God Sends

Greatest cause of atheism are from those who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out and deny them by their lifestyle. This morning we're going to study how God sends. We've been in a series together called I believe. We've been studying the core of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. What Jesus taught should mark our lives. And together, we've gone through a large part of this series, and last week we've studied just the death and resurrection of Christ. It's the centerpiece to all of our Bible. It's been said that the Bible is a love letter written in God's blood. Because of Jesus's death, we have the hope of eternal life if we trust in him. The Bible tells us in Romans chapter five and verse eight, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. His death was for you and for I. Jesus came to this world on a mission. Paul said in first Timothy 115, Jesus came into this world to save sinners. Jesus very plainly in Luke 19 said, For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost. In John ten he said, I am the good shepherd, and the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Jesus came on a mission, but Jesus didn't come to conduct this mission on his own. He also gave us the greatest command love the Lord your God with all your heart and love others.

He sent his followers on mission as well. In fact, it tells us in Luke chapter ten to his disciples he said, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into the harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lamb a lambs among wolves. Jesus was on a mission and Jesus sent his followers on his mission. In fact, Jesus built what we refer to today as the church for the purpose of his mission. It says in Matthew chapter 16 and verse 18, and I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. Jesus loved his church. In fact, it tells us in Ephesians chapter five and verse 25 that Christ loved the church and gave himself for the church. And you know what I love this morning? I love the same thing that Jesus loves. I love his church, too. You know, a lot of people have a lot of hypocritical statements to make about the church. You know, it's no secret for us if you've come to Alpine Bible Church, that we are messed up people. Amen. Yeah. There you go. Can I get a witness? But the church isn't about perfect people. It's about saved and redeemed people. People who are different because they've placed their faith and hope and trust in everything that Christ is and everything that Christ promised us.

And in so doing, God promises us that he would give us His Spirit and compel us to be better people. But it starts with your faith in Christ. I love the church, and even though the church is messy and even though we're messed up today, if you're here and you think that you're normal, God bless you. You are our example today. All right. But to most of us who know that we're lacking something tremendously in our lives, our hope is to look to Jesus. And just as Jesus commanded to love him and to love others, when we come and we gather together, we get together with those who are arm in arm with us as brothers and sisters who have trusted in Christ. And we begin to love each other, to compel one another to draw closer to Christ Jesus built his church and the promise was even the most horrific things of the gates of hell will not prevail against it. There is power in his church. You know, I think when Jesus began to build his church, what he meant here was the universal church that meets all over the world. It's any redeemed person who have who has taken the opportunity to place their faith in Jesus. That is the universal church. But what's important about the universal church is that it also becomes a local church. Somewhere throughout the world, especially today, people are congregating all over this world in local places to reach out to Christ in their lives and to minister to one another.

Local churches are important because local churches reach local people. I'm so thankful that when we started this church just three years ago, we had like, I don't know, six people, it seemed like in a living room. And today we're so full that we couldn't even find seats when people came in. To those who are new, just know in the next few weeks we'll be knocking down this wall and expanding our facility. We've purchased or rented the building next to us, so. So we're going to be squished for a little while longer, but the local church reaches local people. You know, I'm I'm one of those that believe you can't do church on your own. In fact, when God built his church and promised that the gates of hell will not prevail. He also promised us that he would give each and every one of us specific gifts abilities to serve. You want gifts? The word gifts is meant to suggest to us they're intended to be given away. God gives you gifts to give away, and you can't do that in your own home at your own time. It requires you to get with a body of believers, each having different gifts and serving one another. Christ has given his life for this. Christ believes in the local church. Christ desires for us to go into this world and share the love that he has for other people.

And it tells us in Matthew chapter 28 and verse 19, he looks at all of his disciples and says, after his resurrection, therefore go and make disciples of all nations. You know very simply what the purpose of the church is. It's to make disciples, committed followers of Jesus. We're not a church of legalism. In fact, I hate legalism. I'm wearing jeans today. Support your jeans when you come, right? Or whatever if it makes you feel comfortable. But it's about Jesus. It's not an invitation to religion. It's about Jesus. Jesus gave his most simple, simplistic command at the end of his life. He said, go into this world and make disciples. Do whatever it takes to encourage one another to follow me more deeply. And notice when Jesus says, I will build my church in Matthew 16 that it's a future statement. It's something that hasn't taken place yet in all the history and throughout all the Old Testament. What we see is people who are gathering together as an assembly following after the future hope of a messiah. A congregation. But yet Jesus comes in Matthew 16 and he promises this people, I'm going to build my church. I will build it. It's something that hasn't been done yet. There's something significant that will mark it differently than any other people who longed for the Messiah in the past. The question is, what was it? Jesus tells us in John seven and verse 38, in order to begin to reveal this difference that he's going to make in the church, he said, whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.

He's not talking about using the restroom here, right? Jesus is saying there's something so special that he's about to do with his church. It's going to be it can't be captured just by a human being that when God works this miracle in your life, it's just going to flow out of yourself, just naturally. What's he talking about? I want these rivers of living water flowing from me. What in the world is Jesus going to do differently? That hasn't been done in the past? He tells us in the very next verse. By this he meant the spirit whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time, the spirit had not been given since Jesus had not been glorified. So when you read the Old Testament, one of the things that you find is the Spirit of God is active. He comes and indwells people to carry out specific tasks for a period of time, but the spirit would then leave. But when Jesus comes to this earth, and after Jesus has glorified, the Bible tells us that Jesus would send His Spirit to dwell within all of us. Israel would have to go to the temple to worship and see God and witness his miraculous signs.

But the Bible tells us in this passage of Scripture that Jesus was going to send something special. In first Corinthians 316 it goes on to say, do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? No longer do you need to go to a temple to worship. A God has now made you the temple. No longer does the Spirit of God dwell within the temple, but you have become the dwelling place of God yourself. And the Spirit of God dwells within you. And no matter where you are in your walk with God, you can enjoy and worship him. The church isn't the building. Jesus has taught us that the church was the people. This building has no special bearing. It's those who have trusted in God who have found the Spirit of God dwelling in you. Jesus promised that His Spirit would dwell in us. If you read at the end of the book of Luke and the Gospels, it tells us in chapter 24 Jesus saying to his disciples, I'm going to send you what my father has promised, but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high. Luke ends his book talking about the Spirit of God being promised to his people to come dwell within his people. In the book of acts is the continuation Creation of the Gospel of Luke.

Luke also wrote the Book of acts that tells us when we turn to the very first pages of the Book of Acts in chapter one and verse three, after his suffering, this is talking about Jesus. He presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of 40 days and spoke about the kingdom of God. On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. In verse eight it says, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. You know, the book of acts is simply how the Spirit of God indwelled the people of God to do the work that God has called them to do. God has given us all specific gifts to serve him. And as soon as the spirit of God comes and dwells within the people of God to conduct his ministry, it tells us Peter stands up and begins to preach the first sermon that's given in the book of acts. It says, But Peter, taking his stand with the 11, raised his voice and declared to them, Men of Judea, and all you who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give heed to my words.

Verse 22 Men of Israel, listen to these words Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs, which God performed through him in your midst, just as you yourselves know. Verse 36. In the same sermon, Peter goes on to say, therefore, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. And in verse 41, this was the result. Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about 3000 were added to their number that day. We may look at the enormous growth. I don't know what we would do if that ever happened here. 3000 people as the church just listened to the Spirit of God and began to share the message of Jesus throughout the world. In chapter two and verse 41, that's how it concludes. But when you get to verse 42, it starts to describe to us this church that was born. It says in verse 42, they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles teaching. What made them a church is that they were in God's Word and to fellowship. They were fellowshipping with one another. They were breaking bread or having communion with one another. They were praying.

It tells us in verse 30 or 43, everyone kept feeling a sense of awe. It's a sense of worship. And many wonders and signs were being taken place through the apostles, and all those who had believed were gathered together like a church and had all things in common, and there was unity. It says in verse 45, and they began selling their property and possessions, and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. I don't I don't know where we get. I do know where we get this. But in giving to the church, 10%. I'm I'm always comfortable talking about giving, by the way, because this church does not give me a paycheck. Okay. But when giving, when giving to God, we have this idea of 10% in our mind. And you know, when you read the Old Testament, they talk about 10%. But that's not all they gave. They gave on top of that, they gave temple offerings. They gave to the poor. They gave during particular holidays. They gave a lot. And when you get to the New Testament, it's not 10%. Again, it's sacrificial giving. It's giving to the point it hurts. And Jesus calls you priests. You know what priests did? They sacrificed. That's not an easy word to swallow. But here in the early church, they're giving out of charity to one another. And it says day by day, continuing with one mind in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart.

Church never ended. When they left Sunday morning, they thought about what Jesus wanted on Monday and 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who are being saved. And you thought 3000 was amazing. These people continue to show this river of living water coming from their lives. And people were so attracted to this that they came to know Christ. That is an amazing church. In fact, people call that the perfect church. If my back wasn't hurting today, I would do the perfect church cheer for you, followed by a triple backflip. I'm just kidding. It's a it's a quadruple. Anyway, I don't get all that. This is the perfect church. You know what people tend to do when they come to this passage of scripture? Especially guys like me. Three years ago when we wanted to start a church in Lehigh. They're like, okay, this is the perfect church. We want to model our church after the perfect church. Let's make a checklist of everything that we need to do to be the perfect church, right? And so they begin to make the list. Let's see. They prayed. Do we pray? Check. They listened to Apostle's teaching. Did we do that? Check. They gave. Did they give? Check. Did. Did they take communion? Check.

And they would just go down the checklist Do you know that this church, when this started in acts chapter two, they did not know that they were the perfect church. They didn't know that thousands of years later, people would read this passage of Scripture and say, look, this is the perfect church. You know what they knew and all that they knew is that they saw Jesus come back from the dead, and they trusted in him. And as they trusted their lives to Christ, God worked upon their hearts to be people who mimicked their lives after God. And if we could just take within ourselves the idea of Jesus as Lord Jesus is reigning on the throne. Jesus died for me. I'm just going to simply trust my whole life to him. There's no doubt within my mind that we, as a church, will begin to look and model after a church just like this. I mean, I know you guys are good, but you're right. This is everything that Jesus would want a church to be. But they didn't look at it as a checklist. All they did was look to Jesus. You know, when I see this passage of Scripture, I say to myself, how? How can we be like that? How can we experience this type of life? How in myself can I have rivers of living, water flowing? How is the joy of the Lord really going to be in me? And how are we ever going to look like this? And the answer is simple and Jesus has already given it to us.

It's the spirit. God wants all of us believers to be spirit led. I'm going to give a little bit of a warning to this, because people make this mean some crazy things, okay? And it doesn't mean that I'm making it mean crazy things. The Bible simply says in Galatians five, it's a command to the church. God has given you a spirit, his spirit, for a reason. God made such a big deal about the coming of the spirit and the indwelling of the spirit on the people of God, for the mission of God for a reason. And he says in Galatians chapter five, but I say, walk in the spirit, and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. God's desire for all of us is to walk in the spirit. And we look at that and think, what? What does that mean? You know, I was a young kid, my uncle, who was pretty young as well. I remember he was probably 18 or 19 years old. I thought he was like as a little kid, he looked like he was 40 or 50 to me, right? I turned 30 this week. And now 50. 40. That doesn't seem very far off. But I remember as a kid we would go sleigh ride together. He would take us out in the snow or bobsledding, whatever you want to call it.

I don't know, but. But I remember when the snow was real deep as a kid. We had to hike up this enormous hill to go down. And I would follow. Always follow behind him. And I always look for where his footsteps were because the snow was too deep and too difficult for me to walk in up the hill. And everywhere his footstep was, I would take a kind of a jump to make it into that next step. I was following in his steps. I was walking in his steps. The Holy Spirit is like a GPS system to our lives. The Holy Spirit leads our lives. He directs our lives. It's as if he's in front of us, taking those steps in the snow. And we as people look to where he's directing our lives and simply place our foot in those marks because we find as believers, it's much easier to walk that way. Any of you ever trusted in Christ as your Savior and spent some time in your life then walking away from Jesus and just found life unsatisfactory? Anyone ever come to know the Lord and then all of a sudden decide to go do something sinful and just feel so guilty about it? It's because the Spirit of God is working on your heart and in your life. He says in Ephesians, don't be drunk with wine because that will ruin your life.

Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit. What God desires is just a small portion of your life. Sometimes I'm afraid that when we come into life, we look at it like this I'm going to get my job in my career. I'm going to have my kids in my family. I'm gonna get my little bit of God, and I'm going to have my retirement and everything's going to be okay. But the way that God describes it for our lives is that we fill ourselves with everything that God is, and we look at life in light of God. We look at life in light of the direction he desires for us to go. How do we walk in the spirit? I'm going to give you two ways that we follow the Spirit's leading in our lives this morning. I'm going to give you two ways that we ignore the Spirit's leading in our lives. And we walk out of here. We're going to do everything that God wants us to do, right? Amen. Can I get it? Okay. That's good. It tells us in. Excuse me. John, chapter 16 and verse seven. Jesus is talking about the coming of the Holy Spirit, teaching his disciples what it will be like. He does this for three straight chapters chapter 14, chapter 15, and chapter 16. What's it going to be like? Jesus, if you're promising us the spirit, what's it going to be like when he's directing our lives? It tells you.

But I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. Concerning sin. Because they do not believe in me. I kind of skipped a thought there by skipping verse eight. But Jesus says, the reason the spirit is coming is because of sin. And he says, because they do not believe in me. Now God doesn't mention verse in verse nine, sin because he wants us to feel guilty. God mentions in verse nine sin because he wants us to find hope in Christ. And he's saying to us, the first thing the Spirit of God is going to do when he starts working in your life is point you to salvation in Jesus rather than living for this world, for yourself, and living in this world and sin. God's got a whole different program and plan for your life. God has this relationship that you haven't even begun to tap into and experience the rivers of living water. And when that Spirit of God comes into your life, you begin to trust in him. Believe means trust, a total dependence on everything that God has promised you. You look to him. Paul said it this way. I beseech you brothers, by the mercies of God, that you lay down your life as a living sacrifice to him.

You don't trust God with a part of your life. You trust God with all of your life. It says in verse 13, but when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak on his own initiative. But whatever he hears, he will speak, and he will disclose to you what is to come. Second thing, the Spirit of God does in our lives is it shares with us truth. It gives us truth. Let me give you a warning. This is where a lot of people connect the Spirit of God with a different kind of spirit. The Bible tells us in first John chapter four and verse one, brothers believe not every spirit because many false prophets have gone into the world. Meaning there are people out there, false prophets, teaching things that are by a spirit, but it's not God's Spirit. In fact, it tells us in Corinthians that the that Satan can appear as an angel of light meaning when God or when someone comes in to deceive your life away from God, they're doing it as light. It looks appealing. Satan does not run into people's lives with pitchforks in hand. That is way too obvious. That's just for Halloween. Satan comes into your life to deceive you. In fact, in Peter it says, First Peter five, it says to devour you. He wants to eat you alive.

The Bible tells us in first John chapter four and verse 24 that we shall worship him in spirit and truth. The Spirit of God works collectively with the truth of God to direct our lives. Jesus prayed in John 17, sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. Jesus very simplistically pointed to us the identity of what truth was His Word. We've gone through together in this series. How do we know we can trust the Bible? So I don't want to do that again, but just to simply say God's Word is truthful or it isn't. And if God's Word is truthful, the rest of truth isn't. The Spirit of God directs you to his truth. How do you know the Spirit of God is working in your life? He directs you to God's Word. The Spirit of God collectively guides us into our beliefs and believing. It guides us to Jesus to trust in him and believing it guides us to God's truth to learning about him. And it says in verse 14, he will glorify me, for he will not take of mine and will disclose it to you. Do you know one more way that the Spirit of God directs our beliefs? Is that it? It elevates Jesus and so many people get so fixed on the Spirit of God that they forget what the purpose of the Spirit of God is all about, and that is to make Jesus known, to be glorified.

The Spirit of God's role is a hidden role. The Spirit of God stands behind Christ and pushes him forward. How do we know the Spirit of God is working in our lives? Well, it affects our beliefs. It gets us to trust in Christ. It compels us to read God's Word, and it lifts us up to elevate Jesus in our lives. That's how the Spirit of God works. It affects our beliefs. But second of all, the Spirit of God affects our living. It says in Galatians chapter five and verse 16, but I say, walk in the spirit. Now the deeds of the flesh which are opposing the spirit are evident, which are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions and factions, envy and drunkenness, carousing, all of these things of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Those are things that oppose the spirit. But he goes on to say, this is what the spirit is. The fruit of the spirit is love. It's joy. It's peace, patience, kindness, goodness. It's faithfulness against such things. There is no law. The Spirit of God directs our lives. The Spirit of God changes our beliefs. How do we know the Spirit of God is working in us? Your character begins to change to model after His Spirit. Jesus tells us that his goal for us in the life of a believer is to conform us to the image of His Son.

When the Spirit of God works within our lives, we begin to live a particular way that suggests the Spirit of God is dwelling within us. And you know what the Spirit of God desires us for? To do with this is to live it out. Anyone can love someone who's lovable. Anyone can be patient with those who are patient around you. But when the Spirit of God is working, you love those who are unlovable. You're patient with those who are impatient. You're gentle with those who are rough. The Spirit of God. When he works in our lives, he begins to direct our beliefs, and as he directs our beliefs, he challenges our hearts to live in a particular way. This is how we know the Spirit of God works in our life. And you know, it makes total sense to Jesus's greatest command. Love the Lord your God with all your heart. Believe in him and love others. Live it out. This is how the Spirit of God directs our lives for the people of God. To begin to model and reflect what the church looked like in acts chapter two. It's Jesus. How do I begin to allow the spirit to look like this in me? The first answer is guys, spend time with Jesus. Everything that we saw in the first part of the chapter, that what the Spirit of God is to do is to promote Jesus.

If I want to look like the Spirit of God and I don't feel like I am in my life, the question that I ask you is, are you spending time with Jesus? Are you getting in His word? Are you praying and communicating with him? You're never going to look like Christ unless you're spending time with Christ. And from the joy of that relationship with the Lord. Outflows. Rivers of living water. You say, well, I don't believe you. Let me just say try it. Try just this week, taking some time in your morning just to open up His word and let God direct your heart in your life. Speak to him. Tell him where you are. God, I don't understand what this whole walk thing means. God, I don't know that I can even live like this in my life. But Jesus, it says give. You give it to you. So I'm giving everything that I am. It may not be that great. In fact, none of us are perfect. But, God, I'm giving it to you. And watch what God does in your life. I had a friend send me a message this week, and he was known in our community where I grew up. It was a town of about 15,000 people, and he was always in trouble, so everyone knew him. And this week, he kind of he's still been living that way.

And he kind of hit a wall and he just he sent me a text and he just all it said was, you got to tell me what the meaning of life is. You know, it's a shame to think that we could go our whole lives having never answered that question. We just kind of lived day to day float around. We got our little God in us. But as far as the overall meaning to life, who knows and who cares? But God tells us that he's given us His Spirit for a greater purpose than just living for day to day. He's given us his spirit to direct our beliefs and our minds to guide us where we need to go. And he's given us the spirit to challenge us to live in a way to promote the beauty of Christ. And you know, it said in acts chapter two and verse 47 that when that church did that, God added to their numbers day by day, because the beauty of Jesus was being seen in their lives. So let me leave with these last two thoughts for us. Bible tells us what a following after Christ lives. I don't even want to deal with that. What following after Christ is. The Bible tells us also how we ignore the following of Christ in our lives. Yes, I do want to deal with that. He tells us in Ephesians chapter four and verse 30, if you want to follow the Spirit of God in your life, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has also forgiven you. The important part is what Paul says in leading into this whole passage is, do not grieve the Holy Spirit. If you're coming today and you're saying, I've been trying this Jesus thing out and it's not working in my life. Maybe the answer for you this morning is you're grieving the Holy Spirit. What does that mean? That means you're ignoring what God wants to do in your life, and you're going on living however you want. It's as if you're hearing everything about God, and you're saying in a biblical sense, to hell with it. That's grieving the Holy Spirit. When God directs your heart to do one thing and you decide just to go do something totally different, don't expect the Spirit of God just to feel like living water within you. In fact, revelation tells us that Jesus spews lukewarm Christianity out of his mouth. Jesus wants all of you, not a part of you. Jesus wants all of you. And when you give all of him to you, the promise to him, excuse me? The promise is that living water will just flow forth in your life.

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God. It tells us, look in verse 31, that what that looks like, it's the person that's just going out and doing whatever they want. They're getting angry at everybody who wrongs them. They don't care about anybody else, just their wrath and their vengeance and their justice. But in verse 32 it says, here's how you know the Spirit of God is working. There is unity. There's a church. How big are we? I don't know, 75, 80 people this morning. You know, we could have present among us. It's unity, tolerance, but disunity. The Bible tells us the Spirit of God is not working in that moment. It tells us instead to be kind to one another. When other people wrong, you turn the other cheek. I think someone said that, right? I believe that was Jesus, tenderhearted, forgiving each other just as God in Christ has also forgiven you. Look, people are going to wrong you. You've wronged Jesus, and rather than smack you upside the head, he loved, he forgave you. Want the Spirit of God to work. It's got to start with unity and loving each other. That's where God works. Don't grieve the Holy Spirit. He tells us in the last verse, don't quench the Holy Spirit Yeah, I think this is a verse for those who say, I've given my life to Jesus, but I'm just I'm not finding that joy.

What's quenching the Holy Spirit? Anybody ever been real thirsty? Quench that thirst? You know, you're supposed to drink Gatorade in that situation, but you quench that thirst. You ever been in a place in your life where you thought the Spirit of God was directing you to do something, and then you didn't? Have you ever been in that place in your life where you just feeling your heart, being compelled to give it over to God, but you just want to onto it so bad? That's quenching the spirit. It's not about directly sinning against God. It's also about just ignoring God. The Bible talks about sin of omission and commission. Sins we do deliberately, and sins that we do not deliberately. We just simply ignore Israel made sacrifices for those sins because God thought both were important. Both were sins in his eyes. You can think. Just before we were about to start this church, I was back east visiting some other churches, letting them know we're going to create this cool, awesome church in Lehi. Lots of people are going to come and love it. It's going to be great. Just like acts two and I walked into Walmart, it's where everyone goes and I saw a high school friend of mine walking in, and he looked like he had the worst day of his life. And I remember I was in the middle of a conversation with Stacy, and she looked down an aisle, and then all of a sudden I was, next thing I know, I'm standing right in front of him.

I don't have any idea why, but as soon as I saw him, I just felt compelled by God just to walk over there and without even realizing, I was walking over there. Next thing I know, I'm right in front of him. And I just said hi to him and he looked at me like he wanted to kill me. And I stood back and I said, do you remember who I am? And he said, yeah, and that was all he said. So I continued to speak and he never spoke another word. And I thought, I've done something wrong at some point to this guy in his past, I forgot what it was. He still remembering that right now? I don't know what that is, but you know, I felt so compelled by God to go talk to him. And then he looked so dissatisfied by my presence that I just left. A day later, my mom called and said, hey, do you remember that guy that you went to high school with that you grew up with? I mean, he was my friend through elementary school, middle school, high school. I said, yeah, I remember him. And she said, well, I just heard he took his life yesterday. Right after I got done talking to him, he went home and ended his life.

And in that moment, I grieved the Holy Spirit. Jesus came to this world on a mission and he didn't do it alone. He sent the Spirit of God to work on the people of God, to do the ministry in this world, to share his love. There are two ways we do that as a church family. First, we do that with each other. We come here and we minister through God's Spirit and unity and love with one another. But we don't just focus on our church. It's just as important to God as this church as it is the people outside of these walls and our lives. We should look for a couple of ways to get engaged. We should come here to church and see God. Where do you want me to serve? If you've asked that question, you've been new here and you just want to get your feet wet. There are plenty of places to do that. We need ushers on Sunday morning. This morning we had a handful trying to figure out what we were going to do with the nursery because we've got people sick today. You guys don't know this, but this place was running like crazy until we got the service started today because we were short. So many people. There are ushers to serve. There is hospitality ministry, which Cara leads. There's nursery and toddlers, which Raquel leads. There's the facility care, which Marissa leads.

Hey, will you guys raise your hands for a minute? Cara's back here. Marissa is right here. Raquel is sick. TJ, is TJ here? I think her kids were okay. Thank you. Tj. She can hear me. Thank you. Tj. She does meal care teams, which, it's been such a blessing with our church. If we're going to reach the city for Christ, we need to care for the people in the city. And one of the great things that we've been able to do, because this lady has taken on this ministry, is we've been able to fix meals for people in our church who've been injured or can't do it. Had a baby. We had that blessing. And then people outside of our church to minister to those hearts. And so if you just like hospitality and you just want to provide meals for families and needs, we've got families right now that need it. The outreach, we do outreach during the summer. We've got a Halloween outreach coming up. We'll call it to those who hate the word Halloween. It's a what do you call it? Harvest party. We're going to do that. All right Halloween haters. All right. I don't care what you call it. building projects coming up. We're going to bust down this wall, so we need big muscles. But even beyond that, I mean, we've had we've got needs in Discovery Club. We got needs in children's church.

We're going to expand that. We knocked on the wall a bigger place to serve. We've got needs in music. We've got needs one on one discipleship. You think about it and we got it. We've got a list out there that's got a place for everyone to serve. You need to serve. God didn't call you to sit on your keister. Write on your pockets, right? He wants you to serve. That spirit of God is working in you to serve. And when you get out of this church, think outside of these walls. What about your family? What are you doing to spiritually grow your family? The Bible says be fruitful and multiply. Take care of the spiritual needs of your family, but also look to your city. How are we reaching those around us? Bible says this to those of you who are afraid this morning of what all that might mean, the Spirit of God, the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline. I hope I made this plain this morning for you guys. I hope when you leave today you can recognize when the Spirit of God is working in your life. Rather than grieve it or quench it, you embrace it and surrender to it. God loves you and that's what he wants for you. Who's closing us in a word of prayer.