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Good morning. How are you guys?

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So to you guys on the sides that were sitting there

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when the error decided to kick on all of a sudden.

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Sorry about that. Just kind of wake you up here just for the message, you know,

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just kind of infuse you with ice cubes,

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you know, I don't know what happened,

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but it's still good to be here. I mean, just wanted to remind you of what it's like outside right now,

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just to remind you how great it is to be in here.

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Right. Hey, we have been in the last couple of weeks.

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We've been in a series on just kind of looking at the question,

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what is the church? And I hope you guys have been enjoying this.

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I've enjoyed getting ready for it.

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You know, as I was sitting out there. And one of the things I hope that we're starting to see is what we do here

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matters, you guys being here and being a part of

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just the worship and the prayer and the everything that goes on here.

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It's important what we do. And it may not seem that way.

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Sometimes people kind of see this as almost like a side thing, like a

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just an add on. But what happens here, I hope today that

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we can kind of see that what we do, all the things that we invest

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in, those those spiritual things that we invest in our lives,

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they have real consequences just for life and for everything that goes on.

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So we've been looking at the question, what is the church kind of what

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what does it mean to be the church? What did Gavin ten when he when he first formed and shaped the church

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and launched it and but when you think about it, to answer that question, it really be

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probably good to go back to the beginning right to the

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to the guy that actually kind of got this thing going to Jesus and look at what he was doing

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and what he was intending in that, and we'll get a good picture of that. See?

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So when Jesus started

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his ministry, one of the first things that he did

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was he called and many you guys know this, you know, you've heard

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these stories about he called these 12 guys to himself

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to follow after him and to kind of learn from him,

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to be his students, what he would what were called disciples.

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And but when you look at that story, you look a little deeper into it.

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What you realize is he was not just asking.

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He was not just calling them

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just to kind of follow after him for a short time.

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This was a much longer term and a much bigger kind of purpose that he had.

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And so he wasn't just calling them. And this is important for us to know.

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He wasn't just asking them to follow after him

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so they could learn a few things, you know, and then go back to doing things

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how they had always done them, go back to what they had been doing before and do it the same way.

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Instead, he was and he very specifically, he called them out from their families.

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He called them out from their businesses, out from all the frameworks

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that had kind of where they had been figuring out what life was,

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kind of all these frameworks that had defined who they were even call them away from, he said.

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One is step away from who you even think yourself to be,

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because I need to form you into being a new type of people.

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I need to form you into being a kingdom.

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People so that you can be this, this new people, this new family,

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this new community called the church.

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And so that same call actually is what has been passed down,

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has kind of echoed down through all these years and all these generations

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and now comes to us and that call is on us.

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And those who answer the call and who who follow who say, yeah,

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following Jesus, I'm following Jesus, that call

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comes down to us to be that church, to be those men and women

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who we also are, those who step away from kind of all that we have known

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to choose to follow him so that we can be shaped into those people

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that he has called us to be. So we want to know what that means.

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What does it mean? Not just what is the church, but what does it mean for us to be the church?

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So we're going to start out in Romans chapter eight, verse 14 through 21.

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So stand with me as we look at this passage

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in Romans Romans chapter eight, verse 14 through 21.

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These are some verses that they focus on

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a really an important characteristic.

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One of the most important things about what does it mean for for us to be the church.

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ROMANS 814 through 21. It says for all who are being led

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by the spirit of God, these are the children of God.

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I want you to remember that peace, all who are being led by the spirit of God.

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These are the children of God, for you have not received

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a spirit of slayed slavery, leading to fear again,

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but you have received a spirit of adoption as children, by which we cry out Abba.

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Ava is an Aramaic word.

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That was just kind of equivalent to our daddy is just the first word that a baby would cry out.

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But it's the spirit of adoption by which we cry out above Father.

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The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit

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that we are children of God, and if children, heirs, also heirs of God

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and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him

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so that we might also be glorified with him.

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For I consider that the sufferings, the challenges, the things that we run

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into, the sufferings of this present age are not worthy

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to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us

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for the anxious longing of the Creator and of all of the creation

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waits eagerly for the revealing other of the children,

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even the heirs of God for the creation

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was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it,

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and hope that the creation itself will also be set free from his slavery

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to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

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That's a pretty big deal, right?

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Right. All of creation is waiting

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to see the children of God revealed. So, yes, the church the church is made up of those who have taken

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have accepted Jesus as invitation and and trust in him as their Lord.

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The church is also those who live out.

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I mean, we live out this this ethic is defined in the Bible.

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We live out. We frame our lives around certain this framework of beliefs.

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We engage in certain activities outside of this where we bring, you know,

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we're driven by God's compassion and to make him known.

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But above that, above all,

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the church is that group of people who are being led by God's spirit,

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being led by God's spirit in all these things

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to do what to do the business of the kingdom.

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That's one of the things that we've been seeing. The church, then even the word itself just means that we are those

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who have been gathered together by God to do the business, the work of the Kingdom.

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Jesus said that His spirit, this Holy Spirit, would be

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His representative when He left, that this would be

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the Spirit would be the one who would now be our teacher, would now be

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our guide, would now be the one who we follow, who we learn from.

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And so what does it mean to be the church? Well, it means that we follow the spirit.

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It means that we're led by him, that we're constantly attuned to what he is up to

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and what he is wanting to do, and we follow him in it.

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So that's what we want to look at today. What what does that mean? What does it mean to follow the spirit?

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What does it mean to follow him as individuals?

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What does it mean to follow him as a church?

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Because being led by the spirit that's that key

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characteristic of what it means for us to be the church and then,

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you know, Father, this morning we want to see things

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from your perspective and hear the things that you're saying.

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You've said that if we had eyes that could see

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and ears that could hear and a heart that would understand,

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if the heart would understand based on the things that you show us

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and you speak to us, the father, we would turn we'd be able to turn back to you.

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We'd find that healing, that life and that that grace that we seek.

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And so, Father, open our eyes, open our ears,

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give us understanding in our hearts.

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Give us that spirit that Ephesians talks about the spirit of Revelation,

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so that we would know to the core of who we are,

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the things that you have done, the things that you have made us to be,

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and fathers so that we might be your church.

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So show us today. Show us what it means to to follow your spirit.

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Show us what it means to walk with him and be in step with him and be aware of him.

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Have your ears open to him. Have the courage to do what he

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what he leads us and just lays out for us, helps us to understand.

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Father, we pray that you would do all that this morning.

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This would be a holy place where you're you're changing our hearts

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and just reframing our minds

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so that we might, through our lives, make Jesus

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we pray these things in his name.

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We pray these things for your glory, Father.

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We pray that these things might be by the power of your spirit.

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Father, we are yours. We are your people. We are your church. We love you.

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We ask these things for your glory. Amen.

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Amen. Have a seat.

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So in our lives, I don't know if you guys.

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I know you guys have these times that we'll have these moments

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that just kind of change everything, right? Sometimes we have these moments

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that things happen that are so shocking that for the rest of your life,

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you'll have this, like, clearly embedded memory.

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Right? And not only you remember that

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the setting, but you remember the feelings.

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Right? And you remember and then you remember also that thing that was so shocking.

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Well, one of those moments in my life Now, this wasn't one of the biggies,

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but you guys are going to like those dramatic times.

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Well, one of those moments for me was in math class when I was a junior in high school.

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It was the moment that our teacher introduced to us

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the idea that you could graph things in three dimensional space, you know,

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and you guys are all looking at me like math immediately you guys glaze over,

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you know? But up to that point, we have these simple graphs, right?

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And you have this piece of paper and you draw one line this way.

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That's the x axis and one line this way.

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Now I'm just bringing up painful memories for some of you guys.

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I know, but and the other is the y axis.

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And you have two numbers, the X and the Y, and you plot the.

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No, the point, you know well, also and our teacher said, you know what?

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I want you to do is I want you to draw this other line,

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this kind of diagonal this way and this way across it.

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And I want you to imagine that this line is coming

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straight up off your paper and in the empty space.

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Right. And and now we're able to graph three numbers.

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You know, you have your X, your Y, and let's call it your Z.

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And so now I you to graph these dots on this thing, imagining that

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not only is this flat on your paper, but it's filling up space this way.

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And so that day, like many of you right now, all of us went home

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with these massive headaches. Right.

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Or just and our minds are completely blown until the next day

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when our teacher decided to talk to us about,

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you know, it's also possible to think about things in four and five dimensions and that just that just killed us.

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And so we're not going to go there. But

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once we got over, you know, the headache,

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once we kind of had recovered from the initial shock, what we realized

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is that our teacher had just opened up a whole other world to us right.

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Because just by kind of this whole a dimension of thinking of

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we we had no idea after that point that on this flat piece of paper

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that you can make something three dimensional, that you could think of things three dimensionally.

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I mean, that was like art class, right?

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That wasn't math. We thought math is, you know, it's all right there. It's all real.

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And but also it just opened all this up

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and it meant that from that point on to every time,

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even when we would look at a flat graph, we just know, you know what?

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There's really a whole other thing that can come, right?

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There's this whole other dimensions that can be added to this paper.

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Even though it looks flat, it can actually be much bigger than what it is.

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You know, when started talking to his disciples about the Holy Spirit

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and about how the Holy Spirit would would

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was the one that would kind of initialize this thing

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where we would become the actual the children of God,

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that the Holy Spirit would be the one who would transform us

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so that we would reflect the very character of Jesus

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and how the Holy Spirit would would fill us

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so that we would be filled with God's own presence.

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When he started talking about that, I'm sure the disciples went home

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more than a couple of days with these just headaches to have, just like what just happen.

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Because just like adding that dimension onto that piece of paper also.

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And he was talking about life in a whole different way, in a way

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that just added this whole other dimension to what life was and not just

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what we found in math class, was that when you added this whole other

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this just a simple line in your paper, you had this whole realm

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that that all sudden you had to you could operate in.

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And then we found out that we had to learn a whole different type of math

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to operate in, that that would start taking all those dynamics into account.

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And the same thing happened when Jesus started teaching about the Spirit.

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It's like you opened this whole other world up to them and they realized that,

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God has God has an intention for our lives

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to be much more not just flat

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but multidimensional than what we had ever imagined.

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And the fact is, is that we need to learn about the type of life

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that needs to be lived inside that world that is so much

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bigger than we thought it was

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that realm, that realm of the spirit, that spiritual realm that Jesus

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was talking about, where God dwells and where, you know, so much goes on.

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That is the realm where God's people, the church, where we not only exist,

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where we operate, but where we learn, where we grow, and where we do

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the business of God's kingdom.

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That is where the church operates,

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where it exists, because God's kingdom is not just about the physical world.

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The world. You know, we think of this world as three dimensional, and it is.

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And we're going through time. And so maybe that's the fourth dimension.

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And but then you add the spiritual dimension

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on to everything that's going on. It's almost like

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they're just a whole other world that we that we are not only a part of,

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but that we have authority and that we've been born into.

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And he says, you need to take this into account because

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and you not only need to be aware that there's this whole other world

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that's there, but you need to learn what it means to live life in a way,

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in a way that that, that not only it's not just that it fits in that world,

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but that life that is made for that bigger world that you're actually a part of.

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So following Jesus, you know, following Jesus

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is not just about living in this physical world where we

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what we see and what we hear and what we feel.

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But he says, you know what? There are ways to see in the spirit there's a whole other way.

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There's almost like a set of eyes, and it's given to your heart that the eyes, your heart can see.

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There's a set of ears that he's giving you, that

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you not only hear the sounds of this world, but you hear

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the voice of God. You hear him speaking, you hear it.

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You learn what it means to to hear him and to understand him.

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You also sense his movement and the movement of the things around you

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and following the spirit of God in those things.

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That's what it means. That's what it means to follow Jesus.

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That's what it means to be his church.

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It's to do that work. So now, if you want to know how important

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you the Holy Spirit is,

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you know, because a lot of times the Holy Spirit tends to be kind of the

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lost member of the Trinity. We know about God, the Father, we know about Jesus.

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But sometimes we don't talk so much about the Holy Spirit,

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but you look into it in Scripture and he is there.

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He's there. He's there. At the beginning in Genesis one, you read and he's there at Creation.

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When the worlds created. He is there when when Jesus is conceived.

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He's there when Jesus is commission baptized.

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He's there throughout the Ministry of Jesus.

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When you read the Gospels, he's there.

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You see that he is there when the church is born and acts

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Chapter two, and he is there at every moment when he is commissioning

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the expansion of the church and the growth of the church in the the

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even the purifying of the church, that this Holy Spirit is right

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in the middle of it.

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Luke and John, they treat the Holy Spirit as one of the main themes of their books.

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Galatians five talks about the fruit of the spirit, the outcome of the Spirit

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first Corinthians 12 through 14 talks

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about the gifts of the Spirit that are given to us.

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You find him talked about in in

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Second Corinthians five, second Corinthians ten,

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Romans five, eight and 12,

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Ephesians one four and six,

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James for Zachariah three, you know, Joel, Isaiah, Ezekiel, all these

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wherever you look in the Bible, the Holy Spirit is being talked about

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not just as as this force, as this person, this representative, this part,

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this third person of the Trinity of God who is at work in the world, in our lives.

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And he's talked about in a way that we might know him and recognize

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when he is at work, because he's important to the work that God is doing.

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He is important to this business of the kingdom, is important to the church.

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Well, then we read in John three

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and Jesus is talking to this guy Nicodemus, and he says, You know what?

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If you're not reborn of this spirit in a similar way, but not,

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not the same, but in a comparable way

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to how you were born in the flesh and that brought you into this world.

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Well, you need to be born of the spirit. So because otherwise you're not even going to enter the kingdom of Heaven.

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In Romans eight, verse nine, it says that if we

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if we don't have the spirit of God, we don't even belong to Jesus.

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There's something essential about the Spirit of God

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and knowing and the spirit of God being in us.

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And first, John, it says, We know that God is with us because He has given us His spirit.

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So He's this not just this essential part to all that God

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has been doing in the Earth, but what He is He's doing in us and all of us.

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Because what he's doing in us fulfills this promise that he's been making

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from the Old Testament from the very beginning.

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But in the Old Testament, he makes statements like in Ezekiel

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chapter 36, verse 27, it says,

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I will put my spirit within you,

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my spirit, I mean, the spirit of God living in us.

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You look at that and you go, I'm not sure how that works.

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I look at, you know, I have limited space, you know, this is me.

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But that's what he says you get. That's what you get to realize.

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There's this whole other dimension that we're talking about here,

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because the very person of God comes and he takes up residence

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within us and he says He'll do that so that you will.

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And he says so that you will. But he really is implied there, like so that you'll be able to

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so that you'll even want to obey my commandments, follow

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my ways, understand and follow my ordinances.

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Sometimes we try and do what God wants us to do

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and we can't find it within us to do that. Why?

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Because we're trying to rely on this two dimensional thing to live out

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this life in this three dimensional space.

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It says, You can't do it. The spirit is the one who can lead you into that and can show you.

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So we can't understand what God wants.

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We don't have the power to do what He asks us to do.

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We don't even have the understanding to be able to the comprehension,

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the ability to understand what he's even trying to do.

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Unless the spirit reveals that

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unless he's operating in us, unless he empowers us to do that.

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So we can't be the church

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unless we're led by the spirit, unless the Spirit of God is active

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within us and around us and through us.

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He's the one that opens up. This is the other dimension he's the one who teaches us

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what it means to live in him. In Isaiah 11, when Jesus first started his ministry,

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he opened up the scroll of Isaiah and he read this passage from Isaiah 11.

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11 starts out. It says, The spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me.

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And He says, and it goes on to tell these things that

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what it looks like when the spirit shows up,

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it's the spirit of the Lord has anointed me to speak good news to those who are afflicted to to bind up broken

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hearts, to free captives, to bring to replace mourning for joy.

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I mean, it's it's this whole list of things.

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And Jesus said, you know, if you want to know what my ministry is all about, what my life is all about is found in

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these verses is really encapsulated in that this is my call

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because the spirit of the Lord is upon me and this is what He does.

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So if we want to know what is it that the church is called to do,

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what is that we are called to do? We look at the same thing because we're called to

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we don't we don't do things that are any different than what Jesus was doing.

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We just keep doing more of it.

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He said, You're going to do more and greater works than I did,

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but not not like different, not completely separate,

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not like we choose our own pathway, but it's the same spirit that comes in us.

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And he continues to do this, this ministry, this, this work

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that Jesus had started, the business of the kingdom.

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That's what the church is led by the Spirit

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doing the business and the work of the kingdom.

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So what makes us the church is that it's the presence

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and the leading and the power of the spirit working among us.

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That's what makes the church, that's what makes us the church, because it says

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that it's the spirit who births us,

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you know, into this new world.

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But it's also the spirit that empowers us to be able to

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even live and operate in that new world is the spirit that that transforms

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are thinking so that we comprehend this life that we're trying to live,

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this bigger life in this bigger world than we had ever known

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or thought about before. It says the spirit is.

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The one who who takes all of us is independent individual lives.

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And he's able to to baptize us, it says,

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like baptize us into one body, one body,

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one one unified with Christ as our head,

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so that we're accomplishing the one kind of in a united way.

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The purposes of God empowers us to do that.

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He equips us to do that. He gifts us to do that.

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He does the work of purifying us.

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And I mean, he applies the things that Jesus

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that Jesus won and bought and and the work that he did for us.

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The spirit is the one that applies that to our lives, that we become more like Jesus. So

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so when it comes to the work of the church that we've been talking about, right.

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You have five things that I've been highlighting.

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We come together to to bring God the honor that He deserves in worship.

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That's one of the that the works of of the kingdom that we do together.

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We come together so that we might learn how to share our lives

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and invest in each other's lives. In this thing that God calls fellowship,

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he says, is the same word that He uses of our fellowship with him.

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And we invest in God and He invests in us.

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And that's and we do that with each other.

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It's another work that we do. We do this work where we we go into the heavenly places

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and we, we by the authority that's given to us in Jesus name

24:52

and the authority that's given to us by the Spirit.

24:54

We establish things in that new realm,

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establish things in the name of Jesus for the Kingdom of God.

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We do that hard work of letting God take His Word

25:04

and transform us through discipleship.

25:07

So we have we have worship and we have prayer and we fellowship and discipleship.

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And then we also do that work where we go out in the world.

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So that we might make Jesus know,

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that we might make Jesus known, that we might that people, not just in word,

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but the people might experience God's love as well through what they see us do.

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So these works

25:27

of the kingdom, this work of the church that God has called us to, we say, Well,

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what what does the Bible have to say about what the spirits involvement in that is?

25:36

I mean, you look at John four and then you look at Ephesians five

25:38

and it says, you know what, if you're not worshiping in the spirit, you're not worshiping.

25:44

Does it come to God? It says must worship him in spirit, in the truth because he is spirit.

25:48

That's where he lives. If we're not worshiping him, the fullness of that of that new life

25:52

and that new kind of the spirit is really the one who empowers us

25:57

to be able to do that, then we're not even bringing the worship to him.

26:00

We look at a Ephesians or in first Corinthians 12

26:04

through 14, and then in Ephesians four it says, You know what, fellowship

26:08

this life of the community, it's not even happening the way that God wants us to

26:13

unless it is the spirit, this equipping and the spirit, this gifting and the

26:17

spirit that's driving it.

26:19

So if we're not if we're not investing in each other's lives

26:22

the way that God has called us to through the power of the Spirit,

26:25

then that's not even community. That's not even the community that God ever intended,

26:29

says the Spirit has to be intimately involved in that.

26:32

John 14 second Corinthians three It says,

26:36

It's the spirit who who teaches us who does that work of transformation,

26:40

who teaches us and who transforms us so that we day by day by day,

26:46

come to reflect Jesus more and more and more.

26:49

It's the spirit. He does that.

26:52

Romans 826, Ephesians 618.

26:55

Both of those, they say, you know what, when you pray,

27:00

prayer, prayer is just babbling prayers, just saying words.

27:04

If we're not praying in the spirit and, you know, there are those who have taken

27:08

that that phrase praying in the spirit, and they've made it this technical thing,

27:11

that means that somehow you're praying in a different language or you praying

27:15

that's not it was talking. That may be a part of it

27:17

for some people in their experience of what God is doing in them. But

27:22

but praying in the Spirit just means that you are praying,

27:24

led by and brought into the awareness of the fullness of life

27:29

in this fullness of the of the realm that we're that we're walking

27:32

and we're operating, we're living in.

27:36

Because the spirit is informing you, even as you pray in.

27:39

Romans, it actually says, we don't even know what we're supposed to pray for sometimes.

27:43

And the spirit teaches us and sometimes he gives us we can't even put words to it.

27:48

We just kind of we almost like let him just pray.

27:51

We just kind of it says grown,

27:54

right? There's sometimes that you just get this burden that comes on you

27:57

and all you can do is just kind of lay in front of God and just not even say anything.

28:02

Just let your heart the spirit, speak through your heart

28:06

because he's bringing you into a dimension you can't even

28:12

you can't even articulate it.

28:14

And then in Acts one eight, Jesus, he his disciples, you know what?

28:18

You need to wait in Jerusalem until you're clothed from on high

28:22

with power by the Holy Spirit. Why?

28:25

Because you can't even be a witness of Jesus.

28:28

You can't even express love as God intends

28:31

for you to express it to this world so that they might know

28:34

not that you're a nice person, but that they might know him.

28:37

You can't even do that unless the Holy Spirit empowers

28:41

you and leads you and shows you how to do that.

28:44

Right. So we can't be the church

28:47

unless a spirit is actively leading us and teaching us and filling us

28:51

and empowering us to do the things that Jesus has called us to do.

28:57

So. So then the question comes up, okay, so what does it mean?

29:01

What does it mean to follow the spirit?

29:04

What does it mean to be led by the Spirit as this people?

29:08

Because the Spirit, again, he, the Holy Spirit, is

29:12

not just he's not a power. He's not it it

29:16

he's a person. He's the third person of the Trinity.

29:19

There are three persons who make up one God.

29:22

And don't ask me the math on that one Again, that's like, blow your mind,

29:26

you know. Okay, let's get over that.

29:29

But God has said that's who he is.

29:31

So he's been a community of three this whole time.

29:34

Three united. Like, we can't even imagine what it means.

29:38

You know, Jesus said, I am the father of one.

29:41

He's going to bring us into that community, into that that unity

29:44

of who he is through the power of the Holy Spirit.

29:47

But the Holy Spirit is this person who now is actively involved, In fact,

29:52

in Corinthians, he's called the Lord is now the Lord of the church

29:56

in the same way Jesus is the Lord of the Church.

29:58

He's an active representative of who

30:01

Jesus is, and doing the will of the Father here in the church.

30:05

So what does it mean to be What does that look like?

30:08

And I want to give you three things that I think that you can take

30:11

and you can can I just filters. You can

30:14

put your life through on a regular basis that will help bring us kind of

30:18

to this place where we we're more aware of one,

30:21

this whole world that God has opened up to us, the spiritual world

30:26

and the awareness of the spiritual world, but

30:28

also the awareness of his spirit,

30:32

the awareness of what does it mean to be led by him and to follow after him.

30:35

So first first, is this

30:38

being led by the spirit? Is a change of perception?

30:43

A change of perception? We need to

30:47

realize that we're now live in this world.

30:50

Is this whole other world. It's a whole other world.

30:53

And he is. He's in the middle of it. And so we live we need to live in this constant awareness

30:59

that the Holy Spirit is present in every part of our life,

31:03

every aspect, every activity that we enter into,

31:06

every moment of our day, that there's this whole other dimension

31:10

that's been added because the spirit is there is opening helping.

31:14

He wants us to understand that we live in this much bigger world at every moment than we thought we did.

31:19

Okay, So a change your perception.

31:23

You know, when we once we did, we learned that about this graph in math.

31:28

Again, everything we looked at, every graph you looked at,

31:31

whether this line, this third line was written in or not,

31:34

you realize there was this whole other you know, this whole

31:37

the capability of this graph to go into this whole other dimension.

31:40

The way with our lives, when we look at our families, you know,

31:45

sometimes we just think, you know, we may

31:47

look at that or we look at our our life in our business world.

31:50

You know, our work life, or we look at our life in or our hobbies,

31:54

you know, I go fishing and we're going, you know, fishing is pretty flat.

31:57

It's pretty two dimensional, right? It's just that no says everything.

32:01

We need to change the perception because we need to realize that God

32:04

has brought this whole new world into every aspect of our lives.

32:08

And this, the spirit of God is with us in every moment to teach us.

32:12

What does it mean? What does it mean to go fishing with Jesus? There?

32:16

I don't know if I know, right?

32:19

What does it mean to walk in there? Sometimes that it becomes becomes really easy

32:23

because you walk into the creation and all this and you're going, Wow, right?

32:26

And you're just kind of brought into that and you're made aware

32:29

because creation keeps like shouting it out all the time.

32:32

But what does it mean to go into your your work life and say,

32:35

what does it mean to go into my work with Jesus there,

32:39

with the Holy Spirit there and showing me what does it mean

32:42

to have this whole other dimension to that life?

32:44

What does it mean to approach my family life or my

32:47

my just with my, my family?

32:51

Here are the broader family or relationships that I'm in.

32:54

What does it mean to have Jesus involved in these relationships

32:57

that I'm in, these friendships that I have? What does that mean

33:00

to have this whole other world that God has opened up and to become aware of it?

33:04

Because it's only so it's a change of perception.

33:07

Perception. So the first questions that I ask is,

33:13

one, do you go through your day aware of one, you know, the spiritual world

33:18

and the whole that is all around you and the Holy Spirit who's with you?

33:23

Do you go through your day perceiving that?

33:26

Because if not, then you need to ask yourself,

33:29

how can I be more aware of the Holy Spirit?

33:31

Because He is constantly trying to teach you how to go into your day

33:34

aware of all this around you, because we don't have to just act.

33:38

We don't just interact with this world anymore.

33:41

We interact with that whole new world as well.

33:45

Okay, so what can I be doing? And just be praying about that, be saying, God, help me to be more aware of this.

33:51

Help me to be more aware of the world that I live in and.

33:55

Be more aware of your spirit who's with me in it

33:59

because there's a change of perception.

34:03

Second, being led by the Spirit is a change of perspective.

34:09

Okay? Because

34:12

we learn when we follow the spirit that so everything we learn

34:17

about everything in light of the spirit, that's what the first verse about.

34:20

And he starts opening it up and we start we start seeing that, you know,

34:25

Jesus, when he calls his disciples away

34:27

from their families, He wasn't calling them away.

34:30

There are a lot of times cults will call people out of the family,

34:34

so isolate them and get them to show that they're easily manipulated

34:38

and that Jesus wasn't doing that. He called them away for a while for a time.

34:41

But then, like you read the New Testament

34:43

and Paul writes, he says, You know, if anybody's not taking care of their family

34:47

and they're worse than an unbeliever, you know,

34:50

they're worse than just not following Jesus at all,

34:53

why he wanted to pull them away so that they could see, you know what?

34:56

There's a whole other dimension you need to learn about who your family is

35:00

so that you can know what is the most important work to do in your family.

35:04

And you're not going to find it by staying embedded in the flat world

35:08

that you just assume is all that there is.

35:11

You need to take that time that takes you away from

35:14

that so God can teach you how to walk back into it.

35:17

As one who's aware of this spiritual nature of that realm

35:21

and the spiritual nature,

35:23

the spiritual world that you live in, and the spirit who walks with you

35:26

and what how you know, how he wants you to be empowered

35:30

to live in that in a whole new world, in a whole new way.

35:33

And so that's true about your families.

35:36

That's true about. He called them away from their businesses.

35:39

But there are some times that God sends you into the business things, into your

35:42

your business place, into that that work world.

35:45

And he says, I'm sending you here because you are the one

35:48

I want to bring to do this work in this place,

35:52

in this workplace, this spiritual work that needs to be done.

35:57

And so changing not just your perception, but also your perspective on

36:01

what is going on around you and what you're there for, right,

36:06

is to do the work of the kingdom, because that's why he rebirthed us.

36:09

That's why he made this

36:12

us aware of this whole other place. So being led by the Spirit means that we see everything

36:18

from this new perspective of God's purposes and God's power

36:22

and God's possibilities, God's intentions for this world.

36:26

So wherever you walk into just knowing that I,

36:30

I don't walk in as a flat, you know, it was a flat world person, right?

36:34

I walk in, is this new kind of aware of this this other dimension of the spirit?

36:40

So questions you can ask yourself has

36:44

have you done the work or has the spirit done the work

36:47

where you feel like you you understand that God is integrated

36:51

into every aspect of your life.

36:54

This awareness and the intentions of his ways and his works.

36:58

Have you done that? How do you do you know how you define like your work world or your family world

37:03

or your your leisure world or your relational world?

37:07

You know, you have that that frame, that framework in you,

37:10

that you're seeing it in light of God's at work there.

37:14

And is that work through me.

37:16

And he's not just at work on the flat kind of things I see in touch,

37:19

but he's at work in those things that are behind the scenes or things that are part of the world.

37:24

The spirit where you have good news, people

37:27

need, where there are some that are being afflicted that they need.

37:30

The good news preached to them, proclaimed to them, not just preached

37:34

them, told to them encouragement, and there are others who are broken

37:38

that need to be bound up by the power that God has given you in the Spirit.

37:43

There are those who there are those who are imprisoned in different ways,

37:47

and they need to be released by the authority that's been given to you

37:50

to walk into that place and into declare that release. So

37:57

has he done that

38:00

and in your life? The other question I would say that

38:03

we have to say to our church is, have we done that?

38:06

Do we see everything that we do in light of that,

38:08

that fuller dimensional life of why we're here?

38:12

Do we come in, we just sing songs, or do we see that that is

38:16

that is a very act of worship that just I mean, it rattles

38:19

the heavens, it rattles the heavens, it changes everything.

38:22

The work that you do here just coming up and doing something simple

38:27

and we don't even understand it sometimes.

38:29

But we're learning, you know, Jesus said, Do this to remember me.

38:32

And so we go up and we try and enter into this space.

38:36

You guys that changes things.

38:38

Then that act of worship and that act of remembering

38:41

and that act of it changes things in you, but it changes things in this realm.

38:46

The spirit. And it has broader consequences than you might even know.

38:51

Sometimes you don't feel like you know how to pray, but you do it anyway.

38:56

And you guys that changes things because the spirit is in you.

39:00

You're the church and you've been brought into the spiritual realm and the spirit is with you.

39:05

So when he works you, he works in power. What you do matters.

39:09

So change your perception, change of perspective on

39:14

how you even approach these places, but then also being

39:17

led by the Spirit as a change of priority.

39:20

You know, we need to learn that these things, these things that God is

39:25

wanting us to engage in, in our lives, things like prayer

39:28

and things like spending time, in his words, you can shape us, things like gathering for worship with God's people.

39:33

These things aren't just add ons.

39:36

They're not just add ons. We kind of take it or leave it.

39:39

These are things that are essential because they're things that are the work of the kingdom.

39:44

And that's what that's like. Our that's our prime responsibility.

39:48

Now, when Jesus was here, he said, you know, seek first the kingdom and his righteousness

39:53

and these other things will be added, right?

39:56

All this flat world stuff will be added.

39:59

The seek first is Kingdom of righteousness. Paul would right?

40:02

And he said, Set your mind on the things that are above none of the things that are down below.

40:06

You know, John he would right And he says you know don't be don't

40:09

be following these these influences of this flat world,

40:12

the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, the pride of life.

40:15

Don't don't be caught up in that.

40:18

But instead be be just kind of immersed in

40:24

and capture it by the love of the father

40:27

that that fuller

40:30

world of the love of the father.

40:33

You know, when we understand that being the church means

40:37

that we are gathered for one purpose, you know, we

40:41

when we understand that the spirit brings us together for one, we invest ourselves.

40:46

We prepare ourselves. So like, how are we doing as we come to church, Right?

40:51

How are we doing in prioritizing? Not just getting, you know.

40:54

We make sure our hair doesn't look all crazy, right?

40:57

We get on some clothes that we look okay at other people and we kind of,

41:01

you know, we brush our teeth so we don't, you know, don't offend anybody too bad.

41:04

But do we do the hard work?

41:07

Right, Because we're coming to do the work of worship here.

41:11

The work that I mean, it just doesn't shatter it just doesn't rattle things on this level.

41:16

It rattles things

41:18

on this much broader way.

41:20

And so do we do that hard work?

41:23

Do we do the hard work during the week of making sure that we are

41:26

we're paying attention to Jesus, we're listening to his word.

41:29

So when we come here, we're ready to wrestle with the word that he puts in front of us.

41:33

This word from from Romans eight.

41:36

This is what does it mean to be led by the spirit We want to train ourselves to?

41:40

What? How how do I wrestle with God's word on a daily basis?

41:44

You know, some of you guys, you know, I regularly I carry

41:46

a whole stack of these three by five cards that I've just write out.

41:51

There times big chunks of scripture sometimes just verses that God's

41:54

just kind of says, this is going to be important.

41:56

So and carry it with you during the day so that you can be

42:00

pulling it out and staying engaged with that work.

42:03

Even in the midst of the other work that you're doing.

42:05

Right. How are we doing with doing in that sense?

42:10

So I'm

42:13

following in the spirit. Change your perception, change your perspective

42:17

on everything he has done, but then also change your priority.

42:20

How are we doing in priority tithing, the work that God has called us into

42:25

because he said,

42:29

You're the church

42:31

and this is what it means to be the church

42:34

is to be led by the spirit.

42:36

It's to be immersed in that world, to be aware of that world,

42:40

and to prioritize the work of that world, because nobody else is doing it right.

42:45

If the church isn't doing that work, nobody else is going to pick it up.

42:48

We're the ones who've been born and authorized and transformed

42:52

order to do this work together.

42:54

And we realize, we realize as we read scripture and as we see what God has taught us

42:59

through the life of Christ, we realize that, you know what?

43:02

When you when you do the work of the kingdom,

43:07

that actually it then it changes this world as well.

43:10

Right. In ways that we didn't even expect,

43:13

in ways that, you know, you look at a third dimension,

43:15

you look at a point where points kind of hanging out in space

43:18

and the way it looks on the flat page, it looks like it's hanging in the wrong spot. But it isn't.

43:22

It's just it changes everything about even the way

43:25

that the flat world, how you see it and how it operates,

43:29

because it's added this whole new dimension,

43:32

the dimension of the spirit,

43:34

this world of spirit in which we live

43:37

and in which God lives with us and guides us.

43:41

So he says, Be the church, right, Be the church,

43:46

follow, follow the spirit like the disciples follow Jesus,

43:50

follow Him, do the work,

43:54

because that's what we're here for.