Latest / Citipointe Church Caboolture / What the Spirit desires | Ps Rachel Eaton
Transcript
- 0:02Hey, welcome to the City Point Church podcast.
- 0:04Thanks for joining us. Every day is an opportunity to
- 0:07take hold of, so we hope this message inspires you and builds
- 0:11your faith, but it helps you have more of the God perspective
- 0:14for your day. Enjoy.
- 0:18The time of the message this morning is what the Spirit
- 0:21desires. So I'd love to open up God's
- 0:24Word, His Holy Bible. We are going to read from Romans
- 0:2885 and it says this. Those who live according to the
- 0:34flesh have their mind set on what the flesh desires, but
- 0:37those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their mind
- 0:40set on what the Spirit desires, what the Spirit desires.
- 0:50When we talk about what Holy Spirit desires, it actually
- 0:54gives us insight into the fact into the the personhood of who
- 0:58He is. Holy Spirit is more than a
- 1:01feeling, He's more than a force, He's more than power.
- 1:08He's a person, and he is a person who can be delighted and
- 1:14offended. His desire is to glorify Jesus
- 1:21and the Father in everything that he does and he does this by
- 1:26working through us, on us and in us.
- 1:34When we speak about Holy Spirit, this is not a light hearted
- 1:38thing. We have the Spirit of God
- 1:41Almighty. He's the Spirit of Jesus.
- 1:46This is a age-old spirit. He was there hovering over the
- 1:52waters as creation was formed. He was right there.
- 1:56He is the Spirit of all wisdom, all knowledge.
- 2:00He's very clever. He knows all things, and he has
- 2:04the love of Jesus here to pour out and to reveal to us His
- 2:10great love and purpose for you. He's the Spirit, the Spirit that
- 2:14was there that raised Jesus from the dead.
- 2:17He was there in that moment, and he's right here with us, the
- 2:24Holy Spirit. He lives inside of us.
- 2:26That's what the Bible says. And so when we engage him, a
- 2:32good question to ask is what do you desire, Holy Spirit?
- 2:40What do you want to see? Spirit of God, What do you want
- 2:45to reveal in me? What do you want to reveal about
- 2:50Jesus? What do you want to highlight in
- 2:54His Word? What do you want to do?
- 2:57What do you want to start? What do you want to stop?
- 3:02What's your will? The Bible says that the Holy
- 3:07Spirit, he's here to empower people to preach, lead, lead
- 3:13people to give their lives to Jesus, be sent out, perform
- 3:18miracles, see signs and wonders, speak God's word either in
- 3:22testimony or prophetically. He wants to see people healed,
- 3:26transformed, delivered, set free.
- 3:29And He does this through you and I.
- 3:31It is His desire to see these things established through you
- 3:35and I. And so Holy Spirit is so
- 3:40obsessed to be intimately in the process of our spiritual growth.
- 3:48He's obsessed with us and our spiritual growth.
- 3:52And he begins the trend of the process of transforming us more
- 3:57and more and more into the likeness of who He is, of what
- 4:02He desires. This is actually where Unity
- 4:05begins. When he invites us into the
- 4:08process to to understand what he desires, it's less of us and
- 4:14more of him. And that's where Unity begins to
- 4:16take place because we become more and more and more into his
- 4:21desires, into his likeness, into his character, what the Spirit
- 4:28desires as signs and wonders with crusades of thousands of
- 4:33people with miracle working power.
- 4:37It is a wonderful part of the Holy Spirit.
- 4:41It is a part that this church does experience on some levels,
- 4:45and I am convinced it is a part that we will see more and more
- 4:50and more of. I know we will.
- 4:53However, it's a part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
- 4:59Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on
- 5:02what the flesh desires, but those who live in accordance
- 5:05with the Spirit have their Can their mind set on what the
- 5:08Spirit desires? What's your mind set on?
- 5:15What's it think about? What consumes it?
- 5:18Is it work, bills. Relationships?
- 5:25When we talk about Holy Spirit, we can set our minds on what He
- 5:32desires. What does He desire?
- 5:36What does he want to do in you? What does he want to do through
- 5:40you? I, I imagine this a little bit
- 5:44like taking a walk with someone, you know, building a
- 5:49relationship with Holy Spirit. It's not that unlike building
- 5:53one with any other person that you have a relationship with.
- 5:57It's time spent and it's taking a walk when I walk arm in arm
- 6:03with my husband and we might go down.
- 6:06You know, he, he never liked trees.
- 6:08I don't think he ever noticed a single tree or a plant is his
- 6:11entire life. And then he met me and we would
- 6:14go on romantic walks together. I'd be like, look at this
- 6:16amazing tree and look at how this plant forms and this one's
- 6:20got flow and look at the texture of this.
- 6:22And all of a sudden he starts to see things that he wouldn't have
- 6:29otherwise seen because we're in relationship and we're going for
- 6:34a walk. And all of a sudden your
- 6:36perspective starts to change because you start seeing things,
- 6:40you start valuing things that the person that you're walking
- 6:44with is singing or or talking about.
- 6:48Now when we go for walks, he's like, Rach, what do you think
- 6:50about this tree? What about this?
- 6:52And he's taking photos and he's Googling it in the right
- 6:55environments and it can grow and how big it will get.
- 6:58Not that one, Rachel, that's six feet.
- 7:00No, it's too tall. And so we have these
- 7:02conversations when I go shopping with my daughter.
- 7:07Yeah. She pointed out that there was a
- 7:08Sephora shop. I don't know what a Sephora shop
- 7:11is. I'm sure Pastor Melanie does any
- 7:15right. Some of you here know, some of
- 7:18you don't. It's OK.
- 7:19You need to take a walk with a younger person.
- 7:23And we're walking. And she goes, oh, Mum, look at
- 7:24this. I now see Sephora shops
- 7:27everywhere because I've learnt to see and value something
- 7:32because I've spent time with someone, right?
- 7:37You start to see things that you didn't see before when you walk
- 7:42closely with someone building relationship with the Holy
- 7:47Spirit, it's not that unlike building a relationship with
- 7:52anyone, one person that you desire to, we're actually built
- 7:56in His image. He created and designed us in
- 7:59his image. And so the key to relationship
- 8:02with him, it's not that unlike how you would build a
- 8:06relationship here when you spend time with Holy Spirit, walk with
- 8:12him. Listen, lean in.
- 8:18You're going to start to see what he values.
- 8:21You're going to start to see things from his perspective.
- 8:25You're going to start to understand what he desires.
- 8:33You start to see what's actually important.
- 8:39When we come, when we come to Jesus, sometimes we come a bit
- 8:44broken. Now beautiful Jesus, when he
- 8:47died on the cross, he said that while we were sinners, he died
- 8:50for us and the Holy Spirit testifies this to us, why we
- 8:54were sinners. The thing is, is that when we
- 8:56come to Jesus, we're often a little bit broken.
- 9:00We often have it's almost, I imagine, like wearing a a jacket
- 9:03that's got buttons and when you you press certain buttons out
- 9:08will come a different personality.
- 9:10That's not always pretty right? We have triggers, we have hurts,
- 9:15we have fast, we have filters that we process things through.
- 9:21And so when we come and we just take a walk with Holy Spirit, he
- 9:27kind of mellows out the buttons and will reveal to you what's
- 9:32actually important. Sometimes you think that that
- 9:36this particular circumstance or what that person said or the
- 9:40fact that the church is black is the most important thing in the
- 9:44whole world. And this is the thing that needs
- 9:46attention on. This is what we need to pay
- 9:48attention to. And then you just go for a walk
- 9:50with Holy Spirit and, and he kind of mellows out the buttons.
- 9:55Our buttons, they're not his buttons, They're our buttons,
- 9:59our filter. And then our buttons kind of get
- 10:02filtered. True Holy Spirit, and we start
- 10:07to see things through his perspective.
- 10:10We start to see what's really important.
- 10:15I'll be honest, there's there's no shortcut in this process.
- 10:20If you want to build a relationship with someone, it's
- 10:23time spent. There's no person here that you
- 10:28have great relationship with that you've had a 5 minute
- 10:31conversation with over, you know, a telephone call, not even
- 10:35face to face. You know, relationship is built
- 10:38with time spent walking it out with Holy Spirit.
- 10:42What the Spirit desires. He's here to transform us more
- 10:47and more into His likeness. So one of the ways to understand
- 10:53what Holy Spirit desires actually found in his word, He
- 10:57tells us he's really, he's not shy, He's not discreet about it.
- 11:01He actually wrote it all down for us in the beautiful Bible.
- 11:04And so let's bring up the Bible in Galatians 522 to 23 where it
- 11:09reads about the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
- 11:13But the fruit of the Spirit is Lovejoy, peace, forbearance,
- 11:24kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control.
- 11:31Against such such things there is no such law.
- 11:35It is Holy Spirit's desire to see these fruits developed in
- 11:39our life and out worked in our life.
- 11:43In other words, they are the result of taking a walk, walking
- 11:49closely with Him. And these are the fruits that
- 11:53start to feature. They're the fruits that start to
- 11:56show walking things out with Him.
- 11:58Holy Spirit might call for peace in your mind and it can be
- 12:03racing and full of fear and worry and anxiety and stress.
- 12:08And don't you know that the mortgage is due next week, Lord?
- 12:12But as you walk with Holy Spirit, you kind of start to see
- 12:17things from his perspective and faith comes in.
- 12:21He's the great revealer of Jesus.
- 12:24So you can't spend time with Holy Spirit and not have faith
- 12:28come in and dwell on the inside of you.
- 12:31You start to see things through a God perspective.
- 12:35He need leads you to peace and you start to mellow out and
- 12:38chill out a bit and go, right, You're so stressed and anxious
- 12:43and then you come in and then go, OK, it's going to be OK.
- 12:49The Spirit wants to bring joy into your heart.
- 12:52But often your flesh will struggle with that comment, with
- 12:56that, with that person, with that act that they did.
- 13:00And so you want to sit here and boil in anger and then you go
- 13:05for a walk, walk with Holy Spirit and you can be fuming.
- 13:11And then he just kind of just starts pointing out, have you
- 13:15considered this? Have you considered my word?
- 13:19Have you considered the situation?
- 13:22Have you considered it? And you start to see things
- 13:24through his perspective and it brings this great calm and your
- 13:30heart begins to soften. Holy Spirit desires for you to
- 13:39understand and be fully convinced of the love of Jesus.
- 13:44That's actually what He's here to do.
- 13:46He is here to reveal God's love. And now I just pray over this
- 13:51place that through this message and through leaning in and
- 13:55through taking walks with him, that you would be fully
- 13:58convinced and that you would know of the love of God that let
- 14:01it fill your heart to overflowing.
- 14:04I pray in this place right now that in the depths of those
- 14:07spaces where you think he's abandoned you, where you think
- 14:10he's disappointed, where you think he doesn't want to live, I
- 14:13just pray right now that you would be convinced of the love
- 14:17of Jesus that says that he died for you while you were sinners.
- 14:21He still dies for you. That's for all time.
- 14:25Just pray right now. Anyway, sorry, off tangent a
- 14:29little bit. Holy Spirit desires, He wants
- 14:31you to be fully convinced of God's love.
- 14:34But you know, sometimes we want to sit in condemnation.
- 14:38Oh no, no, no, God, I don't deserve it.
- 14:41I know that you, you want to develop this in my life or you
- 14:44want to see this come out, but I can't because of this.
- 14:48I can't because I'm not worthy. I know I'm, I'm stuck here just
- 14:51just and you put up balls to the Holy Spirit.
- 14:55But he's here to, to minister and to reveal the love of Jesus,
- 15:00what he did on that cross, what it means for you, what he wants
- 15:04to bring you into. And we figured this out by
- 15:10taking a walk, walking it out with him, bringing it before
- 15:14him, let him start to crack through the filters of those
- 15:17walls that we put up. But it can be a bit of a
- 15:21battleground within us. So these things, they're not
- 15:26things that we need to sit here and feel bad about.
- 15:31They're not things that we need to sit here and go and just get
- 15:34all heavy about. Just look up.
- 15:37Holy Spirit is here to help you. He wants to help.
- 15:41He wants to lead you to life. He wants to.
- 15:44He wants God's love to pour out. He wants you to be fully
- 15:47convinced. He wants to develop gifts within
- 15:50you. He just wants to lead you
- 15:53through. He wants to strengthen you in
- 15:56your weaknesses. And He wants to help you with
- 16:01all of it. If if you want help with all of
- 16:05it, see, He's a person and he's not.
- 16:10He's not controlling. He's not going to push his way
- 16:12in. He'll wait to be invited.
- 16:17He'll wait for you to come to him.
- 16:19He's not controlling. He's not forceful.
- 16:23He's not like, aggressively controlling over your life.
- 16:28No, he'll wait. He loves you and he's obsessed
- 16:33with your spiritual development and so he will.
- 16:37If you desire, He will strengthen you with His power if
- 16:41you allow him. Let's have a look at Acts 1/8 on
- 16:45this day of Pentecost. Acts 18 reads.
- 16:50But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you,
- 16:54and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and
- 16:57Samaria to the ends of the earth.
- 16:59You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.
- 17:05Yes for miracles, yes for signs and wonders, yes for the large
- 17:11crusades, but also to strengthen the weaknesses in your life.
- 17:15Listen to this. In Ephesians 316 it reads, I
- 17:18pray out of his glorious riches that He may strengthen you with
- 17:23power through His Spirit in your inner being.
- 17:27That word power is the same word, the same power that
- 17:33performs the, the miraculous, the the, the, the, the legs that
- 17:38grow, the backs that straighten the the eyes that actually open
- 17:43that we saw last year at the miracle service.
- 17:46That same power is the same power that works in us to
- 17:52strengthen us. It's the same power.
- 17:58He wants to strengthen you. He wants to strengthen you in
- 18:02your weaknesses. Let's just have a sit down
- 18:04moment here about that word strengthen.
- 18:10What is it to strengthen something?
- 18:13If something needs to be strengthened, it's probably a
- 18:17little bit weak, right? I've got Stew in the audience.
- 18:21The Stew, my good friend over there who's a bit of a gym
- 18:25junkie. So if you're at the gym and your
- 18:30instructor, what are they called?
- 18:32Are they instructors, teachers? We need one person, Ryan.
- 18:37Oh, it's Milena. What is it?
- 18:39Personal trainer. APT.
- 18:42Is that what they're called? OK, Stu.
- 18:44Sorry, my friend. So a personal trainer, if a
- 18:48personal trainer comes to you and says, Stu, this particular
- 18:52area is weak, does that mean that we just ignore it and then
- 18:58don't give it any attention? Is that what they do?
- 19:02They train it like more intensely, so the weak spot has
- 19:09to get more work done to it. Does that hurt?
- 19:19I feel like you're lying. When there's a weak spot that
- 19:28needs to be strengthened, sometimes it hurts.
- 19:34OK, sometimes it hurts. It doesn't mean that we ignore
- 19:39the area, doesn't mean you just cut it off and just go, oh,
- 19:44don't worry about it. We don't need that arm.
- 19:48It means that the weak spot now needs to get radical attention.
- 19:52And sometimes that is going to hurt Holy Spirit by his power.
- 20:00He won't always remove the the the weak areas in your life.
- 20:05But He will give you power from on high to overcome, to
- 20:11strengthen those areas what you were once couldn't do before.
- 20:16By His power, you can now do what you were too weak to
- 20:21overcome before. By His power from on high, you
- 20:25can now overcome. And some of you might be sitting
- 20:27here with some hard stuff and going, This is hard.
- 20:34Where are you, Lord? Why is this here?
- 20:38Some of you with the hard stuff have even come out with this
- 20:42statement. It must be an attack.
- 20:47It must be from the devil. I understand that the enemy
- 20:53attacks. I'm living proof of it.
- 20:56He attacks spiritual pests is what they are, and it's the same
- 21:01antidote for them all as they come.
- 21:02It's just the blood of Jesus. If you submitted to God and
- 21:05resist the devil, he has to go. He has to go.
- 21:09He has to go, friends, Not everything that's hard is a
- 21:15spiritual attack. Not everything that hurts is a
- 21:20devil. Do you know the devil?
- 21:24He's he's not omnipresent. He actually can't be in more
- 21:29than one place at one time. There's not a devil hiding under
- 21:33every rock. Every time you experience pain
- 21:40or if something's hurting, it's not necessarily an attack from
- 21:43the devil. Let's have a look at this in the
- 21:45Bible. Let's bring up a nice long
- 21:47story. I'll just take a breath and
- 21:50we'll come and read this. Matthew 16, three to 23.
- 21:53Hold on. This is about Peter and it says
- 21:57when Jesus came to the region of I can never say that word
- 22:00Saraya. Thank you.
- 22:02So what that word Philippi? He asked his disciples, people
- 22:07who do say that the son of people, who do you say that the
- 22:10Son of man is? Well, they replied, some say
- 22:14John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say Jeremiah
- 22:17or one of the other prophets. Then he asked them, but who do
- 22:21you say I am? And Simon Peter, good old Simon,
- 22:24he's got a great response. You are the Messiah, the Son of
- 22:29the living God. And then Jesus gets out his big
- 22:32Gold Star book and goes to plant one right on Peter.
- 22:36And Jesus says this you are blessed Simon, son of John,
- 22:40because my Father in heaven has not revealed this to you.
- 22:43You did not learn this from any human being.
- 22:45Now I say to you that you are Peter, which means rock and upon
- 22:49on this rock I will build my church and all of the powers of
- 22:52hell will not conquer it. And I will give you the keys to
- 22:55the Kingdom of heaven. Whatever you forbid on earth
- 22:58will be forbidden in heaven and whatever you commit on earth
- 23:01will be permitted in heaven. And Peter's like I am like
- 23:05totally teacher's pet at the moment.
- 23:08I've had this amazing moment. I've had spiritual eyes to see,
- 23:14to see what the what's going on in the Kingdom.
- 23:18I've got spiritual eyes to see what Holy Spirit is, is, is
- 23:23moving in and what he can do. And I've got my big shiny Gold
- 23:26Star that Jesus just gave to me. This is great.
- 23:30Then everyone say, then here we are.
- 23:38Then he, Stanley warned the disciples not to tell anyone
- 23:41that he was the Messiah. From then on, Jesus began to
- 23:44tell his disciples plainly that it was necessary for him to go
- 23:48to Jerusalem and that he would suffer many terrible things at
- 23:51the hands of the elders, the leading priests and teachers of
- 23:55religious law. He would be killed, but on the
- 23:58third day he would be raised from the dead.
- 24:00But Peter with his big shiny Gold Star that he got 5 minutes
- 24:06ago took him aside and began to reprimand Jesus The Walking
- 24:12living word of God to saying such things.
- 24:17Heaven forbid Lord, he said, this will never happen to you.
- 24:24And Jesus turned to Peter and said get away from me Satan, you
- 24:29are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely
- 24:32from a human point of view and not from gods.
- 24:39Ouch Ouch. Peter was like I was just 5
- 24:44minutes ago, commended for my spiritual mind and then snap.
- 24:51He went from like 0 as a hero to 0 right from ducks to dunce in 5
- 24:57minutes. His natural mind missed what was
- 25:07going on spiritually. He said, Oh no, this is an
- 25:14attack. Not so, Lord, I'm not going to
- 25:19stand for this. This will not happen on my
- 25:23watch. It wasn't an attack.
- 25:28It was the plan. Our natural minds can miss what
- 25:37Holy Spirit's doing. We got to just stop.
- 25:41You know what happened in this story?
- 25:43Peter was a very fast-paced man. You see that because he's always
- 25:47talking or doing things before he has a moment to think.
- 25:50He was fast. Slow down.
- 25:55What is the Spirit desire? What is the Spirit doing?
- 25:58Where is Holy Spirit in this? Go take a walk, right?
- 26:04Not everything that happens is an attack from the enemy.
- 26:08If I'm can I actually grab the muses up, please?
- 26:11If I'm late for work, 10 minutes late for work because I've got
- 26:16every red light, that's not a spiritual attack.
- 26:20That's a time management problem.
- 26:24If you have an argument with someone close to you and you are
- 26:29angry, unkind and aggressive guys, that's that's not
- 26:36necessarily a spiritual attack. Holy Spirit allows these things,
- 26:41brings them to the surface. When you've got buttons on on
- 26:46your jacket, he actually allows them to be pressed to bring it
- 26:50out to the surface. So you can go take a walk with
- 26:54him. Let her come out.
- 26:57Let him let him just have a have a bit of a wrestle.
- 27:00What's what's your desire in this Holy Spirit?
- 27:06The Bible says that you will receive the the sorry, the
- 27:14passage in the Bible says that if if we ask for anything in his
- 27:19name that we will receive it. So I don't know where it is.
- 27:22Look it up. Start in Genesis, get through to
- 27:24Revelation. It's in there somewhere when we
- 27:29ask for anything in His name that we will receive it.
- 27:33Do you know what the last line of that paragraph reads?
- 27:35It reads something like this. And how much more will I give
- 27:39the Holy Spirit to those who ask?
- 27:44You see, he's not forceful. He's not aggressive.
- 27:48He describes himself in His nature as gentle.
- 27:52He's a gentle spirit. And so when we come to him, He
- 27:56will do it gently what the Spirit desires.
- 28:03I wonder this morning if we could just ask the question even
- 28:08in this moment. Feel free to close your eyes,
- 28:10have a moment, take a walk with Holy Spirit.
- 28:14What do you desire? Spirit of God in my life in this
- 28:25season, what do you want to see? Holy Spirit in my language,
- 28:37relationships, attitude. What do you want to do in and
- 28:47through me? What do you want to reveal to me
- 28:57about Jesus?