[0:00] Good morning, everybody. Good morning. Okay, that's better. If you don't know me, I'm Bernard, and I'm one of the members at Watermark.
[0:13] I'm not on the staff, so you are unfortunately having amateur night, attending amateur night. What we're going to talk about today, though, is we're rounding out, we've been going through for the last month, we're rounding out a series on the Holy Spirit.
[0:28] Okay. And today we're going to talk about the empowering Holy Spirit. Okay. So what does it mean to be filled, and what does it mean to be empowered by the Holy Spirit?
[0:40] Okay. So we're going to look at this topic, we're going to tackle it under three headings. The need for the Holy Spirit in 2017. Right? Why do we need the Holy Spirit?
[0:51] The signs of what a Spirit-filled life looks like in 2017. And how. The last is the application. How can you be filled with the Holy Spirit?
[1:04] Okay. So let's start with the beginning. The need for the Holy Spirit in 2017. Why do we even need the Holy Spirit in 2017? Right? We can meet everybody we want on Facebook and LinkedIn.
[1:17] Right? We can get all our answers that we ever want to ask on Google. And we can buy anything we want on Amazon or Taobao.
[1:28] Right? So why do we need the Holy Spirit? At no time in history are we more connected to one another through messaging apps like WhatsApp and WeChat and Snapchat.
[1:41] Right? Last, just three days ago on Friday in the New York Times, David Brooks, one of the journalists in the New York Times, had an article called, Just How Evil Is Tech?
[1:56] Okay? Just How Evil Is Tech? By the way, I'm in the technology industry, so this could be a little contrarian when you listen to me. But he said in it, we have more control over our social interactions, but it leads to thinner interactions.
[2:14] Okay? Technology. We have more control over our social interaction, but it leads to thinner interactions. And he gave some scary statistics, and I want to share those with you. He said, A study shows that 13-year-olds who spend 10 hours plus a week, a week, okay?
[2:31] Not a day. 10 hours plus a week on social media increase their risk of depression by 27%. Okay? 10 hours is actually not that much a week on social media.
[2:42] This is for 13-year-olds. Teens who spend three or more hours a day on electronic devices, smartphones, you know, tablets, are 35% more likely to have risk of suicide-like making plans on how to do it.
[2:57] Girls especially are hard hit and have experienced a 50% increase in depression symptoms since the advent of mobile technology. These statistics are showing us one thing, that you know what?
[3:11] Our technology is not the solution to loneliness, but on the contrary, it's actually, it amplifies our loneliness. Okay?
[3:22] So on the knowledge front, and I talked about, you know, we can get all our answers from Google, right? I mean, well, there's probably one of you out there using Bing, so using Yahoo, diehards, but most of us are probably Google people.
[3:35] So you can get everything you want to know on Google, and then if you want to know a little bit more on Wikipedia, and if you're challenging, you know, you're reading challenge, you probably use YouTube, right?
[3:48] But are we better informed? You know, as a society, as a group, as an individual, are we better informed? Are we more educated? Or are we just more confused?
[4:00] And, and is, you know, there's, there's a lot of talk recently that hack is actually emphasizing our bias, and there's a lot of talk about this echo chamber effect.
[4:13] You know, you only Google the things that agree with you. So, I think one of the keys, the other, the other thing that's just come up recently is, is what is fake and what is real, right?
[4:24] I mean, you saw in the US elections, you know, there's a lot of talk about fake news and all that, and, and I'll just spend a little bit of talk about that. But, you know, Paul, funny enough, Paul, writing to the Ephesians, had some advice for us.
[4:39] Okay? Now, the city of Ephesus in, in the first century, is actually not that different to Hong Kong. It was a kind of a commerce hub for the Roman Empire.
[4:50] It was a trading center. Not so different to Hong Kong being, you know, a commerce and trading center for China, right? Right? So, the Christians at Ephesus was also being overwhelmed by their, the demands on their modern world, their first century modern world, right?
[5:06] So, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, and, and they too wanted to find a way to get back a bit of control into their lives. They feel like they're, they're, you know, Ephesians are feeling like, you know what, my life is kind of spinning out of control.
[5:20] And, and, and, and Paul's, Paul's writing a letter to say, hey, here's a way you get a bit of control into your life. Okay? And, what he said is, do not get drunk with wine, for that is the poetry, but to be filled by the Spirit.
[5:34] So, Paul's advice to the Ephesians on how to cope with the challenges they have in their lives is to be filled with the Spirit. And he, and he explains what this filling of the Spirit is.
[5:45] what it means by contrasting it with, with the experience of being drunk on wine. Okay? I know none of you have ever been drunk in your life.
[5:55] None of you have had one too many. So, you just got to stick with me and think through this in a purely theoretical sense. Okay? Because experientially, it is all foreign to you.
[6:06] Okay? So, what he said is, you know, one, one of the reasons people drink a bit too much is they're having challenges in their lives. Okay? If you're having challenges, you've got a horrible boss, and you've got a horrible lecturer, or something like that.
[6:22] Well, maybe not, you know, you want to, like, have extra bear. Why? Because you want to kind of forget about the challenges that you're facing. Right? So, what alcohol does, physiologically, is it's a depressant.
[6:38] Okay? It kind of lowers, it lowers the tempo in your life. It reduces your ability to tell what is real and what is not. Okay?
[6:50] It lowers your inhibitions. So, you know, people who are drunk love, believe that they all should be on America's Got Talent. Right? They love to sing, and, you know, and they have this perception that they can do anything they want.
[7:04] Like, jump, you know, a thousand, you know, jump up a building like Superman. And you see when people are drunk, they are, they're very bold. Okay? But they have no perception of what is real, and their own abilities.
[7:18] So, but the opposite of that is spirit-filled, Paul said. So, what a spirit-filled gives you? Being spirit-filled, what Paul is saying is, it gives you clarity. It gives you a higher perception of reality.
[7:31] And it enhances your control. Okay? So, what it means to be spirit-filled is you see more of reality. Okay? Not just the reality before your eyes.
[7:42] Okay? I'm a little bit older than a lot of you. So, one thing you learn as you get older is, reality is not just what is before your eyes, but the context of what is happening.
[7:53] Okay? The context of what is happening. So, context is as important to tell what is reality than exactly just what you see. So, I'll talk a little bit more about that. And then, to get, you have more control over your life.
[8:06] I don't know, can I ask a show of hands, who has more to do? Wait, I have a problem finishing off my to-do list. Okay? Both at work and at home.
[8:16] By the end of the day, I always have things left in my to-do list. Can I just have a show of hands? Who has a problem, who has more to do in a day than they can get done? Anybody?
[8:28] Okay. That's pretty, pretty good, right? I mean, that's, it's a common problem. We all have more to do in a day than we have time to do. Here's the problem.
[8:38] If you believe God, it's all-loving, all-powerful, and all-knowing God, He would not give you more things to do in a day than you can do.
[8:52] Agree with that? If God is all-powerful, so He can control everything, all-knowing, and all-loving, He would not give you more to do in a day than you can get done. He would not set you up to fail, in other words, right?
[9:05] Because He's all-loving. So just, I'm just, just logic here, okay? So, but the fact is, all of us have more to do in a day than we can deal with. So what does that mean?
[9:16] So, logically speaking, what it's saying is, there are things that we are trying to do and we're striving for in a day that God did not put in our day and are not good for us.
[9:28] But we are working really hard to try to get those things done, and it's causing stress in all our lives, okay? Wouldn't you like the wisdom and the discernment to tell the difference of what are the things that are good for you that God wants you to do and what are the things that are just urgent but not important?
[9:51] You know, we've got to separate the urgent but not important. So, what Paul is saying to Ephesians is, guys, I've got some advice for you. The key to discerning what is the difference between urgent and important is actually to be spirit-filled.
[10:08] Now, all of us feel overwhelmed. I don't know. I'm feeling more overwhelmed this year than I did last year than I did the year before that. And there's a, there was a really good book early on this year written by another New York Times journalist, Thomas Freeman, okay?
[10:28] Thomas Freeman, long-time New York Times journalist, writes about big issues and the book is called Thank You for Being Late, okay? And the whole reason for, it's a strange name, Thank You for Being Late.
[10:42] Why is it called Thank You for Being Late? Well, the third song we just sang before said, God is in the waiting. You know, if I had a postscript to that book, it'll be, Thank You for Being Late, God is in the waiting.
[10:55] We all need, what he's arguing is we need to take some time to push pause on our lives and hear what, hear the voice in our waiting. Now, he's not a Christian writer.
[11:07] So, what he's saying is the reason why we're all so frazzled is the rate of change caused by three things, technology, globalization, and environmental impact is accelerating, okay, exponentially.
[11:20] the changes in our lives to the point that this is the first time in human history that the change that we're experiencing, it's outpacing our ability to adapt to the change, okay?
[11:34] So, the change that is happening around us caused by globalization, technology, and environmental changes is outpacing our ability, our human ability to adapt to the change.
[11:46] So, that's why we're frazzled. This kind of change kind of happened, started to happen, he argued, in the 70s, okay? Now, in the 80s and 90s, we had, our solution to adapting to change was this concept of time management.
[12:02] There were all sorts of, you know, some of you are nodding your head, some of you are like, I wasn't even born yet. Anyway, there were all sorts of companies that sprung up that gave, that made all these specialized, patented diaries, you know, like, like Franklin Covey and Philofax, and you pay hundreds of dollars for these diaries for a very specialized patented process of how to do your to-do list better, and how do you check off your to-do list.
[12:31] So, our solution in the 80s and 90s to this faster pace of change was to write better to-do lists. That didn't really work, okay? So, in the late 90s, technology started creeping in, and companies like, you know, Palm, Palm Pilot, you know, most of you are like, what's Palm Pilot, okay?
[12:54] And BlackBerry, you know, most, some of you may have heard of BlackBerry, but, you know, what was kind of created in the late 90s, and that wasn't going to solve our problems, okay?
[13:09] I can see a lot of blank faces out there, especially when I mention Palm Pilot. Half of you don't know what it is, the other half is nodding, it's like having flashbacks of holding your palm trio, and listening to Britney Spears, you know, oops, I did it again.
[13:24] But that's the error, okay? But, anyway, they're kind of like early poor versions of iPhone, if you can imagine that. 2007, Steve Jobs made the iPhone, right? And then he said, this is a revolutionary device that's going to change everything.
[13:40] I think he was right, okay? But it's actually changed a lot of things he didn't intend to change. So, and we also, at that same time, we had the advent of cloud computing, okay?
[13:51] I won't go too techy into this, but the fact is, social media was birthed from cloud computing, okay? So, 2007, this is my life in 2007.
[14:04] Well, you know, does it look like a little bit of your life as well? Social media, okay, was meant to help us connect. Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and later Snapchat, was helped to connect with one another.
[14:17] But, the problem, as David Brooks said, it created thinner relationships, okay? He said, online, it's great, it's a great place for human contact, but not internet.
[14:28] intimacy. Online, it's a great place for information, but not reflection, okay? So, you know, you can't, most of our messaging, we may be messaging tens of people, I don't know, some of you may be messaging hundreds of people per day, but you're not having deep relationships.
[14:47] I mean, how deep can your relationship be if there's no words, but just emoji, or selfies with dog filters, okay? So, I'm not, giving you a hard time with the selfie with the dog filter, but I'm saying, that is not a relationship.
[15:05] That is something, I don't know what it is, but it's actually not a relationship, okay? So, cut down on the selfie with the dog filter. A couple weeks ago, I was in Hongxiao, visiting my youngest daughter, Lizzie, and, you know, Hongxiao is the home for Alibaba, and I just happened to be there on November 11th.
[15:27] You know, anybody know, Singles Day, right? 1-1-1-1, right? I don't know. Who made this thing up? Okay? Singles Day, biggest shopping day in China.
[15:40] And we were there on Saturday morning, and we drove out to look at some sites, and there was no traffic on the road. And the tour guide said, the reason there's no traffic on the road is everybody was up all night from midnight to 4 a.m.
[15:56] trying to get the best bargains. So, everybody's sleeping in this morning, right? So, and there was this sense of pride. By the end of that day, you know, China had bought $25 billion worth of stuff.
[16:11] I don't know, stocked up on toilet paper for three years, or something. $25 billion right? Which is like twice Black Friday, Cyber Monday, whatever it is.
[16:22] But the fact is, there was a national pride in how much we have spent on buying stuff that we don't need. Okay? It was like China won the World Cup when it crossed the $25 billion mark.
[16:34] So, there's something going on there, and we're spending, you know, Taobao and Amazon was meant to save us time. But we're actually spending a lot of time, I don't know about you, you know, I get hooked.
[16:46] I'm spending a lot of time going on these online shots, buying stuff that you don't need. Okay? You're not actually, if you're honest with us, not really saving us a lot of time.
[16:57] So, and here's the dirty little secret, okay? I work in the technology industry. Tech companies are not interested at all in saving you time.
[17:09] They have zero interest, okay, of all saving you time. what they want is for you to spend more time on their platforms. It could be on their devices, on their social media platform.
[17:23] Why? The more time you spend there, the more value there is for advertisers who advertise to you for you to buy more stuff, which can be delivered from the SF tomorrow, right?
[17:35] So, the fact here is technology, you know, we say, well, technology is going to save so much time. Tech companies are not interested, okay? And you say, wow, that's very evil, very conspiracy theory, okay?
[17:50] Give you a couple examples. Snapchat. Who uses Snapchat? Okay, you don't have to be ashamed of it. I didn't say, who uses Snapchat only using dog filters? Okay.
[18:03] Snapchat. Okay. Okay. Snapchat has latest, latest, not the latest, the big thing, Snapchat is Snapstreak, right? For those of you who don't know what Snapstreak is, you know, it's basically, you're Snapchatting a friend and you need to Snapchat each other every day to keep that streak going.
[18:22] And people have one year, two year, really long streaks, hundreds of days, right? And you feel a lot of pressure on, I got to snap something to my friend, and otherwise, I'm going to break the streak.
[18:36] Okay? That, in marketing, is called a compulsive loop. Okay? Or hijacking technology. So, what is happening is technologies, tech companies are building systems into, to keep you on the system.
[18:55] Okay? Newsfeeds. If you look at how newsfeeds are read, you go into CNN, BBC, see, it doesn't matter, any, having, whatever, the news stories actually go down in a spiral.
[19:07] It's a bottomless bowl and it leads you to a next story, next story, next story, next story. Okay? Because there's always a different colour click-through to go to the next story. Okay?
[19:17] And, that's to keep you on the news site for longer. Okay? Online gaming, if you're a gamer, there are incentives for you. In fact, there are penalties.
[19:28] If you don't play every day, there are penalties. You drop down the league table and so forth. Right? I mean, for those of you who spend a lot of time on the platform, you know this. And worse than, well, I wouldn't say worse.
[19:41] Most of all, social media platforms are very, very smart and they give irregular time rewards because then you have to check it, check your Facebook and check Instagram all the time to get this burst of social affirmation.
[19:57] What is social affirmation? Your likes, your followers. Okay? Trust me, those likes don't appear immediately. Okay? There's timing involved. So, social affirmation is a dangerous thing and most of you know you can actually go on certain sites to buy likes which is, you know, kind of weird but anyway, you can buy likes so suddenly your post has got more likes than actually there was people who liked it.
[20:30] But what social affirmation is leading to? You know, a month ago I had to do a little study on a subject I have no knowledge of and that's cosmetics because I was talking to a client who makes cosmetics and I was trying to talk to him about technology so I thought I better learn about cosmetics otherwise I'm going to look like a right Philistine in the cosmetic industry.
[20:54] So, I studied the cosmetic industry for a few days and one thing I found was cosmetic industry has been going through a boom in the last five years. Exponential boom.
[21:04] Selling more than ever. Okay? And the boom was driven by this one concept social beauty. Okay? And what is social beauty? You can probably guess right?
[21:15] It's look good on your selfies on your Instagram or on your whatever you're posting you're doing. Okay? Social beauty is driving a boom in the cosmetic industry especially with foundation and lipstick and eyeliner less so with nail products because I figured if you can see nail products in your selfie that means your fingers actually covering the camera so this just around the face.
[21:41] Okay? That's the boom. Do not this is not booming. So but on top of that I also found out about this app Me Too. Now there's a lot of people in denial out there saying I don't know what Me Too is.
[21:56] I never used it before in my life. It's the number one selfie filter app in China. Okay? I see some nodding heads. So you take a picture you don't have to do your makeup.
[22:08] Okay? You take a picture and then you put in these filters and basically by the time you post it you can't even recognize yourself. You look so good. Right? The problem and by the way this is not like 50,000 downloads.
[22:21] There's over a billion downloads of Me Too. Okay? It's a multi-billion dollar company. I say a billion downloads. That's a lot of downloads. Okay? Of the app. So you know if I confiscate everybody's smartphone right now and see who has the Me Too app you know there will be a good bunch of people here with the Me Too app.
[22:42] Okay? I'm just saying so one of the problems is we are blurring the line between reality and and and and what is fake. And we got a lot of pressure.
[22:54] We as a society have put a lot of pressure on people and put on on ourselves on this social affirmation and this social beauty. technology ain't the solve for our razzled out of control life.
[23:09] Okay? And last and certainly not least a lot of a lot of news articles out and Economist Front cover two weeks ago said the social the quote was social media's threat to democracy and basically it was the story about Facebook and and Russian fake news and dissemination of that.
[23:30] so we live in a more complex society with this technology. We have a lot more new pressure that the Ephesians didn't have but you know but but also the problem that solution is still the same.
[23:45] Paul's advice to the Ephesians works for us today. What Paul is saying is only if you have the spirit active in your life that you're going to see more of reality and you're going to have more control in your life.
[24:02] Okay. The recognition that actually 2,000 years ago on a hill in Calvary that Christ died on the cross for us have given us that victory frees us from that social affirmation seeking tendency.
[24:18] Frees us from that social beauty seeking tendency. We won't feel so enslaved by that. So does that mean the challenges that we face before us are all not real?
[24:33] No. It doesn't. We all face real challenges in our lives but what having a spirit filled life means is that we will not be crushed by those challenges. We will see a reality that is deeper and that is more real.
[24:51] Now I'll give you an example. In the Old Testament do you remember that there's a story of Elisha? Elisha was in a place called Dothran and he was there with his servant and the king of Syria wanted to kill Elisha so what he did is sent an army with chariots and soldiers and in the morning Elisha and the servant woke up and he looks over the wall and he sees oh we're surrounded by thousands of Syrian soldiers okay with their chariots and the servant runs down and says to Elisha we're in trouble we are dead the Syrian king has sent an army and we're going to capture and we're going to get killed and Elisha said let's get drunk no he didn't of course he didn't get to say that he said the contract he said he said let us pray and what did Elisha pray about Elisha prayed that God will open the servant's eyes
[25:53] Elisha didn't say send down lightning bolt and destroy the Syrian army he said God will open the servant's eyes and when the servant went back up on the wall all the Syrian army was still there if you remember but what he saw behind them were the chariots of fire okay so you know so I'm not saying by having a spirit filled life that you know all your problems are going to go away but what you will have is a perspective that you can see more of reality you get able to see past the problems that is right in front of you you know one of the one of the challenges we have you know we live in a spiritual battle okay in Ephesians where we're told our battle is not just in flesh and blood but our battle is in the cosmic realms and one of the things the enemy want us and want all of us to be focused on is the problems in our lives and he wants those problems to amplify and you know we're all pessimists when it comes to problems we think oh this is just going to turn into this this is going to turn into this you know my kid did not get into that play group therefore he is not going to get into that kindergarten therefore he's not going to get into that primary school and that high school and that university and he's going to sleep under a bridge it's a big leap you know but you know what we all do this because when we see a problem in our life we focus on that and the enemy want us to be overwhelmed by that problem okay and what the Holy
[27:35] Spirit does it clarifies that for you and it's say look at this in the perspective of what Christ has already done for us you have the victory you don't need to be crushed by this problem okay so that's I think you know the essence of that clarity of what the Holy Spirit can give us the other thing within that verse in Ephesians 5 is it talks about what are some of the other signs of being a spirit-filled life and you know this this I really like firstly it clearly talks about it maybe go back up one slide to the previous slide it clearly talks about addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs okay not all of us can hold a tune I can't hold a tune I'm terrible music wise but when you're spirit filled you want to sing praise to God not in tune always but the fact that you want to be able to praise God why music and songs allows us to express things that are in our heart that prose and words cannot okay there's something magic that happens when we sing even out of tune okay that we can express a praise and a gratitude that words when you're just reading and writing doesn't happen okay so that's that's one second thing of signs of a spirit filled life is somebody you can see it back here giving thanks always somebody who lives a life of gratitude okay we we've all known what's the opposite of gratitude complaining and
[29:18] C.S. Lewis used the word grumbling that's probably a more old English word but complaining right things are never right it's always somebody else's fault this is no good you know so and so doesn't my boss doesn't understand my talents and my desires and how great I'm going to make this company and he keeps on asking me to do these things where I should be doing strategy you know that's you know the fact here is grumbling is a sign that you don't have spiritual life C.S. Lewis wrote about this in his book The Great Divorce and he said in it he said in all of us he said hell begins with a grumbling mood always complaining and always blaming others if you and what he's saying is if you don't deal with it soon you have nothing but a grumble and finally he said but in each of us there's something growing which will be hell unless we nip it in the bud that sense of grumbling that sense of ingratitude to God is growing in all of us we always want to look around and see hey you know what so and so doesn't really understand and you know so and so is not really recognizing me but the fact is if you're spirit filled you don't need that maybe the opposite of gratitude is neediness you know we all know people that are super needy okay
[30:51] I call them emotional vampires okay and you can have a coffee with them next minute turns into four hours of why life is not good for me and why it's not my fault and it is draining that's why it's an emotional vampire right so but the fact here is if you're spirit filled you're not going to be an emotional vampire okay if you want to break out of your emotional vampire-ness spirit filled is the answer we've also known people that are always full of joy despite their circumstances right they have this sense of optimism about them they're poised that you know probably not a word we use a lot nowadays they're poised and they're in control and when bad things happen in their life they have emotional ballast you know what a ballast is is things that in a boat that keeps you afloat right so they have this emotional ballast that they can stay afloat in stormy situations okay so don't we all want that don't we all want kind of poised emotional ballast and a joy that is absent from that you're independent
[32:02] I mean from our circumstances so the last and certainly key piece is how do we get to be spirit filled okay so here's the application how do we and we're told there are three things we've got to do okay as I search the scripture one is to do and two is things to watch out for the first thing is Romans 8 13 said if you live according to the flesh you will die but if the spirit but by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body what this is saying is put to death sin that sounds like a seriously difficult task what does put to death sin in our lives mean okay now I'm going to give you a step by step it's actually it's not one big thing it's a journey and it's a constant small things that we do okay so put to death is more than repentance it's more than just asking for forgiveness so normally you know we do something we know sin we come to God and say
[33:11] God we're really sorry I shouldn't have done that I'm facing the consequence now but you know what I'm asking for forgiveness and we are assured of forgiveness because of what Christ has done on the cross for us and then we move on and then we sin again and then we go into repentance stage two right and we move on what put to death means here and the King James version used an old word called mortification but put to death as being proactive in dealing with our sins how do we proactively deal with our sins okay firstly the first thing you have to do is I highly recommend a journal I highly recommend you get a book a notebook and write this down something happens magically when you write something down it becomes much more real and you process it in a different way okay don't even use notes in your iPhone or your Samsung and type it get a piece of paper and write this thing down identify the sin that you're trying to deal with not all the sins in your life okay just pick one
[34:16] I'm angry with so and so so and so said something and I feel slighted or I'm angry with so and so for not replying to my what happened messages within the designated you know three minute period okay or something like that whatever is the sin you're trying to deal with write that down okay you're struggling with second thing is try to answer what is the motivation why do I feel angry what is the motivation behind that okay a lot of time that could be pride it could be other things write that down and then answer the question why would Christ be saddened why would Christ be saddened by me being stuck in this sin also journal this write this down so you know start off with identify the sin what's the motivation behind it why would Christ be saddened by it okay and then why doesn't
[35:17] Christ want me to be stuck in this cycle of sin you know and then why is it bad for me simple why is this sin bad for me you say well it's not you know I quite enjoy it at the moment but for the long and for the medium and longer term why would this sin have an impact on me and those around me okay so it's simple just five points but write this down this is the process of putting to death sin and then search and read the scripture and look at the Bible and the answers of all those questions are in the Bible and you can search and ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you and reveal to you why is Christ saddened by this sin who am I impacting around me with this sin apart from myself you're certainly impacting yourself okay and then journal that I would just say take time and this is not a one off
[36:18] I'm gonna get it done and then boom I'm done this is a daily process what we are told in the scripture is put to death sin in our lives daily okay so take time and just do it maybe you can't do it every day maybe you just do it twice a week schedule twice a week just five minutes in your journal just do look at what are the sins this last week that has been bothering me and how can I get ahead of it how can I deal with it before it overwhelms me okay now because I think the key thing here is understanding how that sin grieves God okay what does that mean make saddens God okay so I'm gonna one thing we do two things we gotta watch out for the key of overcoming sin is understanding how that sin grieves the one who died on the cross for us okay so there's some parents out here okay if you're not a parent you have parents okay so
[37:21] I'm just gonna use a parenting example okay maybe you are the cause of this parenting dilemma but here if you're a parent you've spent time in sacrificing and nurturing your child with a hope of this child achieve his or her potential and this child have joy in their life and so forth right now you may not have experienced this but if you have a three year old you probably have from now at some point the child whatever advice you give them they're just gonna do the opposite okay not only will they do the opposite they will stop at a moment turn around and look at you and say dad the reason you don't want me to stay out to three in the morning is you just do not want me to be happy I'm five years old come on okay you just don't want me to be happy you want me to live a miserable life my sister's two
[38:30] I can understand for her she should not be out to three but I am five okay you just maybe you haven't heard that maybe you've said that okay now take that it's an imperfect example because parents are flawed human parents are flawed and we have flawed motives and we don't have full knowledge but when God wants us to do something gives us advice to do something and we turn around and say God I'm not going to do that because you just don't want me to be happy okay and we do that every day the sad thing is we do that every day and not only did they you know give up a little something for us God gave up his son paid that price and we turn around and we lift our nose and we wave our finger at him and say you don't want me to do this thing it's cramping my lifestyle you just don't love me and you don't want me to be happy and that's what we do every day and you got to take that and put it on top of when you're trying to put to death the sin and think through it in that context and it will give you a whole new perspective of the sin we all know the sin is wrong we all know it's not good for us so it's you know we've known that and we haven't been able to stop right it hasn't really helped us it's not the lack of knowledge it's actually the thing the most powerful thing that's going to help us overcome sin is actually understanding how it grieves us okay so I'm just going to kind of wrap up soon here the last thing is in 1
[40:14] Thessalonians 5.19 it says do not quench the spirit what is quench the spirit mean okay last week I think BJ shared in here to talk about prophecy one of the things we talked about is the Holy Spirit speaks into our lives if you look at that third song in the waiting the spirit is speaking to us in our waiting okay the spirit speaks into us through personal revelations it could be through scripture it could be through prayer it could be in times of worship okay at that time when the spirit speaks to you and asks you to join him in something you have a choice you have a choice to either say yes you know what I'm going to step out I'm going to do it or most of the time we're saying you know what I'm kind of busy this week maybe I'll get back to it next week okay so by saying we're busy this week I'll get back to it next week that's quenching the spirit okay so I'm not talking about sin now
[41:17] I'm talking about the Holy Spirit is calling you and want to hang out okay want to hang out with you and you're saying you know what I'm kind of busy take a rain check lots of nice excuses dog ate my homework you know and you know I can't I can't I can't and after a while you know after those 27,000 whatsapp messages to say hey let's go and hang out and get a coffee and spend some time with me you're going to stop hearing those it's not because God stopped sending them you will not notice those anymore okay so God continued to call out to us but we continue when we ignore him and we say you know I'm too busy it's going to be hard for us to keep hearing that okay in Luke 418 we talked about the spirit of the Lord is upon me because we have been because he has anointed me to proclaim the good news to the poor and sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recover sights to the blind now that is God calling us
[42:23] God is calling us to join him in his work he doesn't need us by the way I mean just in case you're thinking God really needs me to go and save the world he doesn't okay he can do it without you he's sending an invitation to say hey do you want to come and join me and hang out and while we maybe do this thing together you'll get to know me a little better okay that is what is happening okay so we've heard basically what he's saying is I want you know I want to check up on so and so I want to like you know so and so has been off your radar I want to check up on so and so and I want you to be my instrument to do that I want to share the gospel with this person and I want you to be my voice I want to lift this person out out of the situation that they're in and I want us to do it together that's when the spirit is calling you we've heard some things this morning with sons and daughters you know going to the dinner as well as donating next week we have the walk a thon with
[43:32] Ebenezer God is calling us to join him in these things okay you don't have to join everyone but if you're hearing God asking you to join and you are ignoring that and saying I'm busy you're quenching the spirit I mean I don't know any other way to put it that's that is what's happening okay so he wants to hang out with you and he wants to hang out in these activities with you and he is keep on calling you okay we're not calling him he is calling us so in summary the answers to the problems we have in 2007 is not going to come from AI it ain't going to come from blockchain and it ain't going to come from your next killer iPhone okay if you want to have better control of your life if you want to have a better discernment on what is real and what's fake and you want to have joy that transcends all the circumstances and difficult circumstances in your life then invite the spirit into your life okay take time and start on this journey of putting to death our sins one at a time slowly and it's going to be up and down rocky journey but start doing that focus on be careful not to grieve the spirit understand how by sinning we're grieving
[44:58] God and focus and respond when God is calling you and saying hey let's go and hang out step out in faith maybe I've never been to that place before I'm not sure I'm going to be really good at hanging out at that place God is just saying just come out you'll be surprised okay and just come and hang out with me so with that I just want to kind of close it off with a prayer for us and ask the spirit to come into our lives let us bow our heads Lord we just want to give you thanks we give you thanks that you've brought us here today you've given us a spirit at the highest cost that is possible Lord that you have put your son on that cross so that we may receive the spirit and that spirit is here to guide us through the journey of life in this world and Lord that there's so many things that you have installed for us but yet we fill our day with so many things that are not good for us
[46:04] Lord help us discern what is intended for you what you intend for our day and let us put aside those things that we may be striving for that we may think will make us happy but ultimately they will come out empty we just ask you that we can step out in faith when you come calling when you're messaging us that we can take our faith and just walk in one step out to say you know what I'm going to spend a little bit time with you and serving the needs around us Lord we just want to lift us up to you in the name of our Lord Jesus Amen