of you that's full of limitations, and He gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit. How amazing is that?
Now, you might be here, and you're not clapping. You're like, "Okay, Lisa, this is getting pretty deep. I just want to be encouraged today." Maybe you're new to church. Maybe you're like, "I sinned last night."
Maybe you're like, "I sinned this morning on the car ride here." You already apologized to God; you might need to apologize to your spouse, okay? Maybe you're like, "I've screwed up so much. This Holy Spirit, He sounds like He is for those who are super spiritual."
And I just want to take a moment, and I want to debunk that myth. I want to tell you today that the Holy Spirit is not for the spiritually elite; He is for each and every one of us.
Do you remember Peter? Maybe you've heard of him. He was one of Jesus's disciples. Okay, Peter spends three years—everybody say three years—that's a long time. He spends three years being a disciple of Jesus. He was with Jesus Himself in the flesh every day, seven days a week, for three years.
You would think that after three years of personal mentoring with Jesus Himself, that Peter would be a man full of faith and full of power. But when Jesus needed Peter the most, Peter denies that he ever even knew Jesus. He didn't do it just once; he didn't do it just twice. He did this three times.
So here we have Peter, and Peter loved Jesus. He loved Jesus! But he had no power. Fast forward 50 days later, we get to Acts chapter 2, and we see Peter filled with the Holy Spirit, preaching in front of 3,000 people.
If God can use Peter, God can use me, and God can use you! Did you spend three years with Jesus in the flesh and turn your back on Him? Like, that's pretty low, Peter! And yet God gave him—and gives each and every one of us—the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is for those who feel unqualified, for those who feel undeserving, who feel like they might be the underdog in whatever situation that you're facing. The same Peter who didn't have the guts to stand up to a servant girl is now standing in front of thousands of people, sharing about Jesus at the threat of losing his life.
What happened? Did Peter read enough self-help books? Did he do enough good acts? Did he become a Bible scholar? Did Peter just say, "Holy Spirit, activate! Holy Spirit, activate! Holy Spirit, activate, activate, activate!"?
Like, what happened? Did he just go from being frightened Peter to speaking in front of thousands of people? He received the power of God in his life. The power of the Holy Spirit came upon him.
I think it's helpful to understand that there are multiple functions of the Holy Spirit. There's the Holy Spirit in us, there's the Holy Spirit with us, and there's the Holy Spirit upon us.
Okay, if you are in church right now, watching online or in person, if you have made the decision to follow Jesus, it wasn't your will that just brought you to Jesus. It was the Holy Spirit in you drawing you to Him, saying, "You need what you were made for—a relationship with Jesus."
It was the Holy Spirit in you drawing you to Him because the Holy Spirit is in each and every one of us. And part of His job is to get us into relationship with Jesus.
And then when you become a Christ follower, the Holy Spirit is given to you as a helper. You're no longer navigating this life on your own. That's why we get these nudges, right? That's like, "Don't do that," or "You should do this."
The Holy Spirit is given to us as a comforter, a convictor, a leader, a guider, empowerer. And we can experience the power of the Holy Spirit.
There have been times where I've been speaking before, and I know the Holy Spirit is with me because there's power that doesn't come from me or this fancy pants suit; it comes from the Holy Spirit.
And this is a very simple analogy, but I want you to think of a body of water, okay? Crystal clear blue water, and on the water, there is a sailboat. You can see it, and it's out there, but the sails are not up.
So the boat is there; it's functional, but it's lacking. But when the sails go up and the wind comes blowing in and fills those sails, there is an energy, a forward motion, a movement beyond the ability of the boat by itself.
The boat needs the wind in order to go where it's supposed to go, and the Holy Spirit can be likened to a wind filling our sails for everyday life and living and empowerment. He is always working; He is always speaking in natural and supernatural ways. We just got to get our sails up.
You know, one of the questions when it comes to the topic of the Holy Spirit that people will ask us here at City First is, "Do we believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit?" And I would say, "Yes, absolutely we do."
Other people ask if that means that we believe in speaking in tongues, and I would say that's a great question for Pastor Jeremy. No, I'm just kidding. We do believe in having a heavenly language, and we believe in all of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
And maybe you have a church background; maybe you don't. Maybe you've heard of these terms or these—you know, we're talking about the Holy Spirit. Maybe you've heard this before; maybe you haven't. Maybe you've experienced the power of the Holy Spirit; maybe you have not.
But I think it's important for you to know that as Christ followers, there are no second-class Christians in God's economy. So we are just so glad that each and every one of you are with us today.
And the reason that we're talking about the power of the Holy Spirit is that because, as your pastors, we want to make sure that we do everything we can to make known to you all that is available to you through the power of the Holy Spirit.
And if you're like, "Man, I have like a million questions about this," that's amazing! We want you to be intrigued; we want you to do research. And this is another great reason that I want to encourage everybody to get in a Freedom Group because it's in a Freedom Group that we address the topic of the Holy Spirit.
And through these Freedom Groups, you're going to learn how to step out of some of the things in your life or from your past and step into an empowered life with God. But that heavenly language, it's just that spirit-to-spirit connection that we talked about that bypasses all the things that we don't understand.
In my own life, when we know we have two boys, Nash and Ryder. Nash is six, and Ryder is four, almost five. And ever since Nash was little, okay, bedtime—can we just say we need the power of the Holy Spirit just for bedtime? If you have little kids, but all the time for bedtime, you know, after we do a book, we do a story, we do a song, Nash will say, "Mom, will you just stay a little bit longer?"
He's been doing this since he was like three years old, just saying he's a quality time kid. So I'm like, "Okay, buddy, I'll stay a little bit longer, but if I'm staying in your room a little bit longer, it's about to be productive, and I'm gonna pray over you."
Okay, so Nash will close his eyes, and I'll just start praying just quietly. "God, I pray for Nash. Thank you for him. Thank you for the gifts you've given him. I pray protection upon him. I pray to surround him with friends that point him to Jesus. I pray that he will be a friend that points people to Jesus. I pray that he would always be quick to hear your voice and be obedient."
And then eventually, I'll run out of things to pray, and I'll also pray in my heavenly language. The first time I did that in front of Nash, he was three years old. He sits up in his bed, and he was like, "What is that?"
I was like, "Buddy, this is just like my special language between me and God." And he was like, "Cool! Can I get one of those?"
Or have faith like a child! And so a couple of years ago, while we were in COVID—so probably last year during COVID—you know, COVID was a hard time for many people, and it was for me as well.
And I'm normally a pretty upbeat, optimistic person, but there were a couple of weeks where I was feeling particularly discouraged. I was like, "Here I am, a pastor. It's like I can't really pastor people; everything's online."
Like, I just felt really down. And it was one of those nights I was putting Nash to bed. He asked me to stay; I did. I ended up praying in this heavenly language, and I thought Nash was fast asleep.
I'm just quietly in the room in his room, sitting next to him, praying. He hasn't talked or done anything for 10 minutes, which I was like, "No child lays still for 10 minutes."
So I'm just praying my prayer language, and then all of a sudden, Nash sits up, and he goes, "Oh, okay, I understand."
I was like, "What, buddy?"
He's like, "I understand." He was like, "Mom, God needs you to feed His sheep."
I said, "I'm sorry, what?"
And he was like, "God needs you to feed His sheep. Keep feeding the sheep, Mom."
And in that moment, I'm crying. I'm like, "God just ministered to my heart in the most specific way that I needed Him to through speaking through my five-year-old who an hour earlier was beating up his brother!"
And you know, when we go to church, Adam and I are in ministry; we're not like, "We're going to feed the sheep today, children." Like, he has not heard us say that.
It was like a supernatural, amazing thing. And I love that I serve a supernatural God who can speak through a five-year-old, who can speak through a 50-year-old, who can do miracles, who can turn things around, who can reveal the hidden things.
That is the power of our God! That's just one example of a billion ways that the Holy Spirit is always moving, always speaking, always active. We just got to get our sails up.
And when we do that, that's when you're going to feel those nudges. "Okay, invite your neighbor to church. It's time to become a generosity rock star. God's going to give you boldness to do what is right."
And so, as we wrap up our time together, I just want to remind us that the power of the Holy Spirit is available to each and every one of us.
And if you're new to faith, we are all on a journey, and the goal is simply don't try to do it by yourself, but be open to inviting the Holy Spirit into all the areas of your life.
Because, like what we talked about at the beginning, salvation is for eternity, but the Holy Spirit is for life on this earth.
And as I've been a Christ follower for decades at this point, I have realized that the enemy does not want you or me to recognize or understand the power of the Holy Spirit that's available to us.
Because he does not want a bunch of Christians shining bright in this dark world. He does not want us to walk around knowing the power that we have. He wants you to walk around defeated, helpless, and hopeless.
But with God, there is another way! The enemy wants you to try to overcome your problems in your own strength because he knows it's never going to work out. Your own strength won't cut it.
Have you ever tried to overcome that addiction in your own strength? Have you ever tried to resist that temptation that is relentlessly knocking on your door in your own strength?
Have you ever tried to find freedom for yourself from your own hurts, your habits, your hang-ups? Have you ever found yourself saying, as you're walking through a situation, "I just can't. I just can't do it. I just can't. I don't have the energy. I don't have the strength. I can't figure it out. I just can't."
And when you find yourself at that place, I want you to remember it's because you are not supposed to do it on your own. You will always fall short, always end up frustrated.
But with the power of the Holy Spirit, the wind in your sails, there is strength upon strength and power upon power that is available to you.
We have to remember who we have access to and that there is supernatural power to have freedom from addiction. There is supernatural power to resist that temptation.
There is supernatural power to ask the Holy Spirit to reduce the desire that you have for the things that are not of God. He can take away that desire and that longing that has been plaguing you and tormenting you.
The power of the Holy Spirit can heal wounds and minds and memories from traumatic things. The Holy Spirit can give you the power to do what is right. The Holy Spirit gives you the boldness to be obedient to proclaim His faith and His good works.
It's what gave Paul the power to persevere and overcome hardship after hardship. And if anyone would have been disqualified from receiving the Holy Spirit and being used by the Holy Spirit, it would have been Peter.
But what did we see in his story? That his greatest setback became his greatest comeback with the power of the Holy Spirit working in his life.
And I really believe that there's someone here today that needs to hear this. You find yourself in the middle of a setback. That might be with your job; that might be with a relationship; that might be with a kid. I don't know what it is, but do not allow your setback to keep you stuck.
But invite the Holy Spirit in because your setback can become your greatest comeback if you stop trying to do this life on your own.
You already have the gift of the Holy Spirit in you, but we want to ask for more of Him—that He would fill us and guide us and lead us and come upon us and empower us.
And this is something that we want to ask God for every single day. Every day, I ask God that He would fill me with the Holy Spirit, that His Holy Spirit would lead me and guide me and empower me to do whatever He's placed in front of me for His glory.
We need to be in church every Sunday, but we need the power of the Holy Spirit every day in our lives.
Every day, I want you to imagine filling your gas tank up, okay? Don't think about inflation right now; stay focused, all right? But imagine filling your gas tank up weeks ago, and then you end up on the side of the road, and someone pulls over, and they're like, "I see that you're stalled out."
And you're like, "Yeah, well, I put gas in my tank four weeks ago. I can't believe I'm out of gas!"
That's not going to cut it—to fill up weeks ago and expect it to carry you through longevity. It's the same thing with asking that we would have more of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
We need Him—a fresh filling of the Holy Spirit every day of our lives. And sometimes we just can forget to invite the Holy Spirit in.
So many times throughout the day, I just pause, and I'm like, "Holy Spirit, give me strength. Give me wisdom. Give me insight. Give me that secret wisdom. I need it for what I'm facing."
We're not meant to just try to navigate this life on our own, but consistently ask God and ask the Holy Spirit to fill us.
And it says this in the book of Luke, chapter 11. Let me find it real quick: Luke 11:11-13.
on Nov 05, 2023
