Jesus: If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture said, streams of living water will flow from within him.

Disciple 1: Why does he always do that?

Disciple 2: Do what?

Disciple 1: You know!

Disciple 2: No. . .What?

Disciple 1: He’s always talking in hyperboles

Disciple 2. You mean parables don’t you?

Disciple 1. (said in anger) Hyperbole’s, parables, why doesn’t he just say what he means?

Disciple 2: I don’t know

(Pause)

Disciple 2: What do you think he meant?

Disciple 1: Maybe we’re supposed to ask him for  a drink?

Disciple 2: No, I did that once and he gave me a bottle of Aquafina

Disciple 2: So, what did he mean?

Disciple 1: I don’t know. (Short Pause) – Maybe he meant that we were supposed to drink a lot of water

Disciple 2: Yeah, maybe this is a test, we’re supposed to do this on faith. We’re not supposed to ask questions, we’re just supposed to drink A LOT like we’re really thirsty.

Disciple 2: (looks at small glass) What are you doing with that?

Disciple 1: I’m drinking!

Disciple 2: (laughing) That’s a little girl glass. (Deep Base Voice) This is a man sized glass, for a man sized thirst. (Drinking a lot)

Disciple 1: Do you see anything coming out of me yet?

Disciple 2: Nope. (Pause) Do you see anything coming out of me yet?

Disciple 1: Nope. I’m starting to sweat, do you think that counts?

Disciple 2: No! (Fidgeting like a little kid who needs to go to the bathroom) I need to really go. Do you think that’s what he meant by streams of living water coming out of you?

Disciple 1: No!

Disciple 2: Then what did he mean when he said, “If you are thirsty, come to me and drink, and out of you will flow streams of living water?”

Disciple 1: I don’t know.

Disciple 2: I’m not feeling so good!

Disciple 1: Yeah, you drank a lot of water.

Disciple 2: (Looking really sick, acting like he’s ready to vomit.) Vomiting

Disciple 1: (Looking at the audience, asking them) Do you think that’s what Jesus meant when he said, “Streams of living water will flow out of you?”

Disciple 2 I hope not!

Run off stage.

Message:

Jesus said, If anyone is thirsty let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him. And then John, the writer of this account of Jesus’ life said, 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 yet been glorified.

Generally speaking in our culture we try to take in, get more, make more, have more. We try to get better jobs so that we can make more money, so that we can buy more things and then that cycle repeats itself as often as we can in our life time, get a better job, make more money, so that we can buy more, have more, own more. That is the American Dream! It’s all about taking more in.

 Having more is fun for a while, but then once the fun and the newness of it wears off, you find that it’s empty and you start asking yourself is this all there is. And you catch yourself thinking “It seems like there ought to be More, it seems like there ought to be more to life than this. The American Dream is all about the illusive carrot that keeps on luring us toward . . . More.

The illusion in the American Dream is that some day you won’t need MORE. Is that true? Has it ever happened to you or someone that you knew, where you stopped one day and said, “You know that American Dream.” I got it. I have enough. I don’t have to keep trying to make more, because I have enough.

I know some very rich people, but they’re still chasing that elusive carrot. They have A LOT, but they still need more. They have desires in life, but ultimately those desire are never met. We try to fill our hearts with things on the outside, but ultimately they leave our thirst, our desires unmet. They don’t deliver what our heart longs for. That’s the American Dream.

Then there is the Jesus Dream. Jesus offers us a relationship with our Creator. He offers us forgiveness. He offers us unconditional love. He offers us power to live as we could never imagine, full of love, full of peace, full of joy, full of purpose, full of blessing, full of goodness.

Jesus asks us, “Do you desire what I have to offer?” Are you thirsty for what I have?”  You can’t do life well without me. You can only do life well by thirsting or desiring for what it is that I offer. Jesus says, “I don’t offer a quick fix. I don’t offer you a painless journey. I don’t offer you a life without troubles. I offer you my life. Your life will still be hard with me, but it will be foundationally filled with goodness.”

How do we come to Jesus and drink? Jesus offers us the free gift of his forgiveness. The question is, “Do you desire it. Are you thirsty for it?” Jesus was willing to step down out of heaven to show you and I how to live and how to love, then he demonstrated how we are to love by loving all of humanity, you and I so much that he was willing to sacrifice his life so that you could have yours. He loved you and I so much and he wanted a relationship with you so much that he was willing to die in order that you and I might live.  Do you ackownledge your need for forgiveness? Are you thirsty for what it is that Jesus offers?

Second, Jesus asks you and I, “are you thirsty for my Spirit – that is the Holy Spirit?” Jesus taught that you and I have two parts, a physical self and a spiritual self. We have the part of us that everyone can see and then we have that no one can see. There is the outer you and there is the inner you. There are arms and legs and hair and then there is your ability to love or hate, to be patient or impatient, greed or generosity, kindness or cruelty, joy or depression, and to be filled with peace or hostility. Jesus says that if you want the former, the good, you must be born of him.

When we are thirsty for Jesus, we have to desire a relationship with him. In order for that to happen we have to ask for forgiveness and we have to vow to follow Jesus and trust Jesus with our life and say, “Your will be done and your kingdom come, not mine. Not my will, Lord, but yours be done. If you’re thirsty for that, then you are thirsty for Jesus and you are ready to be baptized.

When you confess publically that you are thirsty for forgiveness and thirsty to follow his will for your life, and are baptized, then the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus plants a seed in your soul, an eternal seed. Eternal life doesn’t begin when you die. Eternal life begins when you Jesus and receive his gifts of love and power inside of you.

That eternal seed that the Holy Spirit, which is planted inside of you, needs water to grow. Thirsting for Jesus is not something that you do once, but forever. It is a desire for a relationship with your Creator. It is a desire to love your Creator and it is a posturing of our spirit to receive the gift of his love inside of us. That’s what waters the eternal seed inside of you.

We are told in Galatians 5:22 what it means to be fully mature as inwardly. The fruit of the Spirit is Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Gentleness, Faithfulness, Generosity, and Self-Control. There is no law against such things.

What does it mean to have streams of living water coming from within you? It means that the thirst for more is consumed by the thirst for Jesus and instead of wanting, desiring, striving for, living insatiably for more and more, instead, you are content with becoming more and more because the Spirit of Jesus quenches all other desires. Let me say that again (repeat).

As you become more and more, your desire to take in is replaced by a desire to give, to be generous, to be an encourager, to give someone a break, some slack, to give someone forgiveness, to give someone a hand up, to give someone the benefit of the doubt. It means that instead of serving our self, we become servants. It can’t be done of our own power, it cannot be done by thirsting for the things of this world, it can only be done by thirsting for Jesus.

So, this morning we’ve come to a lake to baptize some people who are thirsty for Jesus. Why come here? Why didn’t we do this in our normal worship space? I’d like to give you a couple of reasons for that.

1. It is about receiving forgiveness of our sins – being dunked in the lake symbolizes taking a physical bath. As we accept Jesus’ forgiveness of our sins, our soul is washed as white as snow and our sins are cleansed.
2. Being dunked under the water is like dying because we can’t breath under water, the old us is dying, while when we come up out of the water, it is like us having a new life in Christ
3. Being dunked under the water is symbolic of a person being physically born, since in our mother’s womb we were surrounded by water and the coming out of the water is symbolic of the water breaking and us being born. This is symbolic of the new life we have in Christ.
4. A lot of water is needed in order for a newly planted seed to sprout and grow. So it is that lot’s of spiritual water (Jesus) is needed in order for the eternal seed that is planted within us by the Holy Spirit
5. To answer the question, “Are you thirsty?” The lake reminds us that God’s provision never runs out and will always satisfy our thirst.

 Testimonies

Baptisms and dedication in the Lake

Edited from Shane Hipps’ message “From Your Belly.”

(Review of last week and recent ideas: physical birth and spiritual birth, physical thirst and spiritual thirst)

On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him. John 7:37-38

Last week I preached about a woman at the well and Jesus said something to her almost identical to this. What’s interesting about this is that anytime you see something repeated in scripture, especially when it’s close together, here it’s only three chapters apart, where Jesus uses the same basic metaphor and says the same basic thing, it means that it’s really important. Here Jesus is repeating himself because he wants to reemphasize his point because it’s important.

Now, the really interesting part about this is that Jesus doesn’t repeat himself exactly. Instead, he changes it ever so slightly, to reveal another layer to his teaching.

The first thing that makes this teaching of Jesus unique compared to the one we looked at last week with the Samaritan woman at the well, is that this one takes place on the last and greatest day of a very important feast or festival.

For these people, there were two major festivals that they celebrated. One was called Passover, you may have heard of it, and we celebrate it at Easter. This festival was to commemorate or celebrate when God, with 10 mighty plagues, freed the Israelites from 400 years of slavery under the mighty hand of Egypt. God brought the Israelites out of Egypt revealing His mighty power and giving the Israelites freedom where they had none.

The second festival was the festival of the booths or the festival of the tents; that is the festival that is being referred to here. This is the festival where Jesus stands up and say, “Come to me all who are thirsty.” This festival is even bigger than Passover. It lasted for 8 days and on the last day there was huge ceremony that took place. This festival was commemorating or remembering the time after the Israelites were freed from slavery when they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years because they did not had enough faith to trust God and enter the promised land where there were said to be giants.

During this festival, the Israelites would set up tents in their yards or near their place of residence and make it hard on themselves, so that they could remember what it was like to be wandering and homeless. So they would create this feeling of homelessness to amplify their appreciation for the way that God has provided.

Now the other thing that happened during this festival is that it became not just a commemoration of looking back and celebrating what God has done, but also there was a part of this celebration centered around the growing of their crops. When your whole culture is centered on agriculture and you live in a dry, hot, arid land, water becomes very important for life. Without water their crops don’t grow, their animals don’t have enough to eat and die, and if the crops die and the animals in their herds die, then they understood that they were next and so God’s provision of water became a huge part of this festival. They understood very clearly that without water they would die.

So the festival had a twofold purpose. One, it was to celebrate how God had delivered them from slavery, from bondage, from captivity and made them free, and two, it was to celebrate God’s faithful provision of water to sustain them day to day. Because what good is freedom without life. Freedom is only good if you have the provision to enjoy it, right. Freedom is not much good if you’re dead, right? Freedom is only good as long as you have your basic provisions met so that you can live.

So on the last and greatest day of the feast, there was this huge and elaborate water ritual in which the priest would enter into the temple there would be a bowl and a cup made of gold. The priest would take the cup and walk out of the temple, through the city, and proceeed down to the Pool of Soloam where the high priest would dip the cup into the pool, and at this time the whole city was gathered around to watch and they would shout this phrase from the prophet Isaiah: 

With joy you will draw water from the wells of Salvation Isaiah 12:3

Then these trumpets would sound off with a very official and royal trumpeting as the high priest made his way back to the temple and poured the water into the gold bowl in the temple.

Now, here’s what the deal is. This whole reason for this ritual was to help them remember when their ancestors had lived for 40 years in the wilderness, and just for the record, a wilderness is one step away from a dessert. There is some plant life in the wilderness, but it is minimal. A wilderness is a hot, arid, dry land and during these 40 years more than 1 million people and all their livestock traipsed along in this wilderness and so water was a really important thing for them to continue to live. Without water they would die.

This ceremony and ritual commemorated an event that happened at the very end of the 40 years in the wilderness, when the Israelites encountered a time where there was no water to be found anywhere and they were literally dying of thirst. Listen to the account:

The whole Israelite community set out from the Desert of Sin, traveling from place to place as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. So they quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses replied, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the Lord to the test?” But the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?” Then Moses cried out to the Lord, “What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.” The Lord answered Moses, “Walk on ahead of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. Exodus 17:1-6 (NIV)

Moses struck the rock and water came out and the people were saved by the Lord from their thirst. These people were thirsty and dehydrated and God provided for their needs. They were thirsty and God gave them something to drink.

So this festival is a reminder and a celebration of what God had done to sustain them and to give them what they needed in order to satisfy their thirst. During this festival it reminds the people of how God provided for their ancestors when they were thirsty and it is a time of dedication to God to say, “Would you provide water for us to, because water is essential for us to live.”

In case I’ve lost you in all the detail here’s what I just said:

1. The people of Israel were homeless and were camping for 40 years in the wilderness, and then, by faith, the people entered the Promised Land and took it and it became their home. God provided their home.
2. During their 40 years of camping, water became scarce and they would have died, except that God provided water out of the rock to give them life.

That’s what the festival of the booth or the festival of the tents is all about. During these 8 days, there is this tremendous fixation on water, and there are all these ceremonies regarding water, and then, up steps Jesus on the eighth day.

On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.

The question we answered last week was, “What is living water?” Is there such a thing as dead water and if so what would it be? In the ancient world, living water was considered to be anything that could sustain life. Living water was understood as water with oxygen in. Living water would be anything that fish could live in, as compared with a swamp or a pond that is covered in algae and lily pads. Living water is water that can sustain and give life. It is water that you and I could feel good about drinking. It was always understood as water that was moving like a river or stream, with oxygen in it.

The very beginning of Jesus’ statement is, “If anyone is thirsty”. In other words, not everyone is thirsty. Jesus states this in the positive, but the negative statement would be, “Don’t come to me if you’re not thirsty.”  There is a difference between thinking that you’re thirsty and being thirsty. When you are really thirsty, it is the only thing that you can think about. “Water, I need water.” To be thirsty is a mechanism of survival. It is a warning signal. It is like when your car’s service engine light is blinking on and off. The light comes on and stays on when things are in caution mode, but if that light begins to blink, you need to shut the car down because your car needs something and it needs it fast, otherwise it’s going to die a painful death. To be thirsty is a survival mechanism.

Jesus wants to know if you’re thirsty, but what is he talking about. Is Jesus talking about physical thirst or something else? Jesus is talking about spiritual thirst, an inner thirst, a desire to be more than you currently are – to be a better father or mother, to be a better husband, to be a better wife, to be a better son or daughter, to be a better friend, and here it is . . . Jesus is asking you and I if you’re thirsty to become a better human being.

To be a better human being doesn’t start on the outside. It doesn’t start with more money, or more things, or more vacation, or more success, or better relationships, or better parents, or a job, or a more stable job, or a higher paying job – it  doesn’t start with anything on the outside, it starts on the inside. Jesus says, “Are you thirsty to be a better you? Are you thirsty to become full of life? Are you thirsty to become more loving, more peaceful in here (hand on chest), more joy filled in here. Are you thirsty, I MEAN REALLY THIRSTY for becoming the man or woman that God created you to be?

If so, Jesus says, “Come to me and drink”. Come to me, not just once, not just when you feel like it, not just when it’s convenient, but come to me everyday, all day. Whenever you are thirsty for physical water that Jesus is saying to you, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.” Let us be reminded that when we drink water and it satisfies our thirst, that Jesus and his Spirit is the one who satisfies our inner thirst.

Jesus said, “If anyone is thirsty” and that’s the way God works. God never forces you to take what he’s offering. God never forces his will on anyone. God created us free, with free will, with the ability to choose our own way. God offers us a chance to follow him, to live our lives in accordance with the way that he created us, but we have to choose it, we have to desire it, we have to be thirsty for it, we have to be thirsty for living water, thirsty . . .for life.

Some people are thirsty for money, for others, they’re thirsty for things, for others they are thirsty for success, for some they thirst for beauty and good looks, for others, they’re thirsty for their kids to succeed or rise to some level in academics or a sport, for others they might be thirsty to have their house look a certain meticulous, everything just so, sort of way.

Jesus says, “If anyone is thirsty for what I have, let him come to me and drink.” This metaphor of thirst is a brilliant one of Jesus’, because he wants us to understand that what he is talking about is life and death, just as the Israelites who were in the desert were very aware that if they did not find water they would die. This thirst for Jesus is about life and death, but what Jesus is talking about is in regard, is not to our physical self, but our spiritual self or our inner self. It is about the inner you being filled with living water, it’s about the inner you being fully alive and fully the way that God  created it to be, it’s about a deep passionate love for God and others without expectations, it’s about being filled with great joy that bubbles over into all those around you, and it’s about this tremendous peace that fills you no matter what difficulties in life come your way, because you know that God is in control and that he loves you and will take care of you.

If you are thirsty and you read a book about water, you will not have your thirst quenched, if you are thirsty and you look at a picture of water, you will not have your thirst quenched, if you are thirsty and you talk about water with others, your thirst will not be quenched, but if you are thirsty and you drink water, your thirst will be quenched. It is not enough for water to be on the outside of you. Water must be on the inside of you to satisfy your thirst and give you life.

If you’re drinking that water and somebody comes up to you and says, “Your thirst is not being quenched”, you would laugh at them. It is not something you debate; it is something that you fundamentally experience.

Jesus is saying at a fundamental level, “Pay attention to your emotional life. Get in touch with your inner you.” What is it saying? What does it want? What is it truly thirsty for? Sometimes we get so busy and so tired and so strung out on anxiety that we lose touch with what our inner self is telling us. At a fundamental level our soul is thirsty for Jesus, but we’re just not in touch with it. We were created to be filled with this living water that Jesus is talking about.

Are you angry? That is a thirst for justice. Are you lonely? That is a thirst for companionship, for connection, for love. Are you anxious? That is a thirst for peace. Are you fearful? That is a thirst for security. Are you filled with guilt because of something that you’ve done? That is a thirst for forgiveness. Are you depressed? That is a thirst for joy. Do you crave knowledge? If you do then you are thirsty for wisdom.

All of these thirsts find their answer in the thirst of thirsts, which is a thirst for the one who can quench all your thirsts with his Spirit living fully inside of you. Jesus is a spring that never runs dry. He can pour into you every day, all day.

Jesus said, If anyone is thirsty let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him. And then John, the writer of this account of Jesus’ life said, 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 yet been glorified.

The Holy Spirit or the Spirit of Jesus is the one who enters into us when we ask for forgiveness of our sins and when we say to God, I know that I’ve done so much wrong in my life, so many things that I’ve done have been contrary to your will, so please forgive me, Lord Jesus whenever I’ve been wrong, and give me the gift of the Holy Spirit, because I’m thirsty for streams of living water to flow into me in such a way that it satisfies my thirst, but also in a way that that life, goodness, rivers of living water flows out of me into the lives of my children and my spouse and my family and my friends and my boss and my coworkers and my community, so that I can make a positive difference in the world that I live in.

Because eternal life doesn’t begin when we die. It begins when we are born of the Spirit, and when we ask the Spirit of Jesus or the Holy Spirit to enter into our soul and to plant that eternal seed inside us.

This Spring I planted a garden as I have for the last 10 years. I tilled all the soil and planted all the seeds and then it rained, and then it rained again, and then it rained really hard, and then it rained some more. And I want you to know, my seeds flew out of the ground this year. They germinated and pushed through the ground in record time this year, and I learned something that I didn’t fully understand. Seeds need a lot of water to begin growing. They need to stay wet and I never really realized how much water they need, because I always water my garden seeds, but I never water them like God watered them this year.

Jesus says, “Out of you will flow streams of living water” That’s a lot of water! Your soul can only come alive by the Holy Spirit planting a spiritual seed, an eternal seed in your soul, and then it takes a lot of water, it takes a lot of seeking Jesus, and asking him to heal all the thirsts of our heart and make it thirst for him.

When we are thirsty for the living water that Jesus offers, it waters the seeds that the Holy Spirit plants in our soul and it grows those seeds into a full grown, fruit-bearing plants.

If you’ve never been baptized, and you desire streams of living water to come out of you, if you want the inner you to grow and become like a river of life that fills you and those around you with love, and joy, and peace, and patience, and kindness and generosity, if you want the inner you to be a better husband or wife, a better father or mother, a better son or daughter, a better  friend or co-worker, a better . . . PERSON, then Jesus stands in front of you today and says, “If anyone is thirsty – spiritually, emotionally thirsty, thirsty to become all that God created you to be, come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.

Is there anyone here who is thirsty? Why do you drink water? Because you’re thirsty, right? What makes you thirsty? It’s because your physical body is 70 percent water and it needs to have a fresh source of water all the time in order to stay healthy. We all know this, right? But what happens if we don’t have any water or enough water? We get dehydrated and eventually die is the condition persists, right? Our physical bodies need water.

A couple of weeks ago Jesus made it abundantly clear that there are two parts of our body.  We are called to be born again. We have a physical birth, but we are incomplete without being born of the Holy Spirit. We can be born physically, but we must also be born or “born again” spiritually.

 The physical body we know needs water in order to stay healthy, but what does our spiritual body need? What does it need in order to stay healthy? Is it ever thirsty? Does it have a strong desire that needs to be satisfied? If we ignore the desire of our spiritual body can we also become really unhealthy and die? These are some the questions that I’d like to look at answering today.

One day Jesus said something really unusual. He was in the temple area that was filled with people and he cried out in a loud voice,  

Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” John 7:37-38 (NRSV)

What does Jesus mean by that? Is Jesus talking about physical water or something else? And when we come to Jesus, what are we supposed to drink? How does that all work? And what does it look like for a believers heart to have streams of living water flowing out of it? Those are some of the questions that we’ll be answering in this series as we approach our baptism gathering here in just a couple of weeks.

Before we jump into today’s message, I want to give you a little historical context, so that the story I’ll be sharing with you makes more sense.

Jesus is traveling through Israel, and Israel at that time was divided into three parts. Israel is not real big as you know, so it’s kind of like the U.S. having three states. These three regions or states were Judea, Samaria, and Galilee. Galilee was in the North, Samaria was in the middle, and Judea was in the South.

Judea was where Jerusalem was and it was the religious epicenter of their country, because it was where the temple was. Jesus was there often. Galilee was also a heavily populated Jewish region and that’s where Jesus grew up and where he did a lot of his ministry. And Jesus would occasionally make trip between these two regions.

Now between Galilee and Judea was Samaria. This was populated by people called the Samaritans. Galilee was to the North and Judea was to the South and Samaria was in the middle. Israel at this time is essentially a Samarian Sandwich, but they are not understood as the crème of an Oreo cookie. Samaritans were thought of as the anti-crème of an Oreo cookie. How many Oreo double stuff lovers do we have here today? Yeah! We love the double stuff, right! The  Samaritans were the anti-double stuff. They were despised by the average Jew.

Samaritans were former Jews, they were of the same heritage as the people of Galilee and the people of Judea, but when they were captured by the Assyrians, these Jews chose to intermarry with the Assyrians and these therefore they were not pure bred Jews any longer, and because of this they were hated and despised people by the Galileans and the Judeans. The Samaritans were hated because they were believed to have sold their soul to the devil, because the Assyrians were not godly people. They had intermarried with these people who God had told them not, because God feared that these people of many gods would lead the Israelites astray in their belief and their trust in him. 

The Jews did not like the Samaritans and the Samaritans did not like the Jews. There were lots and lots of hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans. There was a lot of abuse and violence that went on between these two groups of people.

Jewish rabbis’ or teachers of the Law, would often choose to double their route and walk around Samaria, rather than interact with any Samaritans. But Jesus, who is a rabbi, says, “No, I’m going to walk straight through Samaria. So he is on his way from Judea to Galilee, from the south to the north and he’s walking through Samaria and he arrives at the town of Sychar at a well that Jacob, one of Israel’s forefathers, had dug, and we pick up the story there.

Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour (which is sometime between 6 and 9 oclock in the morning) When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans, which is quite an understatement) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? John 4

Now, this little interaction opens up a theme throughout the book of John, which is a tension or contrast between the exterior of things and the interior of things. In Johns gospel, Jesus is always having conversations with different people in which they are focused on the external, physical things in life, things that you can see, taste, touch, or feel, and Jesus is always interested and teaching into the interior of life, things that you cannot see, taste, touch, or feel, but that are no less real.

So this whole interchange where Jesus says that I have water to give you, and she says, how because the water is deep and you have nothing to draw with, is one that Jesus deliberately sets up.

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water (pointing towards the well) will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” Again, Jesus is focused on the internal and the woman is focused on the external.

He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

Ok, so a couple of things about this passage that are important for us today.

Jesus, as we’ve already said is talking about spiritual, internal things, and the lady is talking about physical external things, and Jesus in verse 13 Jesus creates a metaphor to bridge that gap. Jesus is intentionally contrasting two images in an effort to help this woman understand her needs at a fundamentally different level. She knows that she gets thirsty and that she needs water to meet that need. This woman understands that no problem. We all understand that no problem.

What Jesus is fundamentally saying to this woman is “I don’t offer you a well, I’m offering you a spring.” A spring is different from a well in a couple of very powerful ways. A well requires a certain kind of technology to access the water. You have to dig a well or find one that’s already dug. That takes work. It’s also down in the ground and you have to have a means to get the water up and out of the well. Not everybody can get water from a well. You have to invest great amounts of effort to dig a well. You have to have rope and a bucket to get the water out. The well has be maintained. That is to say, you have to have a certain degree of technology in order to access the water from these wells.  If you’re not at a well, or if you don’t have a rope or a bucket, you don’t get any water. In fact you could be at a well, within just a few feet of the water and die of thirst.

But a spring or a fountain requires no technology to access the water. There is no labor involved. The water comes to you; you don’t have to go to it. A spring is both effortless and endless. A well requires you to use your power to draw it out, but a spring comes to you of its own power.

So the first thing that Jesus does is he shifts the woman’s attention to the interior and he uses the water metaphor to do that.  The next thing Jesus does, this is a very important thing, and the gospel of John talks about this all the time, he says, “this is a spring that will well up to eternal life.” The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke love to talk about the Kingdom of God, but rarely talk about eternal life. In John’s gospel, he likes to talk about eternal life, but almost never talks about the kingdom of God.

So, eternal life gets used all the time in the gospel of John, and in Christian popular imagination, eternal life is usually associated with when you die. Popular Christian thinking is that eternal life is something that happens after you die. Also in popular Christian imagination is the idea that eternal life is strongly associated with the idea of heaven.

This is NOT how the writer of the gospel of John thinks about eternal life. It is NOT how Jesus speaks about eternal life. Jesus uses a verb to speak about eternal life that is very, very revealing. The verb or action word is the word, “Welling up”.

Now, as we’ve said before, the Bibles that we have today are translations from Hebrew, the original language that the Old Testament and Greek, which is the original language of the New Testament. In Greek, we can tell by the beginning or the ending, if the word is written in, past present or future tense, and if it’s a participle, like this one is, then it means that it is on-going. Here Jesus is telling us that eternal life is present, but on-going.

Eternal life is something that can begin in the present, but that will be on-going. Jesus is saying that eternal life is welling up right now and always.  Eternal life is not something that you get in the distant, unknown, murky future when you die. This means that the possibility of eternal life begins when you’re born, not when you die. That is a shift in our thinking that needs to take place.

You might say “How can this be, because after all everybody dies right?” That’s true in a manner of speaking. However, we said a couple of weeks ago that you and I are created to be born twice, once physically, and once spiritually. We are born again spiritually, as we said a couple of weeks ago with a seed that is placed there by the Holy Spirit. That seed is an eternal seed that is give to you and I only when we confess our sins and ask Jesus to forgive them and begin to follow him as our Lord and as the prototype of who we were created to be.

So the next question that we need to ask is, if eternal life is available right now, from this welling spring, what do I need to do in order to get it? How do I access it? Do I need a rope and a bucket? These should be our next questions, and in fact, the woman at the well begins asking some of these questions to Jesus. She says:

Sir, give me this water and Jesus gives her this simple instruction:

“Go, call your husband and come back.” Of course??? That makes perfect sense, right???? We have to ask at this point “Is Jesus smoking something?

We expect Jesus to say something like, “Believe in me” or “Read your Bible more”, or “The answer is pray more”, or “The answer is act differently”, or “The answer is pursue justice”. Right? But Jesus doesn’t say that.

I mean, the woman at the well thinks to herself, “If I have to have a man help me get this water, no thank you.” I mean, because in the ancient world, women were the only ones who went to get water. They were beasts of burden, carrying heavy clay jars great distances while the men sat around. And I imagine that she thinks that Jesus is saying, “Bring your man back here, and he’ll help you get the water and she doesn’t want any part of that, because her man won’t be happy with her if she doesn’t get the water herself. Women, in this day and age, are just a little higher than a hired slave. But Jesus said this to get at the real issue.

Jesus tells this Samaritan woman to go get her husband, but the woman says, “Forget that, “I have no husband,” Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.

What’s very interesting in this interchange is that there is no judgment in Jesus’ statement. We might read this as Jesus confronting this woman with her sin as a way of telling her to shape or else, but that’s not what Jesus is doing here at all. All he says to her is, “You’re right! You’ve accurately stated a simple truth and then expounds upon it.

Now, how did we get from, “How do I get this eternal water” to “I’ve had five husbands and I don’t have one now?” I mean that seems like a big jump, doesn’t it. There doesn’t seem to be any connection does there?

But there is something very important that Jesus is trying to point out about how we go about quenching our thirst.

When I was in high school, after a really hot football game, a game in which the temperatures where in the upper 80’s, in which we just drenched in sweat, a well meaning parent brought in this huge cooler full of ice cold Coke, Pepsi and Mountain Dew. It was hot and the beverages were ice cold, and we were really parched, so we chug-A-lugged down a couple of pops each. We were deeply thirsty, and this family that brought the pop thought it was a gift that would quench our thirst.

However, that pop was full of caffeine and sugar, which actually works in the opposite way that you would think, and instead of quenching our thirst, actually dehydrated us and made us thirstier.  It gave the illusion that it was quenching our thirst because it was a cold liquid that felt good going down, but on the inside it actually dehydrated us and made us more thirsty. It did nothing to quench our thirst and in fact it masked and intensified our thirst instead of quenching it.

What Jesus is trying to do with this woman in the story, is to show her how thirsty she really is – that she has only been masking her thirst with things that are really making her more thirsty. The string of men in this woman’s life, don’t just reveal her sin, but her thirst.

Jesus might as well have said to her, “You are a woman who is thirsty and who is longing for deep connection and you’ll notice that your strategy so far has not been very effective in quenching your thirst. It has only made you more thirsty.”

Jesus says to you and I, If you want the water that I have, you have to be thirsty. This water is not for you if you’re not thirsty. Your thirst is what drives you to quench it. We often times try to use the external things in this life to try and quench a thirst that is internal. This internal thirst can only be quenched by an internal source.

So Jesus says to this woman, “You can keep finding more husbands, you can keep having these relationships, but I want you to know that everyone of those is sort of like drinking from this well. You will be thirsty again. No man can offer you what you are thirsting for. What I want to offer you is something so incredibly powerful that you will never thirst again. But in order to get it, you have to find that thirst.

King David had that thirst. He says

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. Psalms 42:1-2 (NIV)

Dave thirsted had this intense thirst for this living water that only God can supply.

There are all kinds of things that we are thirsty for, that we are longing for, and what’s interesting; we have all kinds of strategies for quenching that thirst. Some of us might have a thirst for success, some of us might have a thirst for significance, some of us might have a thirst for security, some of us might have a thirst for connection, relationship and love, and we use all kinds of things to try and fulfill these deep longings and desires or thirsts. We use jobs to try and meet these thirsts, we get married, we get promoted, we climb a mountain, and on and on it goes.

But the thirst or desire that Jesus is talking about is the mother of all thirsts. It is the most fundamental thirst. It is the most basic thirst. It is the thirst for deep, deep, joy and peace and love in this life. It is a thirst for abundant life while you’re here on this side of eternity, not just wanting it for when you die.

This fountain that Jesus is speaking of that quenches that deep thirst inside of you and that makes all the other thirsts, all the other desires in your life seem insignificant comes from the Holy Spirit or God’s presence in you. We’ll look at that more fully next week. How aware are we of that really deep thirst inside of us? How aware are we of the things that we use to mask the deeper thirst of life with more superficial kinds of thirst?

Are you aware of the strategies that you’re engaged in to quench that deep seated thirst? This is what Jesus wanted to show this woman at the well. It is what Jesus wants to show us. If you’d like to continue to try and quench your desire with this string of relationships, that’s fine, but Jesus says, I have something better, but in order to get what I have, you have to be thirsty for what I have.

This is an all or nothing kind of thing. If you are thirsty for me, then come and drink deeply and out of you will flow streams of living water.

Jesus is only interested in this question, “Are you thirsty for what I have? Are you thirsty for the things of God? How thirsty are you?”

In the book of revelation, Jesus makes this very startling statement as he inverts the tables, and compares our desire for him by our temperature.  He says:

I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. Another way of saying this is “I see your life, your actions, and you are just a little thirsty. And then this startling statement comes from Jesus’ mouth, “I wish you were either one or the other! I wish that you were either really thirsty or not at all. So, because you are lukewarm–neither hot nor cold–I am about to spit you out of my mouth. Revelation 3:15-16 (NIV)

Jesus is contrasting hot and cold water in the same manner that he is contrasting thirsty and not thirsty. He says I wish that you were either hot or cold in your desire for me. I wish that you would either be really thirsty for me or not thirsty at all, because going after me is not a half way kind of thing. It is all or nothing. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to get it right all the time. It doesn’t mean that you have to be perfect any of the time. What it means is that you either desire the kingdom of God or you don’t. We cannot thirst for this world and the kingdom of God. It is not all the other desires and the kingdom of God. It must be all or nothing. It must be a complete transfer of allegiance from the kingdom of this world to the kingdom of God. It must be a complete transfer from all the other cravings and appetites and desires in this life to being thirsty, truly thirsty – As a deer pants for streams of living water, so my soul pants for you, Oh God.

You might think that this is an extreme view, but if I tell my wife that I’m going to partially committed to her, but I’m also going to love another woman, how well do you think my marriage will go? My wife, and rightly so, expects that I will be completely devoted to her. So it is with God. Jesus calls us to thirst for him or not. He says, “Don’t play games with me, either you love me or you don’t. Don’t mess with me like that. Make a commitment to be really thirsty for me, Jesus says.

If you’ve never made that kind of commitment to God, then I invite you today to make that commitment. You might say, “I’m not there yet. I don’t have that kind of thirst for God yet, but I want to have that. Then draw a line in the sand today and say, “I’m going to go after that. I’m going to pray that I would be really thirsty for God and I’m going to read my Bible and I’m going to ask questions and I’m going to seek the things of God with all that I am. I’m going to make God and his kingdom my most passionate goal in life.

I ask you again, is anyone here thirsty? If you are thirsty for Jesus, he will meet all your thirsts and streams of living water will flow out of you. We’ll look more into what that phrase means next week.

Then we asked the next obvious question if you’re feeling powerless, which is, “Where does your power come from?” Because as an electrician, when someone called me and said, “I don’t have any power” I immediately knew where I would begin, I would immediately go to the power source, which is the panel in most homes. If there’s no power there, then there’s no possibility to have power anywhere in the house. If there’s power there is the possibility of having power everywhere.

Popeye drew his power from spinach; Sampson drew his power from his uncut hair, but where does your power come from? And we said, that’s not a normal question to ask people in the 21^st century. I know it’s a bit of an unusual question in our world, but do you ever feel like you don’t have enough power?

The way that most people in our world answer the power question is they try to make more money, because we know that money is power. And we know that you can buy almost anything if you have enough money. Notice I said almost.

You can’t buy a better marriage. You can’t buy something that gives you a different relationship with your children or with your parents. You can’t buy anything that will give you more time, when your time is up, your time is up. You can’t buy peace, or joy, or love. You can change how you look on the outside with money, but you can change how you feel on the inside with money. Many of the wealthiest people in the world have died very lonely and very empty people ultimately because they couldn’t buy what they needed with money.

So I ask the question again, “Where does your power come from?” Jesus said something very unusual. He said: You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you. Acts 1:8

When we read about the day of Pentecost, the day in which the Holy Spirit came upon the early church for the first time, the people in that church, who before this outpouring of the Holy Spirit were powerless people, but then after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit they became powerful. So much so, that they were changed people, they were different on the inside and what they were able to do on the outside in order to change the world was very different as well. They were changed, their communities were changed, the whole known world changed because of the power of the Holy Spirit that they received from the Holy Spirit. But it didn’t stop there. To this day, some 2000 years later, the power that they were given by the Holy Spirit continues to change people’s lives and it continues to change THE WORLD! Now that’s power!

Today, in our time, in our world, the Holy Spirit traditionally gives us power inside of us first. We talked about that last week.

 Last week we said that the Holy Spirit primarily does two things inside of us. The first is that we are born again. The second is that we are redeemed. We are born again in a similar fashion as when we are conceived in our mother’s womb. A man plants a seed inside a woman’s womb and a child is born. In a similar way, Jesus tells us, and many of us have experienced this, that we also have a spiritual birth, where the Holy Spirit plants a seed in the core of our being and that seed is an eternal seed. It is the conception of a spiritual being inside of you. We have a physical body and we have a spiritual body. One is seen and one is not seen. They work in tandem.

We also said that the Holy Spirit is like a Gardener for our soul. It is his job to cultivate that seed and make it grow and produce fruit, but he can only do the Father’s will, so he always lines himself up with God’s will However he also only works when you desire him to work. The Holy Spirit will not do any work in your soul apart from your direction, because you’ve been give free will and therefore he will only do what you ask him to do, if it aligns with God’s perfect will for your life. In other words, the Holy Spirit will never hurt you, he will only help you become all of what God created you to be.

So, the Holy Spirit gives us new birth, that’s one, but then he also redeems us. That is he, through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection and the forgiveness that Jesus offers, the Holy Spirit forgives us, and begins the process of restoring us to who God created us to be. It’s like taking an old dilapidated, condemned house, because that’s what we are apart from Jesus, is condemned. It’s like taking an old broken down, dilapidated, condemned house, that’s what our soul looks like, and the Holy Spirit is the general contractor that comes in and jacks up the house and puts a new foundation under it called Jesus and begin the restoration process.

We are given the Holy Spirit at baptism to give us a spiritual birth and then to redeem us and restore us so that we can become who God created us to be. When the seed that is planted in us is full grown it bears fruit, fruit that will last and they are called the fruits of the Spirit and there is a list of them in Galatians 5

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23 (NIV)

Jesus had the Holy Spirit in him when he was conceived. And when we receive the gift of his forgiveness for our sins and when we make a choice to follow him, then he gives us the Holy Spirit to cleanses us of our sins, and begins to heal all the emotional and spiritual wounds, to make God’s will known to us, and to empower us to live godly lives, in order that we can become all that he created us to be. When the Holy Spirit enters us, he gives us the fruit of the Spirit and when the Holy Spirit enters us he begins to redeem us or make us knew again. He, often over long periods of times, transforms us into people who reflect his goodness.

Not only does the Holy Spirit give us internal power as we talked about last week, but he also gives us external power to positively affect the world around us.

Two weeks ago, we said that Jesus had the Holy Spirit in him from birth, that had never happened before, that was a God thing, and that’s how Jesus was free from sin because he had the Holy Spirit there to guide him. So, the Holy Spirit is already IN Jesus at this time.

Listen to what happens.

Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying . . . so after Jesus was baptized with water and while he was praying, heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Luke 3:21-22 (NRSV)

Now, it is highly significant that Jesus did not perform any miracles until after this baptism of the Holy Spirit. When Jesus was baptized by the Holy Spirit he was granted gifts for power of service. These are not powers just for him. They are not powers that are for his own individual growth or health, but this power is meant to carry out God’s mission in the world. So not only is the power of the Holy Spirit given for helping us be born and grow and mature in godly character, but it is also given in order to join God in his mission of creating heaven on earth.

This was a decisive turning point for Jesus because up until this time Jesus had the Spirit of God within him from birth, shaping and molding his character as well as giving him knowledge of the Father and of the law or the Bible as we know it. But now the Spirit has descended on him to give him extra power for serving God and carrying out his will.

This is the point that I want to make today. There are two workings of the Holy Spirit, two different ways that the Holy Spirit empowers us.

1. The first is that Holy Spirit empowers us to change and become powerful on the inside. That’s what we primarily talked about last week.
2. The second, which we’re going to be talking for the rest of our time today, is that the Holy Spirit empowers us for service in God’s kingdom in order to bring about more of heaven on earth.

Listen to what Jesus says in Acts 1:8

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:8 (NRSV)

The Holy Spirit was in Jesus from his conception. It was only after he was baptized with the power of the Holy Spirit that Jesus taught with great boldness and wisdom, and he did great miracles among the people.

The Spirit falling upon Jesus and empowering him for service is not a new thing. It is consistent with the Spirit’s work in the Old Testament.

Listen to this, this is cool. Jesus must have been extremely aware what was happening to him was rooted in the Old Testament. Listen to this. Jesus said,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, did you get that? Upon him . . .because he has anointed me . . . and anointed in this case means to set aside for sacred use and that use is . . to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then to everyone’s astonishment Jesus adds, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Luke 4:18-19, 21(NRSV)

The power and Spirit of the Lord was upon Jesus, so that he could fulfill the mission given to him by God the Father.

The Holy Spirit was a gift from God, even to Jesus, and apart from the Holy Spirit, Jesus was still just a man – a holy man, but just a man. When the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus, he became powerful to do the will of the Father and to join him in his mission of bringing heaven to earth or redeeming the earth to its original design.

So here’s the distinction that I want to make. The Holy Spirit was IN Jesus from conception, that’s what made him special on the inside, because he was without sin, but it was the baptism of the Holy Spirit on Jesus that made him powerfully equipped to do ministry.

• The inward work of the Holy Spirit empowered Jesus to BE the model of humanity.
• The outward work of the Holy Spirit empowered Jesus to DO the Work of God and live the will of God.

But this isn’t just for Jesus, look what happens. Just before Jesus ascends into heaven he tells his disciples to stay in Jerusalem until something really important happens, and then he says these words:

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes ON you. Acts 1:8 (NIV)

And 40 days later while the disciples were all together in one place, suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.
They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest ON each of them . . . and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles Acts 2:2-4;43 NIV

All of the wonders and miraculous signs that Jesus did and all the wonders and miraculous signs that the apostles did were because the Holy Spirit had come upon them and empowered them to do what they could not have done on their own. God gave them power to do his will and to enable them to partner with him in bringing about heaven on earth.

God calls us to proclaim the good news of Jesus, but then he also calls us to demonstrate it through the anointing of the Holy Spirit upon human beings. God is aware that words are cheap and that actions need to follow words. If God is about bringing heaven to earth and he is about using people to carry out this action, then we are going to need help.

Last week I said that God the Father is the idea guy. He is the one who came up with the blueprint for creation. It is like designing a concept car. Jesus is the prototype of God’s design. He is what a human being outght to look like when we have become completely restored. The Holy Spirit is like an assembly line. The Holy Spirit gives every human being that seeks forgiveness of sin and the will to follow Jesus, the power to live like him, to be like him, to do the things that Jesus did.

In the ancient world, when a rabbi said, “Come, follow me” he was saying I think you be like me. I think you can do what I can do. When Jesus called the group of rabbinic school drop outs to follow him, he was saying you can do what I do, and you can be like me. For every disciple that seeks to follow him, Jesus says to you and to I, “Come follow me. You can do what I do, and you can be like me, but you will need to be filled with the Holy Spirit and you will have to be anointed or have the Holy Spirit come upon you for power, but that’s what you were created for.

The disciples healed people from sickness, they raised people from the dead, they healed they mute, the deaf, the blind, and the sick. All of these miracles were because the Holy Spirit had come ON or UPON them.

Now, we might think, well this was just for the apostles. The Holy Spirit is just for a few select people that God chooses, but in Acts 10 we are told about Cornelius and his family, a group of Gentiles – these are non-Jews, who were devout believers of God. Peter received a vision from God and went to their house to tell them about Jesus and:

While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. The circumcised believers or Jews who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God. Then Peter said, “Can anyone keep these people from being baptized with water? They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.” So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Acts 10:44-48 (NIV)

The Gentiles were given the same gift as the apostles. They were given the same gift as the Jews and they were given these gifts why? They were given the gift of the Holy Spirit upon them to demonstrate the power of God and to do his will and his work in the world.

Now, get this, this is where we started. Jesus said:

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.” Acts 1:8 (NIV)

What are they going to witness and testify about? They are going to testify to what they have seen God doing in and through them. God knows that proclamation needs demonstration for it to be valid.

In North America with the huge individualistic culture that exists here, we get stuck on what God can do for us, and we get stuck believing that what God gives to us is only for us. But God’s desire is for you to become born again, saved, and redeemed, that is the work of the Holy Spirit in you, SO THAT God can baptize you with the gift of the Holy Spirit and empower you to proclaim and demonstrate the good news of Jesus.

God’s gift of the Holy Spirit is not just for us, but in America that’s what it’s become. It’s all about my relationship with God; it’s primarily self-centered and therefore we don’t see many people who have had the Holy Spirit poured out UPON them in order to participate with God in what he’s doing here on earth. There are not many miracles and there are not many healings in the churches in America because there is so little awareness that God wants to use us. So many of us think about heaven as being “Some day when I die” and therefore we think to ourselves that we just need to keep our nose clean enough so that God will let us into heaven when we die.

But God’s kingdom is not just about when we die. Eternal life begins on the day that we accept Jesus’ forgiveness of our sins and begin to follow Jesus and begin desiring to live like him. From that day on, the Holy Spirit plants a seed in us and it’s up to us, through the power of the Holy
Spirit to grow that seed into eternal fruit named in Gal 5.

A few of you have been baptized with the Holy Spirit. I have, without a shadow of a doubt been baptized with the Holy Spirit, but we don’t see many miracles being performed because there is so little knowledge and therefore, so little faith that God wants to empower us do miracles among us.

When Jesus went to his home town it says:

He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed at their lack of faith. Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village. Mark 6:5-6 (NIV)

Why don’t we see more miracles? Why don’t we see more demonstration of God’s power around us? It may not be you. It may be that you are a part of a group of people who don’t yet have enough faith.

I have seen miracles performed and have heard many amazing testimonies by people who have miraculous healing. I have had people pray for me and had wonderful healing. Just last month I had a muscle twitch in my arm that had been twitching none stop for three days. My arm was very sore and I was unable to sleep well, because the twitching muscle kept bothering me. A group of people prayed for me on Sunday and before the end of the day, the muscle stopped twitching.

I have prayed for myself when I pulled my Achilles and within moments the pain went away. I had a deeply bruised and maybe cracked knee from a terrible fall on the ice and within moments  after praying the pain went away. I know of a woman whose son was born with one leg two inches shorter than the other. When he was a teenager, a group of people prayed over him for healing and the leg grew to it’s full length by the time they were done praying.

I have a close friend who was told by the doctor that he would never play basketball again because of his bad knees. He had already had two surgeries per knee and the doctor told him that he would be lucky to walk without assistance when he got older. People prayed for my friend and laid hands on him and he was completely healed and to this day he’s playing hoops three times a week.

God desires not just proclamation of his word. He desires demonstration of his word. Jesus says, I will be with you even to the end of the age. How will we know that? We ought to see his power being demonstrated all around us. But we don’t primarily because we don’t truly believe that we should. The gospel of Jesus Christ has been neutered of the power that demonstrates who he is, and that really hinders our ability to testify. All we have is good news in our hearts. We are transformed people and sometimes people can see that, but what about the ability to live powerfully as Jesus did?

The power of God did not stop with Jesus. It did not stop with the early church. And to the best of my ability, I will not let it stop now.

So here’s the question: When does God typically baptize people with his Holy Spirit. When does God typically lay power on people through the gift of the Holy Spirit? First, there is no equation; there is no formula that says, “If I do this, then God will do that.” Don’t ever think you can reduce God down to a formula, because you can’t. God will not be demeaned in such a way.

However, there are some common themes that occur among people who receive the Spirit of God upon them. The first is:

These are a few factors that contribute to God’s Spirit coming upon people?

• Passion for God’s presence
• A deep craving to reach the lost
• Sincere integrity
• Spirit filled faith
• Down to earth humility
• Understanding of our brokenness

When people are baptized with Holy Spirit, they are desperate and thirsty for more of God’s presence and goodness in the world. God anoints people with the Holy Spirit in order that they might participate with him in leading others to Christ, so that they might experience all of what they were created to be.

Life Link:

Make sure there is at least one empty seat in the room and pray as a group for God to fill that seat with a new person who would benefit from your group in their walk with Jesus.

Has anyone ever helped you do something that you couldn’t have done your self? How did that make you feel?

What was Sunday’s message about? Can anyone summarize it?

Was there anything that challenged you, convicted you or confused you about Sunday’s message?

As you reflect on this series, who do you think the Holy Spirit is, and how does relate to how you are called to live your life?

The fruits of the Spirit are Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness and self-control. How do they helpful in determining your spiritual maturity? How could they be helpful in how you pray for yourself?

What are the two ways the Holy Spirit was given to empower us?

Why do you think there are so few miracles done among Christians in the U.S?

Are there any new ideas that you’ve learned from this series that will affect how you understand the Holy Spirit? Are there any new ways that you’ll live as a result of this series?

Does anyone here believe or see evidence of the Holy Spirit in or on them? Explain

Encourage those who don’t see any evidence of the Holy Spirit in their lives to pray boldly for God to put his Spirit in or/and on you.

 When I was an electrician people would call me and tell me that they didn’t have any power. Upon arriving I would go to their power panel and see if they had power there. If they did, then they could have power that would run all over their home and do all kinds of amazing things that weren’t possible without it – that weren’t possible just a hundred years earlier. If there was not power at their panel, then they were powerless and I couldn’t do a lot about that.

If there wasn’t any power coming to their panel, all I could do was to make a call to the power company and tell them that something was wrong because the people of that home didn’t have any power.

Living without the Holy Spirit inside you is like having no electricity in your house. If you have the Holy Spirit in you, it’s like having electricity in your house, it changes everything inside.

Last week we said that the Holy Spirit comes to us in two ways.  

The first is that the Holy Spirit empowers us to change and become powerful on the inside of us. We live in a broken sinful world and in varying degrees we have all been deeply hurt, wounded and this robs of peace, joy, and the ability to love unconditionally. Because of our brokenness we use addictions to cope with the anxiety and loneliness and fear and depression and anger and . . . the list goes on and on and on.

This is what we’re going to focus on today. You and I were created for The Holy Spirit to be in us. The second is that the Holy Spirit comes ON us and empowers us to become powerful on the outside, so that we can lead others into the mission of God. This is what we’re going to be talking about next week.

Last week we said that throughout the Old Testament, God gave the Holy Spirit to only a few select people who were chosen to lead the people of God. Usually God gave his Holy Spirit to prophets, priests, kings, and judges. The average, normal person could never expect God’s Spirit to come upon them. Throughout the Old Testament, for thousands of years, only a few select leaders were empowered with the Holy Spirit.

Second, we said that the Holy Spirit came only “On” or “Upon” them. That’s the language that the Bible writers used. The Holy Spirit came “Upon” or “On” him or her. Here’s an example of that in Sampson’s life: The Spirit of the Lord came upon him in power. The ropes on his arms became like charred flax, and the bindings dropped from his hands. Judges 15:14 (NIV)

And then this one where Isaiah writes about himself saying,

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, Isaiah 61:1-2 (NIV)

In the Old Testament, because Jesus had not come yet, God could not enter into the hearts of people because he is holy and human beings are not. So, in the Old Testament, God put his arms around certain leaders and empowered them on the outside to do his will.

We said this is kind of like teaching a young boy or girl to bat a ball. You wrap your body around their body and grip the bat while they grip the bat and you swing for them for a while, and you know that you are the one hitting the ball, but the kids are just excited to see the ball go.

This is the same way that the Holy Spirit came on or upon people in the Old Testament. Because Jesus had not yet died for their sins, they were unholy and God did not enter them because if he did, sin would flee from their soul in such a fashion that it would be like a bomb going off inside of them and would have killed them as the sin exploded out of them. God didn’t want to do that, so instead, he wrapped his arms around them in a similar fashion to how we teach our kids how to bat a ball. It’s us swinging the bat, but we involve them in process and they get excited. That’s what God was doing in the Old Testament. However, when Jesus came along everything changed.

Last week we said that Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit when he was born. That had never happened before. That’s why it is so important that Jesus was born of a virgin. God was starting something new in Jesus, and he was different from conception. He was filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. He was holy.

And with Jesus’ perfect, loving sacrifice on the cross, he paid the price of our sins, and when we confess with our love for him and receive the forgiveness of our sins that he freely offers, then he through the power of the Holy Spirit can begin to work with him in cleaning out our sin and begin the difficult and lengthy work of renewing our heart, soul, mind, and our strength.

So, this morning I want to share with you two ways that God’s Spirit does inside of us. The first one is that when we receive the forgiveness of our sins, the inner, spiritual part of us is born. Christians have always said that when we receive Jesus and his forgiveness then we are born again.

I believe there is a lot of baggage associated with the phrase “Born again”. It has been used in very degrading, sarcastic ways in Hollywood and on TV. There’s often very good reasons for that because sometimes there are people who claim to be born again who are arrogant, rude, pushy, judgmental, etc, etc, etc. and people look at them and say, “If that’s what it means to be born again, I don’t want any part of it!”

But remember, to be born again doesn’t mean that you immediately become perfect. What it means is that something profound, and miraculous is happening. To be born again is a new beginning, not an end. To be born again means that a seed that has been planted by God inside of you.

Jesus said to Nicodemus, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” “How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!” Of course, Nicodemus is thinking about physical birth. Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. John 3:3-6 (NIV)

Did you know that it is normal to have two births as a human being? Most people don’t understand that. You and I are not complete unless we are born again, until we are born twice. If we do not have a spiritual birth, then we are not whole, we are not complete, we are not yet who God has called and created us to be. Physical birth is about our shell – the part you can see, our physical being. Spiritual birth is the conception and growth of the things that you and I cannot see. The things inside us – things of the heart.

Look at what Jesus says. He says there are two births. This is huge. This is one of the most overlooked things in life. Jesus says that in order to become who God created us, we must be born of water.  When a woman’s water breaks before giving birth, that’s the first sign that birth is going to take place very soon. It is the symbol that says a pregnant woman is going to give birth very soon. That’s where the world ends their thoughts on the birthing process.

But Jesus says that there are two births. He says that we must be born of water – physical birth, but then we also have to be born of the Spirit. We have two births. We cannot be who God created us to be unless we are born physically, and also born of the Spirit? Obviously, we all know when we’ve been born physically because you can see that in a physical, tangible way, but how do you know if you’ve been born of the Spirit, because you can’t physically see the Spirit? How does that work? It’s intangible, so how do you know if you’ve been or I’ve been born again . . . or not?

First off, water baptism is the symbolic ceremony where a new believer confessed their love for God, acknowledges their sinfulness before him, and asks for his forgiveness, and confesses their strong desire to follow Jesus. At confession and baptism the Holy Spirit enters a believer and begins to work with that person according to their desire to make them into who God created them to be.

Now, I want to make this clear. The Holy Spirit does not work independent of you. You have to desire to be healed, to be whole, to be a person who follows Jesus in all that he did. If you don’t desire wholeness and healing and to be the person that God created you to be, and you don’t do everything in your power to follow Jesus, the Holy Spirit is not going to work independently of you to get those things done. If you cave into fear and you don’t fight against the anxiety and the angry outbursts in your life. If you never pray and ask God to take away those destructive things in your life, or don’t get help from another brother or sister in Christ to help you get set free from those things, the Holy Spirit isn’t going to work independent from you. You have to want to follow Christ at all costs.

If you want to grow and you want your soul to find healing, and you want to be set free from addictions and fear and anxiety and depression and loneliness, and become all that God created you to be, and you’re willing to do anything in order to get that, including getting on your knees daily and asking God for that, the Holy Spirit will give you the desires of your heart as long as they line up with the things that we’re going to talk about next.

The first thing that the Holy Spirit does inside of you is to plant a spiritual seed in your heart and that’s called being born again. We all have a physical birth, but not everyone has a spiritual birth. We are only half of who God created us to be if we are not born again.

If you’ve never been baptized and you’ve never confessed Jesus as your Lord, then there is a part of you that is not fulfilled; you are only part of who God created you to be. But if you’ve been baptized and confess Jesus as Lord, then a spiritual seed has been planted inside of you. This is what the Apostle Paul tells us about what should happen to that seed. He writes in Galatians 5:22

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. Galatians 5:22-23 (NRSV)

In physical conception there is a seed that is planted in the womb and it grows physically in a child and then as the child continues to mature, they grow into adulthood. In Spiritual birth, there is a seed that is planted by God and if tended well, grows and matures and produces fruit, much like a garden plant. The fruit of the Spirits seed inside of us ought to grow and mature into love, into joy, into peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control

These fruits are what we were created to be on the inside of us. If we could say that we fully have all these characteristics, then we could say that we are full grown in the Spirit. We can tell how mature we are in the spirit by the level these fruits have developed in us. They can only come from God’s Spirit living inside of us, and each of these fruits manifests themselves outward as we interact with the people around us. They not only enrich and bless our lives internally, but they also enrich and bless the lives of the people around us.

Here’s a question: What would the world look like if we all were full of the fruits of the Spirit? What would it look like if every person in the world were fully mature in the fruits of the Spirit? It would be heaven. It would be heaven on earth. That is God’s will; that is God’s desire for your life and mine.

What if a person is baptized, but in their decision making, they never seek to chase down and go strong after being fully mature spiritually? Then that person basically stays an infant, a mere conception and they never experience the full goodness that God desires for them. They are not following Jesus. They are not on a journey to becoming who they were created to be. They were on the highway, but then got off on an exit, and decided to never get back on.

As a Christian, being born again is effectively having the unseen parts of you – love, joy, peace, etc -  be born and mature within you and these can only be born of God’s Spirit – the Holy Spirit. Apart from the Spirit we may think that we have love, but if you dig down deep enough, we find that love, apart from God, everybody’s love is fundamentally selfish. The love that the Spirit brings is unselfish love, love that is given without expectation of anything.

Did you notice the last sentence in this verse? There is no law against such things. There’s no rules about these things. You can use them or give them away in abundance. You can go crazy and be patient with everyone, and you won’t break any rules. You can be self-controlled all the time, and you won’t become an addict. You can overindulge in generosity and nobody will call the cops. You can go on a 7 day binge of joyfulness and nobody will turn you in. God won’t be angry.

Have you ever thought there are just too many rules in this world? With the fruits of the Spirit, you can’t overindulge with them, you can’t go to far with them; there’s no law, there’s no rules where they’re concerned. Why? Because at the core of what they are, they’re GOOD! They are fundamentally who you and I were created to be. If you were fundamentally mature in the fruit of the Spirit, you would be fully the real you. That would be who God had in mind when he created you.

Your soul is like a garden and you are called to tend your garden, and the Holy Spirit is the Master Gardener, who empowers you to grow great fruit in your garden. Apart from the Holy Spirit, you can’t grow anything. None of these gifts of God come apart from a love for God and an understanding that you and I are incomplete without him. We are powerless to change who we are apart from the Holy Spirit.

We just keep trying to change the outside of us. We try to exercise or buy new clothes to make ourselves look good on the outside, we use makeup, and cologne, and paint our nails with polish and our skin with tattoos, but inside here, if we really probe our heart and our soul, we find that it’s empty of true goodness and joy and peace, and love unless God, through the power of his Holy Spirit is at the center of it.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. Galatians 5:22-23 (NRSV)

The Holy Spirit is at work in redeeming us from the moment that we accept Jesus as our savior and Lord. From the moment that we ask Jesus to forgive us of all the things that we have done and do that goes against God and his goodness, the Holy Spirit is available to empower us to change who we are in accordance with God’s will. As we learn to love God and begin to love and follow Jesus the Holy Spirit enters our lives and begins to redeem us in a way that we become who God created us to be.

God, through the person of the Holy Spirit, empowers us to change who we are. The Holy Spirit works inside of us, through our will, to empower us, so that we can grow into God’s will. The Holy Spirit plants a spiritual seed inside of us and we call that being born again. Then he goes to work removing the ugliness within us and replacing it with goodness. That’s called redemption. And as we’ve said before, the best way to understand the redemption process is through a beverage can or bottle.

Most beverage cans have the words, “redeem for deposit” stamped on them. What this means is that when the can is empty, it is basically worthless. It is dirty, and it’s empty of all the goodness that was once inside it. The can at this point represents our lives apart from God. Our lives are dirty, sinful, and empty of all the goodness that God created us for.

Once the can is empty we have two choices. We can throw it away as they do in Indiana or if you’re in Michigan you can take the can or bottle back to the store and redeem it. Once we’ve returned the can at the store, it makes it’s way back to the manufacturer and through several stages, the can is crushed, shredded, melted, cleansed, purified and then reformed into another can, and then only after that entire process can good liquid be poured back into the can once again.

So it is with us. The Holy Spirit begins the redemptive process that Jesus began with his death on the cross. The Holy Spirit works on the inside of us to purify, reshape, and remake our heart, soul, mind, and strength so that it can receive the love of God and his power to do good, redemptive work in the world. God restores us so that we can join him in helping others find restoration.

Here’s what the Apostle Paul says about this. He writes:

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? 1 Corinthians 6:19 (NRSV)

In the Old Testament, people had to travel to Jerusalem to pray or at least to pray in the direction of Jerusalem because that was where God resided. The temple was God’s house. But since Jesus’ sacrificial death and resurrection, God, through his Holy Spirit, lives in each of us, if we confess our sins and ask his forgiveness. Through this process, our hearts are now the temple of the living God. God, through his Holy Spirit resides in us. We are not God, but it is also true that we cannot live apart from him.

As the Holy Spirit is living inside of us and when we seek it (this is important) he: 

1. Gives us knowledge of who God is
2. Helps us to understand what we read in our Bible
3. Heals our hearts from all the evil that’s in the world. Things are not the way they’re supposed to be. There is a war going on and our hearts get damaged, but the Holy Spirit heals and renews our hearts and restores them to how we were created to be. He also strengthens us against future attacks, so that we are wounded less and less by what other people say or do.
4. Shapes our heart toward Gods will and character over a long period of time.

We have to ask for these things before God will give them to us. He wants us to know that these things came from him and not something that we somehow did by our own power. These things only come from the power of the Holy Spirit, because of the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross to forgive us our sins. As we accept Jesus’ forgiveness of our sins and as we vow to love and follow Jesus, the Holy Spirit enters us and begins his transformative work.

“Do you ever feel powerless like Popeye without spinach?” Do you ever feel powerless to change your marriage? Do you ever feel powerless to change your relationship with your children? Do you ever feel powerless to stop an addiction? Do you ever feel powerless to stop angry tirades, and you just keep going off, though you’d like to stop? Do you ever feel like you’d like to make a difference in a person’s life, or in your community, or in your schools, or at work, but as you think about how big the problems are, you feel powerless to change to change anything, so you don’t even try? Do you ever feel powerless?

Popeye drew his power from spinach, but where does your power come from? Now I know that’s not a normal question to ask people in the 21^st century. I know it’s a bit of an unusual question in our world, but do you ever feel like you don’t have enough power? Do you ever feel like you’re powerless? Maybe the problem is at the supply?

The way that most people in our world answer the power question is they try to make more money, because we know that money is power. We think that if we just have more money, then our power problem will be solved, because we know that you can buy almost anything if you have enough money. Notice I said almost.

You can’t buy a better marriage. You can’t buy something that makes you a better parent. You can’t buy anything that will give you more time, when your time is up, your time is up. You can’t buy peace, or joy, or love. You can change how you look on the outside with money, but you can’t change how you feel on the inside with money. The power that I’m going to be talking about today, money can’t buy. Many of the wealthiest people in the world have died very lonely and very empty people because ultimately they couldn’t buy what they needed with money. They needed a different kind of power.

So I ask the question again, “Where does your power come from?” That question is not only a question that many people today have never been asked, but it’s also a question that the early church was never asked, but then one day Jesus said these amazing words to his disciples. He said,
You will receive power. . . Acts 1:8

Now I wonder what kind of power Jesus is talking about? Is he going to give them money? Is he going to give them political power? Maybe military power? What kind of power could Jesus be talking about?

Jesus said, You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you

You will receive power. What does that look like? When someone receives power from the Holy Spirit what does that look like?

In Acts 2 the Apostles and the early church received power from the Holy Spirit and they began a powerful movement that continues to this day. When the Holy Spirit came upon this early group of believers, they became so powerful that they changed the world. They not only changed the world in their day, but the power that was given them by the Holy Spirit continues to change the world today. What they did 2000 years ago continues to make a difference in the world today. Now I’d say, that’s power! That’s powerful!

They didn’t have power, but then Jesus gave them the Holy Spirit and power and from that point on, they lived powerful lives. God gave the early church some sort of extra power to live their lives. One moment these people were like you and me, knowing that they were missing something, knowing that they weren’t very powerful, but then, all of a sudden, they felt the Holy Spirit descend upon them and they were different. They were filled with God’s power, filled with His Spirit and it changed everything. It changed the dynamic of the whole world for the last 2000 years.

So, this morning we are going to start a three part series on the Holy Spirit and the power that God gives us. Today we are going to be looking primarily at how the Holy Spirit or God’s power, enters IN us and changes us from the inside out. Next week we’ll be looking at how the Holy Spirit comes ON us and empowers us to do great things in our world.

This morning I’d like to suggest that people without the Holy Spirit IN them is like:

v  A book without any pages in it

v  A pen without any ink in it

v  A cell phone without any coverage

v  An ipod without any songs on it

Your life and my life were created for an extra power that we are not born with. You and I were created to receive power from the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit we cannot be what God created us to be. We are empty of his power. It’s like a car being without gas. It’s like a hose being without water. It’s like a light bulb without electricity. We were created to be filled with the Holy Spirit. But what does that mean? And how do we know if we have the Holy Spirit’s power? How do you know if you have it or you don’t? How do you know if it’s available to you?

If you’re like most Christians you assume that you get the Holy Spirit’s power when you are baptized, but often times I hear people say, “But I don’t feel any different”. Because if you were more powerful you’d feel it right? If you don’t feel more powerful, what’s up with that? You know that you feel inadequate in your life and you sometimes wonder “Is God really with me? Is the Holy Spirit really in me?”

Is the Holy Spirit really present in my life? Where’s the power? And for some of you you’re asking a different question. You might be asking, “Who is the Holy Spirit?” Is he like Casper the friendly ghost or what? Who is this cat named the Holy Spirit.

So we’ll be walking through each of these questions as we jump into this three part series on the Holy Spirit. The whole point of the series is to move us toward understanding the Holy Spirit, and becoming powerful, Spirit filled and Spirit empowered people so that we can be difference makers in our world, because certainly we need powerful people who can make a difference in our world today.

Now, before we begin I want you to realize that I don’t want this message to be a monologue. I would love it to be a dialogue, because what I’m going to be talking about today is not easy to put into words. What we are talking about today is the mystery of how God works – the intangible presence of God who works in us, through us and all around us in the person of the Holy Spirit. There are not adequate words to fully describe how God works within the lives of human beings. Much of it is mystery, so I need your help. Ask question if you have them. This is a safe place to ask. All questions are good questions. OK?

Now, God, as I said, is mystery, but there are patterns of movement in which we see the Holy Spirit working in certain ways. We also have God’s word to direct us toward who he is and how we are created to live in him.

So here we go. First up is the idea of Trinity. The word Trinity is not a word that is found in the Bible. The word was created by some of the early church fathers in the 4^th century in order to describe the 3 primary ways that God reveals himself to us in scripture.

Trinity, whose root means three, is descriptive of our God who reveals himself in three very unique ways. The first way that God reveals himself to us is “Father”, the second is “Son”, and the third is the Holy Spirit. God the Father reveals himself primarily in the Old Testament. The Son, Jesus is primarily revealed in the Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They are the first four books of the New Testament. The Holy Spirit is revealed primarily in the New Testament books from Act through Revelation. (Separate Bible with colored dividers to show which portions of the Bible is primarily dedicated to each person of the Trinity).

Ok, now it’s important to identify the roles that each of the person’s of the Trinity have traditionally carried out.

v  The Father is primarily seen as the creator, visionary, warrior, and disciplinarian in the Bible.

v  The Son is understood as the one who makes God’s will become real. He is the model of God’s will. When we look at Jesus, we see how we are supposed to live, how we are supposed to be. In Jesus we see what powerful looks like. We see a man fully immersed in the Holy Spirit.

v  The Holy Spirit is understood as one who cleanses, redeems, and empowers us to live as Jesus did. The Holy Spirit empowers us to effectively live out God’s will in our lives, so that we can experience God’s blessings in our marriages, in our families, in our jobs, and in every area of life. The Holy Spirit empowers us to live like Jesus did.

The Father is the vision or the plan. The Son is the model of how the plan works. The Holy Spirit is the one who empowers us to live into the Father’s plan like Jesus did. God, the Father is the plan. Jesus is the prototype, and the Holy Spirit is the builder or general contractor who is at work creating the full scale working version you and I in the world.

My house – Dream (Father), then blueprints (Jesus), then lots of work to carry out the plan and the model – I was the one who had the money, hired and fired people, made day to day decisions about the construction and quality of the world being done. The Holy Spirit is the one doing the work of the Father and the Son. I envisioned the house. I drew the plans. I did the work – all the same person, but I revealed myself in different ways. Father = Planner, Son = Architect, and Holy Spirit = Builder

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all persons of God that are working together for the restoration and goodness of the world. God is one God, but he reveals himself to us in 3 different ways.

v  I have three roles Husband, Father, Son, in all of those roles I am still Adam. However, I speak to my wife different than to my kids and I speak to my parents different than I speak to my wife. I am the same person, but reveal myself in different way. So it is with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The focus of this series is just on the person of the Holy Spirit. Even though I said that the Holy Spirit is primarily revealed in the last half of the Bible, the Spirit is also present in the Old Testament and the Gospels.

In order to understand the person of the Holy Spirit, I’d like to share with you some of the places that the Holy Spirit is present in the Old Testament, so that we can have a bigger understanding of just who the Holy Spirit is and how he works to empower our lives. There’s no better place to begin that the beginning.

The Holy Spirit was at Creation

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God, or the Holy Spirit, was hovering over the waters Genesis 1:1-2 (NIV). The Holy Spirit is God. He is the Creator of the world.

Now, after Adam and Eve sinned, God separated his Spirit from people because evil was in them. After Adam and Eve sin, and throughout the entire Old Testament, the Holy Spirit comes upon just a few of the leaders that God used to direct his people, the people of Israel.

In the Old Testament we see the Holy Spirit coming in power upon just a few leaders who God used to lead his people. The purpose of the Holy Spirit’s empowerment in their lives was often to equip them for special service.

In the story of Moses we see Moses trying to be the judge for all of Israel, and people stood in long, long lines, from sun up to sun down waiting on Moses to hear their case. Jethro his father in law saw this and he told Moses that what he was doing was not wise. He said to him, “Moses, you need to entrust lesser judgment cases to other solid leaders. When Moses prayed about this to God the Father, God said to Moses,

Bring me seventy of Israel’s elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people. Have them come to the Tent of Meeting, that they may stand there with you. I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take of the Spirit that is on you and put the Spirit on them. They will help you carry the burden of the people so that you will not have to carry it alone. Numbers 11:16-17 (NIV)

This is seen throughout the Old Testament, where God’s Spirit comes, not on everyone who was a follower of God, but upon certain leaders to empower them to do his work. All the rest of the people of God could never expect God’s Spirit to rest on them. However, there were prophecies like the one in Joel that suggested that a new day was coming in which the Spirit of God would be poured out on all people.

God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days. Joel 2:28-29 (NIV)

Joel prophesied that one day God was going to give his Spirit to men and women, young and old, rich and poor – to all people who called on his name. The people of that day thought, “That will be a glorious day when that happens”.

Joel’s prophesy hung in people’s memory for several hundred years until one day something remarkable happened. An angel of the Lord visited a young woman by the name of Mary and told her that she was going to have a son.

Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called ‘Son of God’. Luke 1:34-35 (NRSV)

This is really amazing what the angel says to Mary. The angel says to Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, this is what the Holy Spirit had been doing ever since Adam and Eve sinned – coming upon people. The Spirit of God had only come ON certain people in order to serve God. But then look at the angel says next, “And the power of the Most High will overshadow you, basically he’s saying, “God is going to do something through that you could never do. God says, “I am going to do something inside of your womb that you could never do by yourself.” Therefore, the child to be born will be holy. The child that will be born will not be filled with sin at birth as every other human being, but instead he will be holy, he will be without sin. He will be called the Son of God

There’s a very important distinction here that we need to understand. At conception, Jesus had the Holy Spirit at work “IN” him. This is something that hadn’t happened since the time of Adam and Eve. Throughout the Old Testament the Holy Spirit came “upon” or “on” people, but the Holy Spirit was never in anyone.

Throughout the Old Testament God was empowering people from the outside, but he was never able to truly change their hearts because sin was in the way. God is a Holy God and he and sin don’t mix. God did not place his Spirit within his people, because they were full of sin. Instead, God empowered them from the outside.

Think of it this way. If you’re teaching your son or daughter to play baseball, you might wrap your body around theirs and bat with them. You swing the bat, and they swing that bat with you, but you know that you’re the one hitting the ball. It’s not them. That’s what the Holy Spirit was doing in the Old Testament. He was empowering them from the outside and we’re going to be talking a lot about that next week. But here’s the deal.

If your son or daughter is going to be a good baseball player, you know that they have to, at some point, be able to hit the ball by themselves. They have to be aggressive and take the right stance and get the timing down, and someday, after lots and lots of practice, hit the ball well. This is what is going on beginning with Jesus’ birth. The Holy Spirit is in Jesus.

This is huge. The Holy Spirit came ON Mary, just like it had for all the leaders of the Old Testament, but now we are told that the Holy Spirit is IN Jesus. This is something very special!

Here Mary is told that Jesus is going to be holy or without sin from conception. The Holy Spirit is IN Jesus from his conception.

In Genesis, the Holy Spirit took part in creating the world. In Jesus’ birth the Holy Spirit took part in creating something new, a New Creation that was ushered in at Jesus’ birth.

So then, for 30 years Jesus grows in wisdom and in stature with the Holy Spirit in him, and then we are told in Luke this:

Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Luke 3:21-22 (NRSV)

Now, it is highly significant that Jesus did not perform any miracles until after his baptism of the Holy Spirit, hence granting him gifts for power of service. This was a decisive turning point for Jesus because up until this time Jesus had the Spirit of God IN him from conception, shaping and molding his character as well as giving him knowledge of the Father and of the Bible. But now the Spirit has descended ON him to give him power for service.

This is the point that I want to make today. There are two workings of the Holy Spirit, two different ways that the Holy Spirit empowers us. The first way is for transformation of the inner you. The second way is for power of service. Traditionally the church has talked about the Holy
Spirit as being IN people, but they have neglected to teach on the Holy Spirit being ON people.

We’ll look at the differences between the two over the next couple of weeks. I end with this question, “Do feel like you lack power?” and then this very important question, “Where does your power come from?” As an electrician, if we lacked power in a home, we would always go and check the source of the power. Where is your power source? Is there a problem with your supply?

1. If you were the manager of a restaurant and I complained about the service, what would I be talking about?
2. If I was talking with my mechanic and asked him to service my truck, what would I be talking about?
3. If I was at a tennis tournament and I leaned over to you and said that was a bad service what would I be talking about?
4. If I told you that I was going to quit my job as a pastor and joined the Armed Service, what would I be talking about?
5. If I went to see my mom and dad this afternoon and they asked how the service went this morning, what would they be talking about?

Service is a strange word that has all kinds of baggage attached to it, and so I want to be really clear about what we’re going to be talking about today. I want to talk about the verb “To Serve”. This kind of service depicts action and this is the definition that I’d like to lay out before us as we get started:

Work done by one person or a group to benefit others.

Service is the way that Christians are called to display our love. If I say, “I love you” to my wife or my kids, but then don’t serve them in any way that reveals my love for them, then no love is present.  Therefore, service is critical to the life of a believer.

The Bible tells us to “Serve one another in love”

However, there are many ways of serving one another that are not godly.

I can serve someone because I think that I’m supposed to, because that’s what “good people” are supposed to do, or that’s what my mom or my dad taught me was the “right” thing to do. The motivation for this kind of service is a clear conscience.

A woman can vote in a presidential election, not because she thinks it will change her country, but because she thinks to herself, “Many people have died and suffered in order to give women the right to vote”, so she votes, because it’s the “right” thing to do.

1. I can serve because I think that I’ll be rewarded if I do something for someone. The motivation for this kind of serving is monetary gain.

Husbands, the reason why we serve our wives, and wives, sometimes why you serve your husbands is because you think you can get something from them.

Kid’s sometimes you mow the lawn or do the dishes or cook supper or some other chore, why? Because you think you will put your parents in a good mood so you can ask them . . . to give you something.

You can go to work every day as a greeter at Walmart, serving people as they come through the door, not because you like serving people, but because you know that you get a paycheck if you serve those who come through the door.

I had a daughter who, when she was younger, was doing community service with me and she looked at me after about a half an hour into it and said, “Dad, I’m not having any fun, can we go home now.” She thought that serving others was all about having fun. She thought the only reason she should serve others is because there was something in it for her.

1. I can serve someone because I think I’ll get punished if I don’t, so the main reason for this type of serving is motivated by fear.

Kids sometimes serve their family by doing chores. Most kids do their chores because they know that they will face punishment if they don’t. Most people serve their employers because they fear being laid off or fired if they don’t do what is expected of them. They are motivated to serve their employers out of fear.

We serve for many reasons, but only one reason is a godly reason. The godly way of serving, the way that you were created to serve is to serve one another in love. Now, the New Testament was written in Greek, so the different translations that we have today are because there is no exact translation from Greek – the original language of the Bible and English.

The original word for “Love” is the word Agape, which is the highest form of love. It means to love unconditionally. There is nothing that you or I can do to earn unconditional love. It is love without condition. It is given no matter what. So the translation could read, Serve one another and love one another without expectations. Serve one another and love one another without conditions.

A woman can go and vote, but she ought to vote because she loves her country and she wants to see it grow and become a better country.

The reason why husbands should serve their wives or wives their husbands is not to get something from him or her, but to give something to him or her. We ought to serve as a way of giving and blessing the other because we love them.

The greeter at Walmart ought to serve the people who come through the door in love, not just because he gets a paycheck if he does.

We should serve our community, not because it’s fun, but because it makes our community a better place to live, but because we love the community that we live in and want to make it a better place to live. We ought to serve our community because we love the people that live there, whether they’ve done anything for us or not.

Kid’s, you ought to serve your family by doing chores, not because you fear being punished if you don’t, but because you love your family and want to serve them because you love them.

Here’s what the Apostle Paul wrote:

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. We are free to chose what we’re going to do. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather (by being self-serving), serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Galatians 5:13-14 (NIV)

We were given incredible freedom by God. We can do anything that we choose to do. We can be incredibly selfish and we can be incredibly generous, it’s our choice. We can spend all of our time serving our self, or we can spend our time serving others not because they’ve earned it or deserve it, but because we love them, in the same way that God loves us. Paul says that when we are self serving that is sinful, that is small minded. We are called to serve one another in love.

The question that I have is “Why?” Why shouldn’t I look out for big ole number one! Why shouldn’t I look out for big ole capital “I”? Why should I serve others when I have so much to do at my house – so much that I’ll never get it all done? Why should I do outreach on Saturday mornings when I have other things I want to do?

As we said a few weeks back, there are two side of unconditional love. There is gratitude and there is service. Gratitude is seeing and receiving a gift given in love. If someone serves me in love, the godly response is gratitude, because by serving me in love they are giving me the most precious and costly gift available in the universe. Unconditional love is rare, precious, costly and when someone gives it to me, it ought to almost undo me, it ought to put me to my knees.

Because, here’s the deal. When someone gives me unconditional love, it means that they are not giving it because I’ve earned it, or because I somehow deserve it, but just because they love me and want to invest in me to help me become more of who God created me to be. When someone serves me in conditional love, they are giving me a part of their self.  They are giving me the most precious and costly gift that can be given from one human being to another, which is unconditional love

Unconditional love is, of course, love without conditions. It is love that is being given without some sort of expectations. It is love that I give without anything in it for me. So here’s what I want you to go home with:

Unconditional Love is a gift;

Gratitude is how we receive it

Service is how we give it

Gratitude is like a bucket in which we receive unconditional love; Service is like a hose that has the potential to fills people’s buckets with unconditional love. I only experience gratitude when I notice that someone is giving me unconditional love and respond favorably to it. When I chose to receive unconditional love being given to me, I have to respond with action in order to truly receive it. I need to put my bucket under their hose of unconditional love and allow them to fill my bucket. As my bucket fills with unconditional love, immense gratitude fills me and my response is how can I share this with the world.  

When Paul says, You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. You were created to live freely and to choose freely. God has given you full freedom in how you live your life, but only one way will bring blessing on you and those around you. You were created to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature – to be selfish, to be self serving; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Galatians 5:13-14 (NIV)

God serves us by filling our lives with unconditional love every day. Gratitude is the bucket that we receive God’s love in. Then as our bucket fills to overflowing with God’s love, it begins to spill out into other people’s buckets. This gives them joy as they begin to feel God’s love in their life and are drawn to it.

God loves us and he tells us to take the love, gratitude and passion that we have for him and shower that on those people in our homes, in our communities, and in the world. Worship is an expression of gratitude. Service ought to flow out of worship and gratitude. When we receive the unconditional love that God gives to us, we ought to respond by sharing love with the world around us, with the community around us, with the family around us.

Unconditional Love is a gift;

Gratitude is how we receive it

Service is how we give it

When I understand the costly, precious gift of unconditional love that God has given to me, I say to God, “God, you are amazing because you give such wonderful gifts to me every single day. Each day you fill my lungs with air. You make the sun rise and set on each day. You keep the earth spinning in it’s orbit and you keep the sun the right distance away from earth to provide it warmth, but not too much. You provide me with food and water and shelter and clothing. You make our crops grow, our babies grow, our hair grow and all of this is a gift that you give to me and to us unconditionally because we know that we’ve not earned it, we know that we don’t deserve it, but we need it, and yet you give us far, far beyond what we need because you love us.

And I say to God, God, I just feel so much gratitude toward you for loving me in such wonderful ways, is there anything that I can do for you? God says, “Do you mean it, Adam?” Of course I mean it, God. You have blessed me so much, “Is there anything that I can do for you?” Yeah, Yeah there is. I’d like you to serve those people in your family, and those people in your community, those people at work, those people all around you in the same way that I’ve served you. I’d like you to love them and serve them unconditionally and without expectation, just as I’ve love you.

God says, “I created the world to be filled with relationships that are centered around unconditional love and when you love and serve the people around you unconditionally, then you join me in bringing about heaven on earth. Because all relationships in heaven are centered on service and gratitude and filled with unconditional love.

Oh, you mean that I shouldn’t serve my wife because I think I can get something from her? No, Adam, because when you do that you demean her and use her. She was created for unconditional love and when you serve her in lesser ways, you demean what I created her for.

And when I serve out of obligation or fear of being reprimanded, I probably shouldn’t do that either, huh? No Adam, because when you serve out of obligation, or because you’re supposed to because your dad said so or my mom said so, you might get the job done, but you demeaned the people that you serve and made the world a darker place to live in the process.

Adam, I am calling you to serve others in the same way that I have served you. Unconditionally, out of love, as a way of helping them to know me and the love that I have for them.

Service to others is how we respond to God’s love. We are not called to serve just those that we love, but to love all those that we serve. The more you love God the more that you want to serve those who you don’t yet love, and sometimes those whom you don’t know. God loves every single human being as he calls us to serve everyone, all people in love, so that people might first experience his love through our service.

We serve as a way of expressing God’s love in this world. He calls us to love him first, so that we might receive his love and then as we receive his love, that we might serve the world in love, because we are not called just to make it into heaven. We are called to practice for heaven. We are called to practice for eternity, so that we might, more and more, experience heaven on earth as we begin to live and love as God created us to.

I can say that I love my wife, but talk is cheap. If I don’t serve my wife in love, then my words are empty and without life. My words of love must go hand in hand with actions or the love is dead and without life. Words are internal. Service is external. Both must be present to be real. In the same way, we can say that we love God, but words are cheap. Serving one another in love is the way that we serve God . . . and others, and therefore express our love to both. By doing so, we fulfill the greatest two commandments in all of life, which are to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love our neighbor as our self.

We show love for God by receiving with gratitude all the wonderful gifts of unconditional love that he bestows on us each day. We express love back to God by joining him in serving others in love. When we get these two things right, gratitude and service, the world is filled with unconditional love and heaven begins to invade earth. That is the vision of God. He invites us to join him in making that dream come true.

In case you guess it, I just want to state that my point this morning is to move our worship to the next level. The point of this morning is to take your worship with God and put it on steroids and grow it bigger

Did anyone here find the series on marriage helpful! Yeah, I did too. One of the principles that I brought out in that first week of talk on marriage had significant meaning for my worship. It changed everything for me when it comes to my relationship with God. It took my relationship with God and put it on steroids, and it’s my hope that it will do the same thing for you this morning.

A few weeks ago in our marriage series, we said that as soon as a marriage is centered around expectation, then the intimacy and the romance just evaporates and the reason why intimacy and romance evaporates is because as soon as our desires translate into expectations, we move our relationship from a covenant relationship, where love is unconditional, to a debt debtor relationship – to an I owe you and you owe me and I will if you will, but I won’t if you don’t type of relationship.

When our wishes, dreams and desires change into a list of expectations, then suddenly our relationship changes into a “You owe me” type of relationship with another person.

Any time any relationship revolves into a debt debtor relationship, the intimacy, and the trust, and the romance evaporate, because in a debt debtor relationship there is no place for unconditional love.

We said that if your expectation is for your husband to mow the lawn, how much credit does he get if he actually mows the lawn? None, because he was expected to mow the lawn – if that’s the expectation and he does it, he’s just back to zero, he just got out of the hole and is back to zero, because after all, that’s what husbands are supposed to do, right? Why should I throw him a party if he’s just doing what he’s supposed to do, right?

We said that if your expectation is for your wife to stay at home with your kids every day, and she actually does that, how much credit does your wife get? None, because she was expected to do that, because, after all, that’s what wives are supposed to do, right? There’s no reason to throw a party for her because that’s what wives are supposed to do, right?

Expectations like that kill the possibility of unconditional love. They are in fact opposites. Where one exists the other cannot.

Once our relationship devolve into expectations it squeezes out the potential for receiving or expressing unconditional love, because love, the kind of love that you and I were created to receive, is a gift. And if everything is expected, then there is no opportunity to give or receive the gift . . of . . . love.

Here’s the point I’m trying to make. We don’t express gratitude for things we’ve come to expect.

Now, throughout the scriptures, there is this understanding that, as a Christian, we are, in a sense, married to God. Christianity is that kind of commitment. Christianity is a commitment between us and God bound together by a deep love for one another. Baptism is like the rings exchanged between a husband and a wife when they get married. Baptism is a sign and a seal of a commitment between a human being and God to love each other unconditionally forever. For a Christian, baptism is a promise or a vow between them and God that they will love each other no matter what.

For many in the church, they believe in God, and even to some level, trust in God, and though there is a semblance of love, many of the people in the church are missing the deepest kind of love in their relationship with God. Deep passion for God is missing in the hearts and lives of many Christians today, I see it here, and I feel it sometimes in my own heart.

However, the love that ‘s missing in the church is not because we don’t want to love God more, it’s just that we can’t conjure up any more love than what we have. We sometimes know something’s not right, but we don’t know what, because we love God, but there’s no passion or intensity in our hearts toward God.

For me, sometimes, it’s like that in my marriage. Sometimes I look at my marriage and remember back to a time when there was more spark and passion and romance and intimacy in our marriage. And though I want that in my heart, I cannot just will it to be so, because love doesn’t just sprout up because I want it to be. Something inside of me has to change for our marriage and our romance to get more passionate.

I believe this is true with God. I often times talk with other church leaders and we talk about how our spiritual lives are going and sometimes they tell me or I tell them, “My relationship to God is distant right now” or “The fire that was in my relationship to God last year has fizzled and I just feel kind of distant right now.” Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever watched someone else worship and wish that you had all the passion that they did? Or maybe you heard someone else pray and you said to yourself, “I wish I could pray like that, because that person has passion and fire and a connection with God that I can’t conjure up.” Sometimes it feels like all I have is smoldering embers in my heart for God.

So here’s the question that I want to answer today: How do I grow in my connection, my passion, my love for God? How do I grow more and more in my dependence and my devotion to God? How do I grow the romance and intimacy in my relationship with God? How do I grow in my unconditional love for God? The answer is really quite simple.

The answer is the same as it is for marriage. In our marriage series, we said that we all have wishes dreams and desires. We said that to have wishes dreams and desires is normal, even God given. However, we also said that when we take our wishes dreams and desires and move them into the box called Expectations that it kills intimacy and romance, and unconditional love because it put our relationship into a whole other category called a debt-debtor relationship.

Let me ask you a quick question. Did you get up this morning and take the air that you’re breathing for granted? Was it something that you took for granted and therefore, could you say that you expected that air to be there all day, without interruption? Did you wake up this morning going, “Oh my gosh, what if God turned off the oxygen in the world at noon? Did you wake up this morning taking the air that you breathe for granted and if so, how come? Did you create the air? Did you somehow mix up just the right ratio of hydrogen and oxygen? Did you somehow earn the air that you’re breathing? What right do you have to it? The air that you are breathing right now is a gift given by your Creator and without it we wouldn’t last more than a couple of minutes.

We are told in Genesis 1:1 that God created the heaven’s and the earth.

In Exodus 20:11 we are told that: In six days God created the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them. God created it all – everything that we have, everything that we know, everything that is, God created.

Here’s my point. If everything that God gives to us each day is expected, then you and I will never be grateful for the gifts that he has given to us in love.

Because here’s the deal, We don’t express gratitude for things we’ve come to expect. Will you repeat this truth with me? All, right side, left side, men, women, etc.

For most of us we come to God with a whole box load of expectations. If we have grown to expect things from God, then that kills any opportunity for us to show God love. If we expect God to give us air everyday and God meets our expectation and gives us air, how much credit does God get for what he’s given to us? None! Zip! Zilch! Zero! Congratulations God, now you’re up to zero!

I mean we’d all be upset if God turned off the air. You’ve heard of blackouts where there’s no electricity, so the whole city goes dark, right? But have you ever heard of an “Air out” where the whole city just ran out of air? Can you imagine your son or daughter or your mom or your dad being in a place where they just ran out of air and died? I’m thinking I’d be awfully angry with God if that happened to one of my kids.

If that’s true for you, then maybe you’ve got some expectations in your box for God. It’s kind of like the relationship between you and your mortgage company we’ve been talking about.  Your relationship with your mortgage company is without conflict as long as you make your payments on time, but as soon as you miss a couple of payments, you get some special attention and it’s all bad.

As long as God provides me air, things go pretty well between us, though there’s not much love, but as soon as he stops giving me what I’m expecting, I give God some special attention and it’s all negative.

Did you wake up this morning thanking God that the sun came up or did you wake up this morning expecting the sun to rise. Did you know that if the sun did not shine, there would be no light – none; there would only be darkness, inky black darkness. If there was no light, nothing would grow; everything would die. If the sun did not shine, then there would be no heat. If there was no heat, everything would be but ice and dead, there would be no life.

Did you wake up this morning thanking God for the immeasurable gift of the sun, or do you have some things in this box (expectations) that maybe shouldn’t be. You see,

We don’t express gratitude for things we’ve come to expect.

If you’re having trouble conjuring up any passion or love for God, then it’s safe to say that you probably have a box full of expectations. If we come to worship and there is not this immense gratitude in our heart that wants to explode from inside of you like juice that explodes from peach as you bite into it, then maybe you have a box full of expectations.

Expectations kill intimacy, they kill passion, they kill excitement. Expectations are like rain on a parade, because they kill the joy within us. Expectations are like acid on steal, because it eats away at the foundation of love that should exist between God and us. Expectations are like a tornado in a trailer park, because it destroys all the love that’s in it’s path between God and us.

Did you know that if the sun were just a few miles closer that it would be so hot that all the water would evaporate and we, ourselves, would burn up? Did you know that if the earth was a few miles further away from the sun we would all freeze.

If only the sun shown, but no rain came, the ground would dry up and our food would not grow. If only the sun shown, but no rain came all the trees of the forest and all the grass of the field would die. The earth would dry up and all the trees would die. If all the trees died, then we would suffocate, because the leaves of those trees create all the oxygen we breathe everyday through a process called photosynthesis. We breathe out carbon dioxide and trees take the carbon dioxide and convert it back to oxygen for us to breathe. If the trees stopped producing carbon dioxide for one day our very lives would be at stake.

Did you wake up this morning thanking God for the sun and his wonderful placement of it, the rain that has come in plenty, and for the sun and rain that has worked in an artful, mysterious dance to provide all of our crops and all of our food and that without God gracious hand and deep love that we would be nothing more than dust?

Have you received the gifts that God has given you this day as precious and wonderfully mysterious gift, or have you begun to expect them and therefore don’t give God credit for what he has so artfully and mysteriously created and given to you and to me as a magnificent, glorious, gift.

We don’t express gratitude for things we’ve come to expect.

As we see and understand God’s love and the wonderful ways in which he blesses us richly and in abundance, it ought to drive us to our knees in gratitude and adoration for our God who is so good to us.

Worship is an expression of gratitude to God for how he serves us in love.

Worship is our response to the costly, underserved gifts that God gives us every single day. The level of our gratitude, passion, and worship toward God is directly related to how much we see and receive the unconditional love and goodness that God bestows upon us each day.

When we have a box full of expectation toward God, it robs us of opportunities to see the ways in which God serves us in unconditional love.

If I have an expectation that the sun is going to rise today, then how much credit does God get for providing this amazing and awe inspiring act for us? None, because he just met my expectation of him.

As soon as I have expectations of anybody, including God, then I squeeze out the opportunity to receive the service and love that is given. Love can only be given as a gift. God gives us millions of gifts each day, but if we don’t receive them as undeserved, unearned, unconditional good gifts that God bless us with, then we will miss those opportunities for our hearts to soar with joy and gratitude toward God for how Good he is.

Gratitude is noticing the fact that someone, and today we’re talking about God, has given to us the most precious and priceless commodity in the world, which of course is unconditional love. Unconditional love cannot be bought, it cannot be earned, it must be given from the heart as a gift.

Love is the most costly gift that God or any human being can give, because as human beings we were created to be filled with great amounts of unconditional love. We cannot become who God created us to be without it. We cannot be filled with joy without large amounts of unconditional love.

So, here’s the bottom line. We don’t express gratitude for things we’ve come to expect. On the other hand, Gratitude is expressed when we see the precious, costly gifts that we’ve been given.

Let’s take some time to express our gratitude to God the precious gifts that he has given us through a time or worship.

You see, due time for me is different from due time for God, because I heard the sermon on Sunday and I applied it on Monday and by Thursday there ought to be some activity in my marriage, right? I emptied my box by Monday and by Monday at 5:00 and we’re back over here (Desires box), and I say, “Ok God, why isn’t he or why isn’t she looking in my box and taking notice of my wishes, dreams and desires?”

Here’s the promise. In due time, God will intervene on your behalf. What does that look like? I don’t know because everybody’s circumstances and everybody’s issues are different and everybody’s personalities are different, and everybody’s baggage is different. But in due time, God will intervene on your behalf. And let me tell you, I’ve seen some men and women live in the due time for a long time. But at the end of their due time with their humility and faithfulness, they’ve seen God do some amazing, amazing things – in their life personally and in their marriage.

I’ve seen a woman who waited 30 some years for God to change her husband – faithfully casting all her wishes, dreams, desires and anxieties upon God and then at the end of 30 some years God opened her eyes and she realized she was half the problem. She had been thinking that he was the whole problem, but then God showed her how she had been acting, obviously without knowing it, but that she was a major part of why her husband had responded to her in ways that did not meet her wishes, dreams and desires.

In that due time, and it was a long time, God had to get her to the point where she was ready to change how she acted and reacted toward her husband. So in her prayers for her husband, because she faithfully humbled herself before God, he changed someone all right, but it wasn’t her husband. It was her, but in that change it blessed their marriage. In due time – God’s time.

People who humble themselves before God and who say to themselves even if, the due time, is a long time, I would rather spend due time waiting on God to do things right and experiencing his grace and experiencing his power to live in the moment for the moment, then I would to try and fix my husband or my wife by my own strength. Those people chose to live in God’s due time, because they would rather do that then to be a big capital I all by themselves trying to manipulate, control, punish, and coerce their husband or their wife to meet their expectations. 

We know that doesn’t work. And even though we know that doesn’t work, “due time” bothers us because it doesn’t work fast enough. But Peter says, “You know what? You humble yourself and place your wishes dreams and desires into God’s mighty hand, and in due time he will lift you up.

If you put God’s wishes, dreams, and desires ahead of your own and you say, “Lord, your will be done and your kingdom come, not mine”, then Peter says God will pick you up, and in the mean time God will give you the power and the ability to press on even if Big I doesn’t even notice your wishes, dreams, and desires.

Remember, a Christian marriage is one that says, “I will even if you won’t”. I will because I chose to love you as my spouse, not because you’ve earned it or deserved it, but because I choose to love you the same way that God loves me – unconditionally! And if I love you unconditionally then that means that I can’t put any conditions on loving you, because God didn’t put any conditions on loving me.

There are men and women who are listening to this message who could stand up and say, “I understand the power of the due time. I understand the grace of God in the due time. I understand how God works in due time. They could tell you that they’ve wrestled and controlled and manipulated their spouse and they’ve became frustrated and demoralized during that journey, and then they could tell you how, when they’ve waited on God and have seen the grace of God and his power and their connection with him during that due time grow, and that time was so much better than the struggle and the anxiety, and the frustration of being one Big I against another.

And then Peter, this is brilliant, this is so awesome, right here he gets so practical. In the mean time, while you’re waiting on God to make changes to your situation and to honor your humility in the due time, this is what Peter tells us to do.

Cast, that is throw, unload, back the truck up and dump it. I think that’s what he had in mind. Cast all your anxiety, all your cares, all your concerns, on God.

This is what Peter’s saying. He’s saying, “I realize that you still got a big box full of wishes dreams and desires – things that you wanted to see in your marriage, and I don’t want you to lose sight of these and I don’t want you to pretend that these aren’t there, and I don’t want you to get busy so that you’re distracted, so here’s what I want you to do.

I want you to come to me and say to me daily if necessary, in the moment if necessary, “God you know that in my heart, I just wanted my husband to provide for us”, or “God I just want my wife to respect me” or “God, I know this is kind of silly, but as a child I grew up in a big ole one of these and as a little girl I always wanted to live in a big ole one of these, and right now we’re not living in a big ole one of these, can I say that to you God?”

God says, “Is that your concern? Yeah. Then bring it on. And God, “You know, you know, you know, you know how bad we wanted . . . is that silly to bring that to you? And God says, “is that a desire of your heart?” Yeah! Then you bring it on.

Whatever is in your box, this is important, God says to you, “I don’t want you to edit it, I don’t want you to say, “This is really stupid, but . . .” God doesn’t need 14 paragraphs of disclaimer and qualifiers, he just needs you to share with him what’s in your heart. He already knows what’s in your heart, but by telling him, you’re giving it over to him and instead of ruling your own life, you’re allowing God to begin to take charge of your life. Instead of being a big ole arrogant I, who says I’m in control of my life and I don’t need you God, you’re giving God the reigns and saying, “Your will be done. I love you and I trust you with my wishes dreams and desires and I’m going to trust that in due time, you’ll do what I could never do.”

Whatever is causing you anxiety, God says, “Cast it upon me”. There should be no guilt, there should be no shame, there is no judgment, God says, “Cast all your cares, concerns, and anxiety upon me.” It may be silly it may be unrealistic, you may be embarrassed to talk about it out loud, but it’s causing you anxiety because you have a wish, a dream, or a desire, and God says to cast it all upon me.

It may look like your husband or your wife is never going to get interested, never going to meet that need, and God says, I don’t care what it is, I want you to cast all, and the meaning of “All” and  in the Greek it means “All”. I want you to cast ALL of your cares, concerns, and anxieties – if it’s in the box, I want you to dump it on me.

Then here’s the punch line, are you ready for this? See if you’re not a Christian, here’s reason to think about it right here. Are you ready? Listen to this:

Cast all your anxiety, all your cares, all your concerns, on God, because he cares  . . .for you.

Now don’t miss this. Literally in the original language, it says it this way: Because you are of concern to him.

Is this important to you? Yes Lord, it’s important to me. Well then it’s important to me. It is? Why would something like this be important to you God? Because you’re important . . . to me.

“You know, how that whole schedule thing is going, and she won’t cooperate, and that time thing, Woe, woe, woe, is it important to you? It is; it just frustrates me. Then it’s important to me too. Why would our schedule and our broken car, and the disagreements we have in parenting be important to you God? Because you’re important . . . to me.  Because you are of great concern to me, so I’m giving you permission – silly, unrealistic, trivial, it doesn’t matter. If it’s a point of anxiety and concern for you, then I want you to cast ALL your anxiety on me, because I care for you.

And when you cast all your anxiety upon me, do you know what you’re doing? You’re humbling yourself before me, and do you know what I’m going to give you? I’m going to give you the grace and the power and the ability to live in the due time, until he or she comes around and if they never come around, I’m going to give you the power to keep loving, and to keep walking, and to keep following hard after me.

But if you cast all your anxiety on Big I over there, it’s just going to be another battle, because you can fix him and you can’t change her, and therefore all you can do is to manipulate him or coerce her, but your love for one another will never grow as long as you cast all your anxiety upon Big I over there, because that’s heavy and oppressive and love doesn’t grow in that kind of environment. And that’s why I want you to cast all your cares upon me.

It’s because there’s one thing that you can know for certain. I care intensely about you, and there’s nothing off limits in your wishes, dreams and desires box that you can’t bring to me, because if you are concerned about that, then I’m concerned about that to, because I care about you.

Isn’t that a great promise that God gives us? Do you know what that looks like for some of you? Because for some of you there’s some anxiety that has been building up and building up and it’s killing all the joy that’s inside of you, and that’s why for some of you, you’re going to, every morning, on the way to work, or every morning after he leaves for work, or every morning before everyone gets up, you’re going to have to go to God and say,

“God, I so deeply and passionately want X in my marriage, and it causes me all kinds of anxiety and concern and God I want you to empower me to love him or to love her in spite of the fact that this dream isn’t coming true.

I’m not going to wake up, I’m not going to go home and cast my anxiety on my spouse anymore. You told me to cast all my cares and concerns upon you and so I’m bringing all of my anxiety to you and I’m casting it all on you, and I believe that in due time you will raise me up and in the mean time you’ll give me everything that I need in that due time to love him or love her unconditionally despite how they’re treating me.

Now, here’s what you’re going to discover, because some of you could get up right now and you could tell your story and it would put my sermon to shame because your story is so powerful. Here’s what you would say, because I’ve heard it said so many times, “What God did in my life during that due time, what
God did in my life as I learned to cast all my anxieties upon him, what God did in me during that time was so significant that I wouldn’t trade that time for anything

What God did in my life, what God did in my heart, what God did to change me in my life was that God taught me to trust him for the practical things in my marriage, and what I learned is that the grace that God provided, because I sat and listened and the thing that used to bother me about my husband or my wife, it doesn’t bother me anymore. And I realized that I had unloaded that on the shoulders of my capable heavenly Father and his grace and his power and his enduring strength was sufficient for me and Wow, I can’t believe the person that I’m becoming because of who God is creating in me.

God is all about transforming us and helping us become who we were created to be and that begins by starting a new habit for many of us, which is to cast all of our concerns in our marriages and in our lives upon God, by saying out loud in any language you want, and by casting your anxiety upon the shoulders of your heavenly Father. And then you can hold God to this promise, “My grace will be sufficient for you.” He supports and gives grace to the humble and in due time, he will lift you up, because he has concern for you.

Now, that’s the first part of what we’re going to be talking about today. I want to talk about one more thing before we finish this series, because I think this is extremely important. Even with all that we’ve talked about going on. I mean, you’re little I and you’re going along with Big I, and you’re learning how to cast your anxiety upon God, but still, in a healthy marriage you talk about these things right?

I mean, you have conversations, you don’t pretend. “I’m fine, I’m not going to talk about it, we’ll just leave the dead dog lay there.” No, in a healthy relationship people talk. So here’s what I want to do. I want to give you three thoughts to guide your conversation with your spouse concerning these things that we’ve been talking about.

I know that you guys are smart enough to figure these things out, but maybe this will motivate some of you to have this conversation with your spouse. Maybe your spouse isn’t here and so you can say that the preacher gave me home work, so I gotta ask you these questions.

We’ll call this the box talk. Here’s how you talk about what’s in the box. For guys we’ve made it easy, because it has a little acrostic that spells the word “CAR”, because our wives won’t forget, but we might.

The fist word is the word “Confess”. Do you know how you start the box talk conversation? You don’t start it this way. Big I says, “I want to share with you some of the expectations that you’ve had of me. NO, No, no. Little I starts by saying, I want to begin by placing myself under you – my deal under your deal and so I want to confess.

Here are some areas that I’ve realized that I’ve loaded you up with expectations and I’m sorry. And I can’t necessarily say that I won’t ever do that again, because I’m new at this. But I realize that I’ve so filled up this box that no wonder you’ve responded in the way that you have. You begin by simple confessing to your spouse where you’ve allowed desires to transition into expectations.

The second word is the word “Ask”. There are two questions under this word. The first one is:

1. Ask your spouse this question: “Where do you feel pressure to live up to my expectations?” Because maybe I’ve missed some. I want to confess those that I’m aware of, but you may be living under a burden that I’m not even aware of, and you keep a happy smiley face on because you’ve learned to deal with this burden, but I want to know. Where have I piled you up with expectations
2. The second question is, “What can I do to make our marriage richer?” This is a very important question, because this is a secret way of asking “What’s in your box that you want to tell me about?

Now, this is very important. Do not ask your spouse, “Tell me everything that’s in your box”. Because there may be things in your spouse’s wish, dream, and desire box that cannot become a reality no matter what. And to bring those out is not helpful, because you will never be able to meet that wish, dream, or desire and then you will always feel like a failure or inadequate in some sense, because that dream can’t ever come true.

That’s a dream that you constantly, for the rest of your life, you need to cast that anxiety on the shoulders of your heavenly Father, but don’t you ever bring that out and show that to your husband or to your wife.

For example, if I asked my wife, “Shannon I want to know everything in your wish, dream and desire box, because I want to be this little teenie, itsey, bitsey I, so lay ‘em on me baby.”And she said to me, “Well, ever since I was a little girl I wanted to marry a pro football player . . . Well, that’s helpful! !!??? What else do you have in there? You see, if that’s her wish and dream, then I would never be able, no matter how hard I tried, to be able to give her that’s her little girl wish an d dream, the she just needs to share that with her mom. Don’t tell me that, because the rest of my life I’m going to feel like I let her down. I can’t  carry that!

So you ask the question, “What can I do to make our marriage richer?” I’m going to let you chose what you’re going to bring out of here. We live in an imperfect world and how unfair would it be to load your spouse up with those desires. In fact some of the words that you might regret the most were said in the heat of an argument, and you thought you were losing the argument and you reached down into here (Expectation box) and you brought it out and you shook it in their face and you said, “It never has happened and it never will” and Ohhhh you wish you could take that back, because they will always feel that pressure to satisfy a desire that they cannot ever satisfy.

1. Then the last word is the word, “Reward”. You got to learn to reward like you did when you were dating, because what’s rewarded is repeated. Because some times we accidentally do things that dip into this box (desires box) for our spouse and we don’t even know that we’ve done it. And if they don’t reward us, then we’ll never do it again, because we didn’t’ know that we were giving them something really good.

An illustration – you’re up in the morning and you’re doing the whole kid thing and ladies, maybe you’re a stay at home mom and your husband, instead of rushing out the door, gets the kids off to the bus, and sits down and talks to you for 10 minutes. And you’re thinking you’ve died and gone to heaven, thinking OHHHHHH, an adult conversation, Ohhhhhhh, don’t mess this up.

What’s he doing? He’s thinking to himself, “We’ll I’ve learned that if I get into this traffric bubble at 7:40 instead of 7:30, then there’s less cars on the road and I get there at the same time with less headache. For him it’s a traffic deal.

In your mind you’re thinking, “I long for this. I crave this. Awwwwwh, this is awesome.” So you get 10 minutes of great conversation and he gets into the car and says, “I gotta go, see you honey.” And you stand there going, “Thank you Jesus”. And he’s going, “What??? I’m just trying to get in the bubble.” This had nothing to do with my marriage. In fact it really was all about “I”, but he didn’t know, ok?

So here’s the deal. You’ve gotta figure out how to reward that. This is huge. When you think your husband or wife accidentally or intentionally made an attempt at getting in your box and trying to lift one of those wishes, dreams or desires up, you got to reward that to show them how important that is to you, because none of us are that smart. We don’t read minds. Man you’ve never been a woman and women you’ve never been a man, so we’re guessing at a lot of this.

So one  of the best things that you can do when something like that happens is to write a note. I know this is sappy and silly, but it works.

 Dear Honey, this morning you stayed at home an extra 10 minutes and I know that for you it was because of the traffic bubble, but for me, I loved talking to you one on one, and it may never happen again, and I know that you weren’t even thinking about it – because you know, he’s busy and he’s gotta get to work – you’re not going to say, “And from now on, I’m thinking we’ve got 10 minutes ,so sit down. It happens so easy. It moves very quickly into an expectation. I noticed yesterday you weren’t rushing. Why are you rushing today? Why can’t we . . . It’s gone, right. Two big I’s

But here’s what the note said, “That was huge to me!” We’ve got to learn to reinforce behavior that blesses us, because that’s what communicates and that’s what allows us to learn and discover what’s here (wishes, dreams and desires box).

The Bible says that in the very beginning when God put the first man and the first woman together and he said, “I’m going to take the one and put it together with another one and the two will become one flesh.” And do you know what that really was? That was the first us.  The very first “Us” was Adam and Eve. God said I’m going to take two big I’s and I’m going to give them such a unique relationship and they’re going to become an US.

And you have to know that is God’s desire for you and for me in marriage. Not two big “I’s” but an US, and that doesn’t happen until we learn how to transition from here (Expectations) back to here (Wishes, dreams and desires), which means that we love each other unconditionally the way that God loves us, without any expectations because as soon as you add in expectations, it kills unconditional love, but as soon as you move back toward a no expectation kind of marriage and begin to give and receive unconditional love, it creates a wonderful US and with that US it creates wonderful romance and intimacy that every great marriage ought to have.

That happens only as we seek to put God first in our marriage and as we humble ourselves before him and as we humble ourselves before each other, and when we do that, God enters into our relationship and fuels our relationship with gratitude and service and love towards one another.

So this is the third message in a four part series on marriage, not just everything there is to talk about marriage, because we’ve taken a very thin slice, a simple dynamic in marriage, and have asked a question that maybe you’ve never been asked and hopefully have been getting some answers that have been practical and helpful.

So let’s review for a second, so that we all get started on the same page. We said that we all get married with a box load of wishes, dreams, and desires. Like, I hope that one day we’ll be able to live in a certain kind of house. I hope that we’ll schedule our marriage in such a way that he’ll come home and she’ll come home at a certain time and eat together at a certain time and I hope me husband doesn’t do these things like my dad because they really irritate me, but I hope that she does these things like my mom because those are really great for me, and I hope she never wears anything like that to bed, and we’ll raise our kids like this and not like that. I mean we all have these wishes dreams and desires when we go down the aisle. It’s natural. It’s normal.

But when both man and women walk down the aisle together, they each have a box full of wishes, dreams, and desires and those wishes dreams and desires all revolve around “I”. And what we said is that sometimes we walk into the church and up to the alter with a box full of wishes, dreams, and desires and we walk out with a box of expectations.

There’s a difference between desires and expectations and we don’t know how this happens, but things that are fun to talk about – you know, “One day” or “Some day” move from becoming desires to becoming expectations. And as things move out of the dreams, wishes and desires box to the expectations box the whole dynamic of the relationship changes, because what was fun over here, now seems to be really heavy and no fun over here.

We said that if this has happened to you then your relationship is characterized as a debt debtor relationship. You owe me because, after all, you’re the wife and that’s what wives are supposed to do. And you owe because you, after all, you’re my husband and that’s what husbands are supposed to do. And you promised and I thought and you should, and why don’t you and your relationship devolves from this fun, joyous, romantic marriage into one that is just drudgery where all the fun and all the romance has been sucked out of it.

What happens when we move toward marriage filled with expectations instead of a marriage filled with wishes, dreams and desires is that we move away from a covenant marriage into a contract marriage. A contract marriage is one that says, you owe me and I owe you, and this dynamic destroys the sense of community and intimacy and trust in a marriage. It destroys the fun, the joy, and the romance of your marriage and it becomes shear drudgery to even to be married.

 Sometimes you really know something is wrong because there’s conflict between the two of you, but you can’t really put a finger on what’s wrong – how things got here? Sometimes you agree on a compromise, we talked about that in the first week and that can work a long time, but ultimately that kind of relationship erodes the joy, the fun, and the romance in a marriage as well.

What’s crazy is, this movement away from wishes, dreams and desires toward expectations is the normal progression of marriages in our world and we don’t know why. It just “is” unless you keep your eyes focused on Christ, because Christ has a better way. We said the answer is simple but it’s not easy. Somehow we have to take all of our expectations – everything that we’ve dumped into this box and put it back into the dreams, wishes and desires box. The key and the goal is to empty this (expectation box).

At the end of the first week I sent you home with this question, “what does your spouse owe you?” Because you see, when we move from desires to expectations, there’s a debt debtor relationship, so we asked the question, “What does your spouse owe you?”

So we spent some time in the scriptures last week and we found that in order to move away from a big capital I marriage, you’ve got to come to a place where you determine that your spouse doesn’t owe you anything. Yeah they promised you some things but they don’t owe you anything. You talked about some dreams, wishes and desires, but they don’t owe you anything.

We said that if you can take all of your dreams, wishes, and desires and put them back in this box the dynamic in your marriage changes. You have two small I’s and it puts all the romance, fun, and intimacy back into your marriage.

We said the reason this works is because in the Christian marriage it’s not just you and your spouse and your two small I’s, because in a Christian marriage there’s a third party. In a Christian marriage I learn to love my wife in a way that reflects God’s love for me. Remember that? And she learns to love me, not as a reflection of my love for her, but as a reflection of God’s love for her. And this completely changes the dynamic.

We came to this conclusion. Just as I am in a debt free relationship with my Heavenly Father. He’s told me, Adam, you don’t owe me anything. I’ve forgiven all your sins. I’ve cancelled all your debt, now I want you to do that same thing with your spouse. I want you to live in such a way that there is no debt between you. No debt, no obligation, no expectations, only love.

And when two people get a hold of this principle, the dynamic in their relationship changes dramatically!

Now, I want to touch on one idea today that really  has two parts. The first part we’ll talk about today and the second part we’ll talk about next week. The question that I want to answer this morning is, “What do we do with all this stuff over here in the box?” We need to talk about that. And then number two. How do you talk about this in a marriage? Because the answer isn’t to say “I don’t have any expectations. I’m just going to let you do whatever you want to do and I’ll be over here hoping some day that you’ll come back over here and get interested in my box. It’s not quite that simple. You have to talk about these things.

I’d like you to open you Bible if you  have one to 1 Peter and I want to answer the question “What do you do with the stuff in the box?”

This is so powerful and it’s amazing at how practical the Bible is. The Bible is not irrelevant literature. It’s truth to live our lives by. Now if you haven’t bought into this personal relationship with Christ, thing then this is going to sound really strange to you, but that’s ok. The Bible answers the question, “As a married person, what am I supposed to do with all the anxiety I experience, because I have wishes, dreams, and desires and they aren’t coming true. I have a vision and a dream of what my marriage should look like and it’s not coming true.

I’ve decided that my spouse doesn’t owe me anything and I’m going to focus on loving them, but they’re not tuned into my wish and desire box and I’ve got some anxiety with that, what do I do with it? The Bible answers that question in a compelling way and I have seen men and women apply this principle, sometimes over the course of years in a marriage, and they have seen God do some amazing, amazing things because of this principle.

Here’s what you shouldn’t do with the anxiety that you get from taking all your hopes dreams and desires out of this box and putting it into this box. What you shouldn’t do is just ignore your hopes, dreams, and desires. That’s not healthy. The other thing that’s not healthy is if you just stay busy trying to forget that you have wishes, hopes, and desires. That’s not healthy either. Just play more golf or work  more, or going out getting tanked because you’re drinking to forget what you don’t want to forget. Those aren’t healthy ways to deal with your unmet hopes, dreams, and desires.

So let’s turn to what God has to say. We’re going to read three verses and the first two build to the point in the last verse so hang with me as we work through these verses. We’ll talk about what you do with what’s in this box (desire) once you’ve decided that your spouse doesn’t owe you anything.

1 Peter 5.  Peter, in this group of verses is talking about relationships and we’re starting really, mid sentence in this conversation about relationships. He says:

Young men, he’s going to work his way to us in just a minute, in the same way, again we’re catching this mid-sentence. Young men in the same way be submissive to those who are older. Ok, gottcha. Remember last week, we were told by Paul that we all ought to submit one to another – that wives ought to submit to their husbands, but that husbands ought to also sumitt to their wives out of reverence for Christ.

All of you, so he’s working his way to the rest of us,  All of you, this is powerful, All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another.

Now, let me tell you about Biblical humility because this is very important. Biblical humility is not, since you’re my boss, I must therefore be humble, since you’re the rich guy and I’m not the rich guy, so therefore I must be humble. Biblical humility is not about responding to someone because of their rank, or their wealth, or their position.

Biblical humility is a decision that I’m going to choose, not because of who you are and who I’m not, but rather, biblical humility is a decision that I make to put your deal ahead of my deal. It’s about putting your interests ahead of my interests. I have a box load of desires and you have a box load of desires and I’m going to put your box full of desires ahead of mine.

Biblical humility is a decision that if there is a conflict between what you want and what I want, then I’m going to put what you want ahead of what I want.  Peter says look, when we’re around other people we need to clothe ourselves with humility, we need to cover ourselves with humility, there needs to be a blanket policy when it comes to Christians and humility and we need to completely cover or clothe ourselves with humility.

All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another and then, this is amazing, because, here’s the answer, because God opposes or resists the proud.

Because if I say, when you’re deal conflicts with my deal, it’s all about me. And God says, ok there Mr Big I, you’re on your own. Because anybody who decides to put themselves first at the expense of another person, God according to Peter says, “Have a nice day, do the best you can, but you’re on your own. God opposes or works against the proud.

God works against the capital I marriage. He says, “If that’s what you want, go ahead, but you have to know that I’m working against that kind of marriage, because I didn’t make you for that. I made your for something better.

Listen to what he says next. God opposes the proud, and here’s the most incredible promise and good news, but  he gives grace to the humble.

Now, let me tell you what grace is in this context. Grace is not a Beanny Baby named Grace. And this isn’t grace in the sense of salvation grace. This is a different kind of grace. This is so powerful. Grace in this context means that God gives you the power to help you do what you need to do for the moment. God gives the Holy Spirit, his power to do what we need to do in order to love each other like he calls us to love.

When you place your wishes, dreams, and desires under your spouse’s wishes, dreams, and desires, you put yourself in the stream of God’s divine power, and he enables or provides the strength for you to live in this sacrificial way.

God says, “When you choose to put your spouse’s deal ahead of your deal, I’m going to get involved in helping you make that work. My grace, my provision, my help is going to be there in order for you to love unconditionally, because that’s how I created you to live.

Think of grace being like a river. When you decide to put your husband or your wife’s wishes, dreams, and desires ahead of your wishes, dreams, and desires, it’s as though you just walked into the middle of God’s supernatural river and you’re being flooded with God’s grace, mercy and power, and he’s going to provide for you all the help that you’ll need in order to love unconditionally. Will it be easy? No, but it’ll be good.

When you chose to put your hopes, dreams and desires ahead of your spouses, it’s like you’ve waded completely out of the steam of God’s grace, mercy and power and rather than the sun that just beats on you and dries out whatever goodness you had going once upon a time, and your marriage begins to wither and die.

God says, when you decide to put your husband or your wife’s wishes, dreams, and desires ahead of my own, God comes right alongside you to enable you to do what you need to do when you need to do it.

Now, I have to caution you. This doesn’t work unless you truly love God and are thankful to God in Big ways and want to truly follow his will for your life. This will not work if you’re just trying to use one of God’s principles apart from God. God is not a cosmic vending machine. Our relationship with him must be built upon unconditional love – that means that we love him apart from conditions or expectations. That’s not how God works!

Second, this will not work unless you truly love your husband or truly love your wife to the point where you will do anything to make it work. This is an all or nothing deal. Jesus said, in order to be worthy of me, you have to be willing to lay down your life for me.

And here’s the crazy part about God. As soon as you say, “God I love you and I am so grateful to you for loving and for paying the penalty of my sins and the way you’ve been working in my life, I will follow you anywhere even to the point of laying down my life for you. God says, “Great, here’s what I want you to do. I want you to go and serve your husband or serve your wife in the same way that I have served you. I want you to love them in the same way that I have loved you. I want you to sacrifice your life for those around you in such a way that it reflects my sacrifice for the whole world.

Friends, here is the crazy part of what I’ve been teaching for the past three weeks. You all thought that I have been teaching on marriage and in a very focused way I have, but here’s the deal. The reason that I and the Bible uses marriage to teach these principles is because it is the closest relationship that you will ever have. You hopefully spend more time and more energy in a relationship with your spouse than any other relationship, and therefore there’s not a better place to practice this idea that Jesus calls us to then in the marriage.

But here’s the deal. The dynamic is the same in every single relationship that we have. God opposes every other kind of relationship. God works against every other kind of relationship except for sacrificial relationships where we are willing to put other people’s deal ahead of our deal. Where we are willing to put other people’s wishes, dreams, and desires ahead of our hopes wishes and desires, God shows up and empowers us to do so.

God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. This is true in marriage, but it is also true in every other relationship that we have. When you and I are willing to put other people first, that’s humility, their deal before my deal, I want to look out for you before I look out for me, in whatever relationship I’m in. Works in marriage, but it also works in every other relationship.

God gives grace to the humble. That’s why in a Big I marriage a person wears themselves out saying, “I have done everything I can do to fix this marriage.” And God says, “And it’s not enough is it? You see, you’re trying to do it on your own with your own principles and I can’t get involved in that because then I would be enabling you to live in a way that will never bless you or your spouse. But I’ll tell you what, I can give you the ability to do what you need to do in your marriage, but I can’t give it to you as long as you’re a big ole capital I. But if you humble yourself, I’ll role up my sleeves and get to work, because I love to give grace to the humble.

Here’s what Peter says next, Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand. Here it goes again. Here’s another big promise. What this means is that I want you to do what I’m telling you to do. I want you to humble yourselves before the people that you’re around, because when you place yourselves under them, then you are placing yourself under God mighty hand. By obeying God, you’re placing yourself under his authority.

This phrase, “Humble yourselves” has huge implications because of the Old Testament. In the Old Testament when God told the people of Israel to humble themselves, what he always meant was for those people to declare their dependence on him. And what that means is that if the wishes dreams, and desires of those people conflicted with God’s, then they were called by God to humble themselves and to say, if there’s a conflict between your ways, God, and our ways, we want to put your wishes, dreams, and desires a head of ours.

It would be like me saying, “Ok, God, I finally get it. You’re God and I’m not. So when it comes to a place where my deal and your deal conflict, I want to put your deal first.” That’s what worship is! Every week we come in here and seek to say to God in a whole bunch of different ways, “God, today I am once again acknowledging that I want to put your deal ahead of my deal.” Jesus taught us to pray in the Lord’s prayer, “Your kingdom come and your will be done” not mine.

This is what God is saying for us to do for one another. That’s what it means for us to humble ourselves before God’s mighty hand. It means that whatever you say, I’m going to say yes, because I’m not God, I’m not the Big I anymore. I’m living my married life in the shadow of a cross and I’m not big I anymore; I’m not playing the role of god anymore, because that didn’t work out very well. I want God to play God and I’ll humble myself before him.

Big I says, I’m god and I’m going to oppose God and his plan and God says, “Go right ahead, but you’re going to have to do that on your own, because I oppose the proud. But little I says, God I don’t want to play God anymore. I want you to be God and I’m very happy to serve you, because you created marriage and you know exactly how it should work.

I’m declaring today, I need you. I can’t fix my marriage and I can’t make my marriage work. I can’t make my wife or my husband want to get involved in wanting to meet my wishes, dreams, and desires. I can’t, I can’t I can’t. God if you don’t show up my marriage . . . (head shaking negatively), there just is no other way. Teach us how to live in your grace and to humble ourselves in a way that lifts up our spouse and most importantly, in a way that lift you up Lord.