Empty Words, Empty Hearts

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This morning was super crazy in a good way. Like sometimes you say super crazy and it's in a negative way. We were in the middle of worship practice playing Holy Spirit and we were literally just like in it. I don't know how long we were doing it, but we were singing Holy Spirit, come rest on us, you're all we want. And we played that over and over and over again.

And then all of a sudden all I can. We haven't even figured out what it is yet, but I'm saying it's a power surge. That's what I'm saying. It all of a sudden everything completely went psychotic in our in ears. Everything went down.

Just crazy technological difficulties and so gotta be careful what you ask for when you say Holy Spirit, come rest on us. You're all we want. What are you gonna do when he actually does and it doesn't show up the way that you want? I mean this has been kind of what we've been talking through in Matthew over the last couple of weeks. But yet it's so perfect because at that point in time it causes us to step back and say, okay, he's here, he's moving.

Now we be in mind of what we're doing and in line with what's happening. And so even now this is a state of the art facility. I know the guy who helped build this and design it, the dude is one of the most genius when it comes to sound and technology and all that. We still don't have a technical answer as to why we're running broadcast audio off an in ear pack. And it's still not working right.

Lord knows why it's not working right. But crazy when the Lord shows up and actually moves in his power like we ask him to on a regular basis. We are at about 69% of our building fund. So we're still climbing, still climbing little by little. I want to say that's like 137, 138 and so that's beautiful.

Vicki has absolutely been working her rear end off trying to get all the inspections together. Brian was out helping us out, all those types of things. Trying to make sure that the property is in the best shape possible. Stephen went and got like 180ft worth of fence panels. So we don't have kids dying in creeks.

That's not exactly how we want things to go down in our first home. You know, it's like just let the kids go out and play and it's like, oh, we're one less kid. Oh, that's how we. That's how you. That's how you end up in a magazine or on a newspaper.

We don't. We don't need any of that. But so far, so good. Everything is moving forward this week. We should know more about what the results of the inspections are.

We obviously didn't go in with one of the properties, being a 1978 church and expect everything to be perfect. There is no such thing as perfect except for Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is perfectionism. He is perfect. He is the one who is perfecting us.

And as long as we're involved in that process, it's awesome. So he can also perfect buildings, structures, creeks, all those things. Awesome note. I think we didn't even realize what a blessing the Lord was to us. I'm pretty sure that this church property also comes with the dog.

Pretty sure. Because multiple times. You know, when you get your first home, it's like, are we going to be cat people or are we going to be dog people? I am allergic to cats. Sykes loves cats.

I am allergic to cats. I'm a dog person. And so there's been this little dog kind of roaming around out there, super sweet, super kind. And so if he's there when we move in, we'll let you bid towards the end of the building fund to name the dog. So, you know, whoever's the highest bidder to name the dog gets to name the dog, as long as it's clean.

Okay. All right. And, like, I don't need any of these, like, negative Old Testament names here or something like that. It's like, no. Blessings upon blessings.

That's what we're going for. So a couple of housekeeping announcements over the next month. Pastor Glenn did get back with me on Friday. We are meeting here until we leave, until we move into our place. So he had some logistics, all that kind of stuff.

So they've been super kind, super gracious to us. However, there is one change, and that is on February 7th. That is the first Saturday in February. That is one day after we held our very first service. So we will be officially celebrating our 10th anniversary on the 6th.

On the 7th, we're coming together in this facility, but we're coming in at 5pm for all of you who are like me, that doesn't matter if you're on vacation or not. You are up between four and five o'clock in the morning. I apologize because it's really close to our bedtime at 5pm but we're going to hold service at 5pm on that day. In this facility, we're going to have a celebration of 10 years, all that kind of stuff. We're going to do table fellowship afterwards for all you people is like, oh, that's dinner time.

Yeah. You know, fasting's in the Bible, but we'll still feed you. So we're going to have a celebration on the 7th, and then the next two weeks, we're going to be here at our normal time. And then hopefully, Lord willing, unless something changes, we'll close on Thursday the 26th. And our first service will be on the 28th in our new facility.

Super excited about that. God has been gracious. Today. We are going to continue in Matthew chapter 12. We're going to be in Matthew chapter 12, verses 31 through 37.

Last week, we saw Jesus do what Jesus does. Jesus brings the kingdom of heaven's power and authority to earth. And how that is manifested is through the righteousness of God. What is one of the ways that God manifests his righteousness? It is in giving healing.

So last week, we saw Jesus heal a man whose testimony had been stolen through demonic possession. And yet there was two different, very, very different interactions between the two groups of people who saw the healings. One, you had the crowd. They're the normal people. They're just trying to get through everyday life.

The crowd was amazed and they were hopeful. They were amazed and hopeful. They hearkened back to the title of the Son of Man, which would have hearkened to Jesus divinity. And then you had Brent's favorite word, juxtaposition. You had the opposite.

You had the nemesis of the story, the Pharisees. The Pharisees felt threatened. Their hearts were hardened, and they actually went so far as to accuse Jesus of healing the person through the power of the demonic. Which is ironic, because if demons are meant to steal, kill, and destroy, what is a demon doing healing a person from another demon? Yeah, you know, kindergarten logic 101.

But that was where the Pharisees went. The Pharisees went immediately into the opposite of being happy, excited. Jesus dismantled their logic, though, and he pressed the real question beneath their accusation. What if I am the one who you've waited for? What if I am the Mashiach?

What if this moment should sober every believer? We must be careful not to rush to judgment simply because something looks unfamiliar or different or that we cannot neatly explain it in our own logical and rational brain. I'm going to have to start writing down the testimonies of the things that I have seen in the last 40 to 45 days in this building process that makes absolutely no sense in the logical, rational brain. Maybe one. Maybe one thing falls our way, you know, one of the chips happens, whatever.

But when you have as many different things that have fallen in the way that they have during this process, there is no logical, rational way to excuse it into the hands of any human being.

You have to give credit where credit is due.

Restoration, redemption, healing, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Those works belong to Jesus Christ alone. And they can never be attributed to the adversary, to any demonic principality, any of that. You can wear Jesus on your shirt all day and you can still be denying him with your life. And yet here we find in verse 31 unrepentant hearts that led them to attempt to destroy everything.

So I tell you, every sin and the blasphemy can be forgiven, except the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which will never be forgiven. Anyone who speaks against the Son of Man can be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven, forgiven. Neither in this world or in the world to come. The sins of the flesh can be forgiven. John came proclaiming the baptism for repentance.

It was a different mikveh than what was there before. Ceremonial mikvahs were for many, many things. There were cleansing and washings and all these things that were happening. Yet John came preaching a different baptism. He came preaching under the Spirit of Elijah, the baptism for the remission of sins.

If you repent from, he is faithful and just to forgive you your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. This is new. Before, it was not just if I repented from my sin. It was if I repented for my sin and I brought a turtledove. If I repented for my sin and I came to the priesthood and I brought the barley offering.

If it was repentance. And now it is. If you repent from your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive you your sins and to cleanse you of all unrighteousness. This is a cosmic shift.

Jesus identifies a far deeper danger than even the sin we see in the flesh, and that is the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. In context. This is not a careless word that was spoken in ignorance. We all have those. We all have those moments where we say something, you know, we're trying to be funny, whatever.

I've never done that in a sermon. And you all just stare at me like, were you trying to be funny? Trying to get people engaged? And then everybody's just Kind of like never had that. This is not what's happening.

It's not a careless word that's spoken in ignorance. It's not a joke that you thought was going to be funny that didn't fall on the ears of people with any humor. It's the willful, persistent rejection of God's grace.

There's that grace word where a person attributes the work of the Holy Spirit to evil. Let me read that again. The blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is a willful, persistent rejection of God's grace where a person attributes the work of the Holy Spirit to evil. Talked about this a little bit last week. If I see biblical fruit in somebody's life and I testify that there is no biblical fruit in that person's life, or if I discredit the fruit by which I see or the adjustments in their life that I see, I am attributing the work that the Holy Spirit is doing inside of you and inside of me to the adversary.

I am blaspheming the Holy Spirit because I am giving credit to a lesser being when a greater being is doing the work.

You see, it is the Holy Spirit's job to convict us and lead us into all knowledge and understanding. That includes the knowledge of a sinful heart and a sinful lifestyle. You should be more scared when you don't have that kind of gut check, Holy Spirit conviction because you're getting to a place where the bread is now moldy and hard. It's not pliable, it's not the bread of life. Your heart has become hardened.

You cannot reject God's grace and you cannot give God's grace to somebody else without God's grace. Oh, Stephen, I'm going to be gracious with you. There's only so much the human flesh can be gracious with another person. If you've been friends with me for any period of time, you know what those limits are. The Holy Spirit has no limits in grace or in mercy.

And he's not a biased God. He can pour out all his grace upon Sarah and still have plenty to pour out on Daniel and Vicki and me at the same time. He's not limited goods. So when we see God blessing somebody and we get jealous, we're forgetting the very character and nature of God. You should want God to bless your brothers and sisters always.

Always. And if right now, in the moment, you don't have a blessing from God, I would challenge you.

That's your own heart posture problem. Because today alone I saw God work and move at least twice in situations that probably three to four years ago, I was just chalked up to, oh, the soundboard went bad, or oh, this or that. But then all of a sudden, there's a little God wink. We're actually back there praying and talking about what we're going to do because we can't even play the announcement videos because there's no audio here. And so what we're trying to figure out how service is going to go funny.

Helga, you know God will change stuff when you ask him to change things. Funny how when you're listening to Upper Room all week long and the song is, we love the leadership of the Lord. And then all of a sudden, the Lord literally puts you in a situation where you actually have to let the Lord be the leadership. Oh, but I would venture to believe this happened probably more often than even I give the Lord credit. It's just that I'm starting to see and open my eyes to the graciousness of God, that He hasn't turned his back upon me, that he is still working here, there and everywhere.

The Pharisees saw the work of the Holy Spirit and they accredited it to the devil. Jesus confronted the undeniable power and mercy of the kingdom of heaven through the hard hearts of the Pharisees. And when the Pharisees were confronted with that undeniable power and mercy from the kingdom of Heaven, they refused to repent and their hearts were hardened.

When your hearts get hardened throughout Genesis to Revelation, it's normally not a good thing. When Pharaoh, When God hardened Pharaoh's heart, it then says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. And what happened? His firstborn son died and all of his slaves left. And then he sent a whole bunch of men after them because he was angry and they all died in the bottom of a sea.

When your heart gets hardened, it's not a good thing. Because when your heart gets hardened, you will refuse to accept, see, engage, or acknowledge the power of the Holy Spirit at work in your midst or in the midst of somebody else's life. That is dangerous. You are on the path to death when your heart is hardened. Because the prophecies in Ezekiel say that Jesus will put a new heart in us and he will write the Torah, the law of God, on our heart.

If your heart is hardened, he doesn't need to write the law on tablets of stone again. That was done, and now he's looking for the flesh of your heart to write his law and his spirit inside of you. The Holy Spirit convicts us when we step outside of God's. Character and God's ways. To permanently reject that conviction is to quench the Holy Spirit and squash the Holy Spirit in our life.

This leaves a person trapped in unrepentance. That is why the sin is unforgivable, not because God withholds his mercy. It's because you have positioned your heart in a way that you refuse to receive it. It is not that God is not trying to give you a gift. It is that you are refusing the gift.

It's like, oh Lord, I don't have the power of your Holy Spirit in me. It's not that he's not trying to give it to you. The Word says that it is available for all people. You have to actively engage in a lifestyle with Him. So if your heart is hardened and away from God and in sin, God cannot dwell in a place where that is full of sin because he is holy and he is righteous and he knew no sin.

Guys, I understand that repentance is not a fun topic to talk about, but it is one of the greatest gifts that's given to us in the Gospels. The opportunity for you to get knocked down but get back up again. They ain't never going to keep you down because you have the ability to repent to the Lord. Lord, May we never reject the gift of repentance or the conviction of the Holy Spirit, or the power in our lives, our homes and our church. The moment we do that, we become a business.

We do not become a body of Christ.

When we do not operate with the power of the Holy Spirit. This leaves us as old wineskins and we become too brittle to even receive the new wine of the kingdom.

That wine was the best wine. He saved the best for last and all my Torah loving individuals in this room. I don't understand why you don't see that the best wine was always for last. Because there's this cycle of hope that humanity goes through from the moment of the garden till the end of time. And in the end, we run out of what we can do.

And we need something that has an infinite life source to come and do that. There's always one and that is God. The plan was always new creation in God, not new creation in Chris, not new creation in Michael, not to new creation in Tim. It was new creation in Jesus Christ. That would make Tim new, that would make Chris new, that would make trolling new.

That power, that spirit is the only one that can do it. And when you shut off the lifeblood of the Holy Spirit, you are saying this is as good as it gets. If you mock what the Spirit is doing, don't be surprised when the Holy Spirit stops calling you. Jesus presses on further and he says, a tree is identified by its fruit. We read something similar to this last week.

If a tree is good, its fruit will be good. If a tree is bad, its fruit will be bad. This is how discernment works in the kingdom. Jesus is not only talking about the free gift he's given us, but he's talking to us about how we can discern whether that exists in somebody else's life or not and honestly, whether it exists in our own.

Anybody who's married in this room, your spouse will tell you whether you're a good tree or not. They may not say it that way. I don't know that my wife's ever been like, you know, sweetheart, you're a good tree. I don't think I've ever heard that in 22 years of marriage. My wife has said, quit being a bad person.

That's the phraseology she used. Quit being a bad person. Okay? If my wife, at some point in time has to point out that whatever I'm doing is not great, that means I'm producing bad fruit. In that moment, the more times my wife or my.

My lady's in here, your husband has to point out that you're producing bad fruit. You're becoming a bad tree doesn't mean you are a bad tree. It means you're becoming a bad tree. As long as your heart is still open to, there is still an opportunity for you to repent and for the fruit to change. That takes time.

A good tree produces good fruit. A bad tree produces bad fruit. A cold heart produces loud opinions, but never good fruit. If your heart is cold, you will have all kinds of thoughts on the Bible and the Holy Spirit and all these things, but you won't be producing good fruit because the Holy Spirit can't do the work of the Holy Spirit inside your heart at that point, point in time. Not because the Holy Spirit isn't sovereign.

It's because we have shut off the door in the invitation of the Holy Spirit. Brent said this again a long time ago. Still probably going to be one of my favorite lines. Ever stop praying for the Holy Spirit to violate and for Jesus to violate your free will? He's the one who gave you the free will.

Lord, if you'll just knock down, drag him out and bring them into the kingdom. No, the Lord is not abusive. The Lord is loving and kind. He invites you into something. He is not going to Knock you out and drag you back to a cave like a Geico commercial.

That is not God. So everything in life is an invitation for you to do life with him. He's not going to be abusive in that nature. So even here he's inviting you into an opportunity to receive the power of the Holy Spirit to repent from your sins and make an adjustment so he can do the work that he originally created you to do. How do we deal with that as brothers and sisters?

Calm down. You're being too loud. Let somebody work through it. Let somebody go through it. Be a loving support for them.

Stop acting like they needed to be a 12th grader when they're a kindergarten. Stop acting like they needed to be varsity when they're junior varsity. Sit in the mud with them and do life with them and let the Holy Spirit do the work. Otherwise you're going to screw it up. And then we have these terms like church hurt.

No, it's just people hurt. These happen to be people who went to church with you.

Personal preference doesn't determine spiritual reality. There are people who we may not get along with, but if they produce biblical fruit, you cannot say that the Spirit is not at work inside of them. And I know that's hard for us because when people hurt us or people do things to us, our thing is like, oh, person's bad, person's mean. That could be true, but it doesn't mean that they're a bad tree. If they're producing good fruit, it means they did something bad.

God gives us the opportunity to repent from that. If you don't allow somebody else to repent for some wrong they've done to you, then how in the world can you ask them to turn around and free you from the same thing? Doesn't mean you don't have to have boundaries. But it is a heart posture change.

Jesus speaks plainly in verse 34. You broad of snakes, broad of vipers.

Jesus was all loving, all kind. And sometimes. I've never done this as a father. I mean, that's a lie. But sometimes you got a backhand.

And here's a verbal backhand. He doesn't say, all right, guys, come on, let's. Let's come up with some sort of agreement. Like, we're just not going to name call. It's not profitable.

No. He says, you brought of snakes. How could evil men like you speak what is good and right?

He's saying, because you're evil. You think I'm going to allow you to testify about what's good? And right. No, you can't even do it. Evil men.

How could evil men like you speak? What is good and right for whatever is in your heart determines what you say. A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart. And an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. The heart is a treasury, a storehouse.

What you stockpile there will eventually overflow into words, attitudes and actions. A heart filled with bitterness, pride and anger. The resistance of God will speak in a way that rejects the truth and despises the work of God through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Joseph in Egypt had a dream, had a vision of a storehouse, of a famine that was coming. And he started collecting and storing up food forever. And then we see the beautiful thing that the brothers who had sold him into slavery, they had to come from the far off land because they didn't have enough food in this famine time. And here is Joseph being revealed to his brothers from the storehouse. Joseph, in the moment that he saw the calling, he started to create a treasury.

A storehouse. Now, when we think of treasury, we think of the federal government, and it makes us mad. But this is not a mad thing. This is the storehouse. We of our hearts.

The storehouse of your heart has what, Pokemon, Hannah Montana is that. I mean, that's not even a thing anymore. I'm sorry, Fraggle Rock. What is it? Is it country?

I like country music. I know Cam is cringing, but like, I like country music, but every time I listen to country music, I'm sad because somebody shot the dog, ran away with a wife, all the horrible things. What are you storing up in the storehouse of your heart? Are you storing up in the storehouse of your heart things that are of God or things that are going to help you despise God? Because if you despise God, you're dead.

There's no life in you. What you store up will come as an abundance of the overflow of your heart out of your mouth. You cannot fake heart posture before God. I had somebody this week. I was in a counseling call with another leader, and he said, I really think this guy's got like a massive heart change.

He's doing all those types of things. I was like, well, he's been in your church for what, like a year to two years, right? They're like, yeah. And I was like. I was like, look, I've known some really good fakers in this world.

I've done life with some really good fakers in this world who Said one thing and were doing something completely different in their life. But when we go to tabernacles and we live with each other for eight days in the middle of the wilderness out there in Duke Force, and it's like 80 degrees, like, I'm not even a camper anyways, like. And you're doing life with that. If you got junk in the storehouse of your heart, it's going to come out. Why?

Because you can't fake heart posture in that prolonged period of time. But that's not bad. That's good, because once it comes out, we can acknowledge it. We can do something with it. Most people have come into church and they felt like all I got to do is tuck it away in my pocket until my wife does my laundry, and then they find out all my dirty sins because they're all wrapped up in my laundry.

Get him out. Because you can't fake heart posture before the Lord. Nor should you want to. It's a free gift. The devil's the one who wants you to keep it inside, locked in.

The devil's the one who says, oh, Tim, if you tell me what's going on in your life, he'll never love you anymore. Honestly, I can't truly love Tim unless I know what's going on in his life. I can't truly love Tim unless I can do life with Tim. Otherwise, it's a fake love. I like you.

We're buddies on social. Every once in a while, I'll call you because I need something that's not real love. That's not real life. You cannot protect a reputation when you have a corrupt character. What comes out of your mouth will reveal where your heart is headed.

External marketings, like your clothing, your diet, your zitzit, all the other things, they are absolutely irrelevant if repentance is absent in your life.

Guys, I was a junior, a senior. I think I was a junior in high school. I grew up in a farm town. Not a farm town now, but I grew up in a farm town. And the cool thing was, like, country.

Like, everybody drove their lawn mowers to school for the senior day. We weren't that rich. We only had to push behind, but everybody else had to. A riding lawnmower. And so, like, you're wearing your flannel, and it's like Charlie Daniels, and we're like, yeah, country.

We were. We were not country.

We were not country. Like, this was the suburbs. This was wannabes. Like, hashtag. Then all of a sudden, I lose a whole bunch of weight, and I Realized, oh, hey, it's not very flattering to wear loose flannels and big boot cut jeans.

You know, at that point I want the Abercrombie jeans and I want the cool shoes and all that. And so you can change the exterior of who you are at any point in time, but that has no bearing on anything if the interior is still locked away from God.

External markers mean nothing if your heart is absent from God through the opportunity to repent. God's promises was never just a behavior modification. It was a new heart and a renewed mind through the Spirit. The spirit should renew inside of you, which should cause new habits, new thought processes, new practice in your life. But everybody in this room has the ability to change the external today and have a pretty good success ratio of being consistent in that.

We can. You can walk in here and you can say, oh man, I really love man buns. Nobody on YouTube's ever said that. But you could say, I love man buns. And within the next six months, every person in this room, for the most part, could have a man bun.

Otherwise they buy it from Walmart and put it on top of their head anyways. All of you can have it. It doesn't mean that anything changed about your character inside. And this is what Jesus is inviting us into. The Pharisees had changed everything on the external of their life, but nothing in their heart was any closer to God.

In fact, if anything, they focused so much on the outward focus of what they look like that the internal had grown so far from God that they were dead.

We live in a culture where people want to be liked, they want to be accepted.

We can change what we look like on the outside to be accepted. We can change what we look like to be able to be friends and hang out with each other. None of that matters if the Holy Spirit isn't changing your heart, because sooner or later somebody else is going to come along with some other external look and you're just going to shift to another one and your heart will still be just as far from God. The hard posture before the Lord is so important. God forgives sin easily.

He doesn't make you jump through hoops. He doesn't make you. He doesn't make you go seven years to prove that you've changed your habit. He says that if you confess your sins, he's faithful and just to forgive the sins and cleanse you of all unrighteousness. So when he cleanses you of all unrighteousness, he forgives the sin easily, but he cannot forgive What a heart refuses to repent of, Jesus concludes.

And I tell you this, you must give an account on the Day of Judgment for every idle word you speak. The words you say will either acquit you or condemn you. Your words matter. What you store in your heart matters. A life without repentance matters without grace for others and without openness to the Spirit.

That's not a neutral thing, that's an intentional thing. Your heart is dying if you are not open to the Holy Spirit.

And our own words will testify of our freedom or our slavery. Many of us know this personally, that change does not come from just the awareness alone. It comes through the actual act of repentance. If you are not sorry for something that you can name, you will not create a new habit in your life. It's no different than recognizing, oh, I don't feel healthy, so I should probably eat different.

If you can't first acknowledge it, then you're not going to actually do anything about it. And if you just acknowledge it, it doesn't mean that you're acknowledging that it's wrong for you. I understand that eating ice cream every night is wrong and it's not good for me, but gosh darn it, I want to.

The devil fights me all the time. Go get that ice cream. Go get that ice cream. So what? We don't even bring it in the house.

You don't even bring it in the house. So that way I don't have to repent of my gluttony until Monica makes one of the best key lime pies in all Oklahoma City. And then I have to rebuke the devil every time I open the refrigerator.

Repentance is not a one time event. Everybody thinks like, oh, I have to repent. And this is just like some event. This is an ongoing thing because we're ongoing humans and ongoing humans make mistakes and ongoing humans need to repent of the things that have happened. Not just for yourself, but for the other person that you wronged or you harmed.

Repentance is one of the greatest gifts we could ever be given. And we act like it's something that we can't even re gift to somebody else.

Yielding our hearts to the Holy Spirit should expose the deeper layers. I come from the Torah loving camp. Talk about the four levels of understanding. Everybody's like, oh, I want to get to the sowed level. I want to get to the bottom, like the deep of the deep of the deep.

Let me tell you where the bottom of the deep of the deep of the deep is. In the Hebrew concept, it's that Jesus Christ sent John the Baptist preparing the way with a different type of baptism. It was a baptism called the Baptism for repentance. It was a new thing that was happening to where they could be cleansed of all unrighteousness. And then the one who it was foretelling about came and preached this and modeled this not only through words, but through actions by healing the sick and raising the dead.

I'm not ashamed of the gospel, which tells me that I'm a failure outside of Christ. I'm not ashamed of the gospel that tells me that Christ knew that, so he gave his Son. I'm not ashamed of the gospel that says, I don't need to be perfect. I just need to know who is perfect. I'm not ashamed of the gospel to say that I'm going to stumble and I need to repent.

Jesus metaphor also gives us hope that no matter what is stored in our heart, whether it's anger, bitterness, unforgiveness, apathy, change is possible. Change is possible. There's some people in this room who's known me almost 20 years. They probably have never seen me cry. I'm crying all the time now.

I can tell you a heart posture. Change is possible. I'm going through it. Repent, release and petition the Holy Spirit to heal, guide and empower you from Pentecost on where the gift has been poured out to cleanse, restore and reshape us from the inside out, not from the outside in.

That's the difference. That's the whole juxtaposition of this world. Oh, let's get our body wash out and cleanse the skin. Put some conditioner on the hair. We're so worried about cleansing the external.

Jesus comes in and says, look, you can be filthy rags, you can be laying in the dust. I'm going to take care of what's inside first. And it will produce fruit outward. Only Jesus can do that. Only the Holy Spirit, the spirit of Jesus can do that.

It's revolutionary. I can't do that. Never met a person who can do that except for Jesus Christ. Worship team, you can come back. A cold heart produces loud opinions, but it will never, ever, ever produce good fruit.

We got opinions, lots and lots of opinions. We need more fruit.

John said, bear fruit. In keeping with the repentant hearts, many fear demons, but the most dangerous force in the world is not the demonic. Stick with me here before you stone me. Many fear the demonic. Oh, I won't even watch that movie because it's Demonic, Okay, I think that's probably safe, probably a good thing.

But the demonic isn't the thing we're supposed to fear. The most dangerous force is the rejection of the power of the Holy Spirit to save, heal, and restore. The devil needs permission. The devil has limited resources. The Holy Spirit does not.

And we should be more afraid of rejecting the power of the Holy Spirit, attributing the power of the Holy Spirit to the Holy Spirit, than we should ever be of Hasatan, Lucifer, Satan, any of them. And I'm not mocking evil because evil is evil. But I am not afraid of something that is limited. I am more afraid that I will not see, I will not allow, I will not open the door to the full manifestation of the power of the Holy Spirit in my life. And I want that for each and every person in this room.

I don't want you to just know about God. I want you to experience God in the most intimate moments of your life. I want you to experience God when you think that there's nothing. There was a testimony, and Tanya's not here to give it, but there was a test testimony this week where she was super worried about something. And literally, not only did God come and meet her in the moment, but God took care of the future moments.

I promise you, when you start looking for the power of the Holy Spirit in your day to day life, I promise you, you will find it. And then you'll be like, what was I doing for all these years?

Was I living in a van down by the river? The Holy Spirit is active.

You cannot reject the power of the Holy Spirit and live a full life. It's the little winds, it's the little moments that God speaks to you. I spent years rejecting the power of the Holy Spirit and thinking that the only way the Holy Spirit could work is how Moses said it was supposed to. And then I stopped and I repented. And I realized that Moses testifies to Jesus, the Holy Spirit testifies to Jesus.

All things testify to Jesus. So maybe I need to pivot. I need to repent and I need to adjust. And I'm never going back. Because what I've seen God do in my life and in lives of other people has been amazing.

And I love Moses and I love David, but they were foreshadows to the power of the repentance of God Almighty, Yahweh, in the flesh. There's nothing greater. My wife's birthday's coming up. My birthday's coming up. The church is coming up.

You don't need to Give me a gift. I already got the best gift ever. Jesus Christ. I mean, you can give me a gift card. It's just second to Jesus.

I'm saying, not the ice cream. I mean, you know, it's boring you.

Many fear demons, but the most dangerous force is rejecting the Holy Spirit who saves humanity, has a long history of creating chaos and calling it wisdom. But the Son and man, the Son of man is the author and the finisher of a better story.

It's a story that all the other stories in the Bible testify to. They point to, they show to Jesus Christ is the author and the finisher of that. And every wrong deed that's ever been done to you, he understands. He understands what's happened to you. And he's going to lead you in the pathway for his righteousness and his namesake.

Will you lift your eyes from the shame, anger, and the weariness that have existed in your life? Every one of us in this room has it. Toil, toil, toil. Are you going to lift your eyes off of that and look to him and consider him versus considering that all the time.

Otherwise, we're left as a testimony that has empty words and empty hearts.

As we sing today, this is a song that we sang last week. It's a song I've listened to a lot this week. There's a part of this song. It's not the only beautiful part of the song, but it is my favorite part of the song. It's the bridge, and it says, we will run this race.

It's a pilgrimage. We're not supposed to be fast. He will never let us grow weary. Some of you in this room are weary. There's things you've been battling for a long time.

There's residual effects from the world around us, the choices we've made, the consequences of things that have happened. Some of them aren't even consequences. They're just a part of the world we live in.

I understand that the world tries to make it seem like you need to be the fastest person out of the gate. I understand that the NFL has an entire combine where they talk about who was the fastest to run the 40. That's great. Good for them. They played like 10 years of football and now they can't walk anymore.

It's slow and steady. Why? Because there's no. There's no destination, arrival with Jesus until you leave this life. When you're doing life with Jesus Christ, it is literally every breath of your life.

You are supposed to be on that journey with Him. There is not an Arrival. You don't get to arrive at the Kingdom of Heaven on the Kingdom of Earth until he brings the Kingdom of Heaven back.

So why are we trying to run so fast again? Because we're like, oh, well, if I get there first and Mikhail, like, Mikhail's only going to get the leftovers. He's not going to get the main dish. That's not how it works. The same Holy Spirit that is available for me is the same Holy Spirit that's available for you.

And I don't know about you, but I need a helper. And I got a pretty good one in the flesh. I need a helper. I need a helper to not say what pops into my mind. I need to help her to repent when I do say what pops into my mind.

I need a helper when I don't attribute to the power of God. I need a helper. When I do something I know is just out of the character and nature of God. I need a helper.

It's a pilgrimage. For the rest of your life, be okay with little wins. Be okay with baby steps. As long as you keep doing, as long as you keep engaging in them. Don't grow weary, because God doesn't get tired.

God doesn't fail. It's us who fails. So if we work on being a little bit more balanced in how we walk with God on a day in and day out basis, maybe God will do his part and he will strengthen our part. But today, whatever that weirdness is in your brain, whatever that thing is that you've been wrestling with, whatever that thing is that you've been asking the Lord to heal or to redeem or to restore, whatever that is. When we sing this song, I want you to consider Jesus in that moment and ask him what it is he wants for you right now with that.

Maybe it is the healing, maybe it isn't the healing right in this moment. Maybe there's a reason you're going through this, for your testimony and what you can do. I don't know all of those things, but consider him. He's the author and the finisher of our story. He's the one who can give you the wisdom, the discernment, and the insight in what's happening.

He's the one who can take your weariness and he can build you up.

Consider him not where we need to go to lunch. Not the fact that we started the service 15 minutes late. You're welcome.

Not the fact that I'm wearing way too many layers today and I'm sweating profusely. All those things are irrelevant. Consider him.

Close your eyes if you want to focus on Jesus. And let Jesus continue the work that he's already started inside each and every one of you, and consider him.