["Pomp and Circumstance"]
We'll go over you to the band, that's song number two.
Song number two this evening.
["Pomp and Circumstance"]
conference that he's preaching to you this morning and tonight and then he'll finish up on wednesday as
well so if anyone wants to go up this wednesday it's your last chance go ahead and sign up and
we'll get you up there got new york just to speak to me the only other thing i would mention briefly
is the fact that i would be out of town the peronto marathon and we're going to have so
let's get back to the show here that thursday so a week from this thursday and then a week from
this sunday will be brother jake's work i think i got my day's work in any case let's go ahead
and sign up solely real quick we'll go back to friday and we have some things to be driving
anything from saturday and anything from today
all right keep up the great work slowly everybody go ahead and sing one more song
before we get into the evening tonight we're going to song 323 war about jesus
song 323
is
and he will be none otherwise minded,
for he that suffocates me shall bear the judgment
which he shall ever be.
Night, brethren, if I yet must preach a circumcision,
why do I get the suffocates of peace,
then it's a fence of a cross seat.
I would, they would even cut off which troubles,
for brethren, we have been caused into liberty.
Only use not liberty for occasion and to the flesh,
but by love to serve one another.
For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even if it is.
Y'all shall love thy neighbor as thyself.
But if ye abide from God one another,
take heed that ye do not pursue one of another.
This I say then, walk in the spirit,
and ye shall not fulfill the love of the flesh.
For the flesh lusts against the spirit,
and the spirit against the flesh.
And these are contrary to one to the other,
so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
For if ye be led of the spirit, ye are not under law.
Now the works of the flesh are manifest,
which are these, adultery, flotation, and cleanness,
mischievousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred,
variance, humiliation, wrath, strife, traditions,
heresy, envy, murder, drunkenness, development,
and such like that, of a witch I've taught you before,
as I have also told you in time past
that they which do such things
shall not prepare for the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace,
longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance, and in such there is no law.
And they that are Christ are crucified with pleasure,
with affection for lust.
If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in spirit.
Let us not be desirous of vain glory,
provoking one another, and bring one another
for that and to drink with it.
My position is to say, Lord God,
I thank you for your total faith today.
I thank you for your blessing, Lord God,
for giving with and for giving with a certain reason
and that's your blessing, Lord.
Thank you, Lord, for us, and for the best of service.
Give them all a heart of understanding
and give you peace of spirit.
Lord, do these things pray in the name of the Lord.
Amen.
So in Galatians chapter five, of course,
you have this really strong warning here in the beginning
where Paul's telling them that circumcision
isn't gonna profit anything,
so he's warning about these Judaizers,
and he gives several other kind of warnings
throughout this passage,
and he's got that one there about the circumcision
and saying that we're not gonna debtor to the law anymore,
that Christ has become no effect,
and he warns also in verse nine
that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.
So there's so many great warnings,
so many things we could preach about in this chapter,
warning about not letting the little bit of leaven
to creep in, how it can affect everybody,
and he goes on and says there in verse 15,
but if you bite and devour one another,
take heed that you be not consumed one of another.
Of course, that's all tied in with verse 16, right?
And verse 16 is a very famous verse.
It's also a very important verse,
and it teaches a very important concept,
a very important aspect of the Christian life,
and that's being filled with the Spirit, okay?
We need to learn to be filled with the Spirit,
to walk in the Spirit, right?
That's what he says in verse 16.
And this I say then, walk in the Spirit,
and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
You know, we are always gonna have this battle
between the old man and the new man.
We're always gonna have this battle
between the flesh and between the Spirit.
We need to learn to walk in the Spirit,
and it's tied in there with verse 15.
You know, if we are not walking in the Spirit,
if we walk in the flesh, you know,
that's when we'll have a tendency
to bite and devour one another,
and if we do that, then we need to take heed
that we be not consumed, right?
You can imagine if people just start chewing
and biting, you know, eventually everything's
just gonna be gone, right?
When you sit down at that meal,
you start to bite and devour the meal,
eventually the plate's empty, right?
So you can see again how important it is
to walk in the Spirit, not only just to not fulfill
the lust of the flesh, but also so that we don't end up
consuming one another.
And of course, he has a very, you know,
great, very famous passage rather down here at the end
in verses 22 and 23, that the fruit of the Spirit
is love, joy, peace, longsuffering,
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance,
against such there is no law.
And obviously, you know, that's a great privilege
that we have to be filled with the Spirit
as a privilege that we have as Christians.
That's not something you wanna take for granted
in the Christian life, and obviously,
it benefits us immensely, right?
It gives us love, joy, peace, longsuffering.
You know, these are things that we all want for our lives.
At least we ought to.
You know, we should want to be more loving people.
Of course, we want joy.
You know, we should want joy.
We wanna have peace, we wanna be longsuffering,
we wanna be patient with people.
Gentleness, goodness, faith, you know,
these are all great attributes that we should endeavor
to have in our lives.
Meekness, verse 23, temperance.
And against such there is no law, right?
So again, these are all great things that we wanna have,
but notice that these are things that are fruit,
that is called the fruit of the Spirit.
And it's not part and parcel, it's the whole thing.
It's the whole enchilada, right?
You don't get to pick and choose on this, right?
If you're gonna have any of this,
you're gonna have all of it,
because it's all what?
The fruit of the Spirit.
You know, these are things that the Spirit
bears fruit in our lives.
As we walk in the Spirit,
as we are filled with the Spirit,
the Spirit brings these things into our lives.
These aren't things that we just drum up.
We don't just go to, you know, some spiritual shelf
and say, today I'm gonna be more loving,
today I'm gonna be more longsuffering,
today I'm gonna work on gentleness and goodness and faith.
Obviously, those are things we can focus on
personally in our lives,
but if we want to endeavor to achieve these things,
it has to come of the Spirit, okay?
We have to never forget that we are
endeavoring to live a spiritual life.
We as Christians, those of us that have been born again,
purchased with the blood of Christ,
we are here to live a spiritual life,
to walk in the Spirit.
That should be our goal.
And if we aren't conscious of this,
if this isn't something that we endeavor to do in our lives,
if we don't seek the Spirit,
seek to be filled with the Spirit,
seek to not grieve the Spirit,
we're not gonna bear these fruits in our lives.
They just won't be there.
And Christians can live their whole life
and not know these fruits.
They can go their whole life not walking the Spirit,
quenching the Spirit, in fact, you know what?
And that's why they have no love.
That's why they have no joy.
That's why they have no peace.
They have no longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meek temperance, none of that.
It's all absent from their life.
Because you can't just have one or the other.
You can't just have a little bit of this
and a little bit of that and nothing else.
You either have these things or you don't.
Because again, look at verse 22.
It's the fruit singular of the Spirit.
The Spirit bears all of this in our life.
This is how important it is, walking in the Spirit.
The Spirit is gonna help us.
If we have this, if we have the love, the joy,
the peace, and the longsuffering, the gentleness,
the good, the faith, the meekness, and the temperance,
if we have all these things that are gonna make us
longsuffering and loving people,
then we're gonna be a lot less prone to do what?
Bite and devour one another.
And we're not gonna be consumed, okay?
When people stop walking in the Spirit,
when people start to walk in the flesh,
all kinds of problems arise.
They lose the fruit, that's just the beginning, right?
Other things move in, other things come in
and start to fill that void that are not good.
That's where you have a lot of bitterness,
you have a, I mean, isn't that kinda how he ends there?
Or begins, rather, where he says in verse 19,
the works of the flesh are manifest and are these?
Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations,
wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envies, murders,
drunkenness, revelings, and the such like.
You have the fruit of the Spirit
and then you also have the works of the flesh.
So when we stop, when we decide that it's not important
just to walk in the Spirit, when we kinda just say,
yeah, one of these days I'll get around to it or whatever,
if we don't endeavor to do this,
it's not just that we're gonna be absent
of the fruit of the Spirit in our lives,
it's that the works of the flesh are gonna take over.
If we are not consciously mortifying the flesh,
if we're not doing what Paul said,
Paul said, I die daily, didn't he?
He said, mortify your members which are on the earth.
If we don't do that, if we don't do that every single day,
if we're not getting up and determining
to walk in the Spirit and to crucify the old man,
again, it's not just that we're gonna be missing out
on all the love, the joy, the peace,
the long-suffering, et cetera,
it's that the works of the flesh
are actually gonna be moving in
and we're gonna find ourselves doing things
that we ought not be doing.
So you can see again how important
having the fruit of the Spirit is.
There's a reason why this passage is so famous.
If you would go over to Ephesians chapter number one,
Ephesians chapter number one.
Ephesians chapter number one,
we get to Ephesians, bookmark Ephesians,
we're gonna come back at the very end, okay?
Ephesians chapter number one.
I wanna preach a sermon entitled,
Be Filled with the Spirit.
Be filled with the Spirit.
That's a command in Galatians.
We'll look at it towards the end.
But that's something we have to endeavor to do in our lives.
And again, it's a great privilege that we have.
So many times you hear sermons and preaching
about being filled with Spirit
and courage to be filled with Spirit
and we can just kind of feel like,
oh, it's just something we have to do
out of a sense of duty.
And obviously it is.
Obviously there is that aspect.
We should be doing things out of a sense of duty.
But let's not forget the privilege that we have
to be filled with the Spirit.
What a great privilege it is to have God's Holy Spirit
indwelling us, filling us, guiding us, leading us,
and giving us this fruit in our lives.
And that fruit that we looked at in Galatians chapter five,
that's all something that really is within, isn't it?
That's something, these are attributes
that come from within.
And then they go out into the world.
They emanate into other people's lives.
And the same thing, when we don't have it,
our spirit, or a lack of the Holy Spirit I should say,
the works of the flesh will move in
and you know what they'll do?
They'll emanate into other people's lives.
They'll affect those around us.
Whether we like it or not,
we have an effect on the people that are close to us.
The people that are in our immediate sphere of influence,
they are going to be affected by us
every single time we come into contact with them.
So we should endeavor to take advantage
of this great privilege, to be filled with the spirit.
Yes, it's a duty.
Yes, it's something we're commanded to do.
But who doesn't want these things?
You know, the world is looking for peace today.
And they're looking for it in all these different places.
They're looking for it in the bottle.
They're looking for it in drugs.
They're looking for it in possessions.
They're looking for contentment and satisfaction
in all these places, and they're not getting it.
They might have some temporary fix.
They might have some temporary gratification.
They might find some little bit of peace
in the works of the flesh.
But you know what?
It's not gonna last.
It always leaves them wanting more.
When you have the fruit of the spirit,
when you're walking with the Lord,
you're filled with the spirit,
you know what, you have contentment.
You have peace.
You don't feel like you need to go out
and get involved in the sins of this world.
You don't feel like you have to go out
and try to find something else to fill that void.
Go out and get involved in the works of the flesh.
Look at Ephesians chapter one, verse 13.
It says, in whom ye also trusted
after that ye heard the word of truth,
the gospel of your salvation,
in whom also after that ye believed
you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.
So obviously, the sealing of that Holy Spirit
is something that we receive at salvation.
That's a permanent thing.
Once you're sealed, you're done.
You don't ever have to be sealed again.
You're sealed until the day of your redemption.
Verse 14, which is the earnest of our inheritance.
You know, the sealing of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit,
is our earnest of our inheritance.
And earnest, anyone who's bought a house
knows what an earnest payment is, right?
Earnest meaning serious or grave, right?
That's what it means to be earnest.
You know, when we put down earnest money on a home,
you know, where we're gonna purchase a home,
what we're saying to the seller is,
here's, you know, a thousand dollars
or whatever it is these days,
and say, I'm serious about buying this house.
I'm not just gonna, you know, go look at it
and hem and haw and then maybe, you know,
just go around and kick tires, as they say,
and then just move on.
You know, when you put money down,
you're saying, hey, I'm serious, I'm earnest, right?
Look, the sealing of the Spirit that we have in God
is telling us that God is serious about our salvation.
That it's done, it's final.
The purchase has been made.
We have an earnest on our inheritance.
There's the down payment that's already been paid.
We are going to go to heaven no matter what.
Praise God.
But you know, there's, and it gets even,
you say, that's too good to be true.
But wait, it gets better, right?
Not only do you have the earnest of the Spirit,
you can live the rest of your life on this earth
filled with the Spirit, because there is a difference.
There's a difference being sealed with the Spirit
and having the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
You know, you already have one, right?
Isn't that what it says there?
After you trusted, when you heard the word of truth,
the gospel of your salvation,
and also after that you believed ye were sealed.
You know, once you believed, bam, you were sealed.
That's it.
But that does not automatically mean
you're gonna begin to walk in the Spirit.
That does not automatically mean
you're gonna enjoy the benefits
of the fruit of the Spirit in your life.
That's something you have to endeavor for.
You have to want to be filled with the Spirit.
And I'm just trying to encourage us tonight,
again, to be reminded of what a privilege it is
to be filled with the Spirit.
It's a great privilege.
Obviously it's a great privilege to be sealed.
But you know, let's also not forget the privilege
of being filled with the Spirit.
Go to John chapter number seven, John chapter number seven.
You know, some people might hear preaching like this
and think, well, that's a nice idea.
But you know, even Christians sometimes can doubt
whether they can be filled with the Spirit.
They can say, oh, you know, who am I?
You know, I'm just a layman in the church.
You know, I'm really not that important of a person
or something like that.
People can start to downplay, you know,
the importance that they have.
People can start to doubt whether or not
these promises are for them.
Look, the filling of the Holy Spirit is our privilege.
But you know what, the filling of the Holy Spirit
is also a promise to us.
It's a privilege and it's a promise that you have
in the Word of God.
God doesn't tell us to be filled with the Spirit
and then hold back and say, well, you know, maybe.
Maybe I'll let you do it.
Obviously, you know, we have to endeavor to do that.
The sealing is permanent.
The sealing isn't anything we have to work for.
The filling we do.
But you know what, if we endeavor,
if we do walk in the Spirit,
you will be filled with the Spirit.
Guaranteed.
If we don't grieve the Spirit,
if we don't quench the Spirit,
and we walk and keep His commandments and we pray,
and if we, you know, how much more shall our Father
give His Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?
If you go in prayer and ask God for the Holy Spirit
and start to clean up your life,
God will give it to you.
It's a promise.
It's not just a privilege.
It's a promise in the Word of God.
Look at John chapter seven, verse 37.
In the last day, that great day of the feast,
Jesus stood and cried saying,
and He's crying this out, right?
If any man thirsts, let him come unto me and drink.
He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said,
out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
But this he spake of the Spirit,
which they that believe on him should receive.
For the Holy Ghost was not yet given
because that Jesus was not yet glorified.
You know, Christ hadn't ascended into heaven
and sent the Comforter after Him.
Go to John chapter 14.
But isn't that still a promise?
He said, hey, if you come to me,
there's gonna be a river of living water
springing forth out of your belly.
And He was speaking of the Holy Ghost.
That's what Jesus promised.
I believe what Jesus said.
I believe the promise of God,
that if we believe, we will have that,
that He will give us this Holy Spirit
and it will be like a river flowing out of us.
And it will emanate and it will affect others in our lives.
You know, we can be a refreshment to those around us
rather than a drag, rather than, you know,
quenching other people or bringing other people down,
biting and devouring one another.
You know, if we're filled with the Holy Spirit,
you know, that water's gonna emanate from us,
people are gonna get saved, people are gonna be edified,
and God is going to bless.
But we have to make sure that we are obeying the command
to be filled with the Spirit.
It's a privilege, it's a great promise.
We have that promise in 1 John, I'll read to you.
The anointing which you have received of Him
abideth in you, that anointing,
that sealing of the Spirit, it abides in us.
It's always going to be there
until the day of our redemption.
And you need not that any man teach you,
but as that same anointing teacheth you of all things
and is truth and is no lie, even as it hath taught you,
so ye shall abide in Him.
You know, one of the great privileges
that we have of the Holy Spirit
is that God will teach us through the Holy Spirit.
You know, it's been said,
and I'll reiterate this once more,
is that there's nothing you can't learn on your own
by reading the Word of God in prayer and with the Holy Spirit
you can understand all these things.
That's what He said.
You need not that any man teach you,
but, He goes on and says,
the same anointing teacheth you all things
and is truth and is no lie.
You know, the preaching obviously
helps accelerate that learning.
But that's a great promise out of the Word of God.
If we want to avail ourselves of that promise,
if we want to actually study and read
and know the Word of God, God will teach us.
God will help us to behold wondrous things out of His law.
Christian life is an exciting life, folks.
You're literally experiencing the supernatural
when you're living the Christian life.
And people get all excited about that in the world, right?
All the paranormal activities and things like that.
People want to look into that stuff.
People love all these mystical, supernatural things.
It's like, hey, I'm living it, man.
I'm living a supernatural life.
When I'm walking in the Spirit and I'm reading God's Word,
and just like the song says,
Spirit of God might teach or be,
when God is teaching me and showing me things
out of His Word, when I'm hearing His voice on every line,
I'm living a spiritual life, I'm living a supernatural life.
That's a promise that we have in the Word of God, for us.
Look at John chapter 14, verse 15.
If you love me, keep my commandments.
And I will pray the Father,
and He shall give you another comforter,
that He may abide with you forever,
even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive
because it seeth them not.
What a great privilege we have.
What a great promise from the Word of God
that we have something that the world can't have
unless they get saved, unless they want to get sealed,
unless they want to start to walk in the Spirit.
But you know what?
The world doesn't have it.
They can't receive it because they don't believe,
neither know Him, but ye know,
for He dwelleth with you and shall be in you.
Verse 26, jump down.
Let the comforter, which is the Holy Ghost,
whom the Father will send in my name,
He shall teach you all things
and bring all things to your remembrance
whatsoever I have said unto you.
And we have this promise from Jesus.
We have this promise in the Word of God
that we can have the fullness of the Holy Spirit
teaching us, guiding us, filling us,
and causing us to have this great fruit in our lives.
It's a great promise.
And not only is it a great privilege and a great promise,
you know, the Holy Spirit gives us power.
I want to look at a few Old Testament examples.
If you would go to Judges chapter 14,
Judges chapter 14.
You know, we have the privilege in the New Testament
of having the comforter.
You know, the Holy Spirit had not yet been given,
meaning even up to that point.
The filling of the Holy Spirit was something
that was temporary in the Old Testament.
You and I could walk in that every single day.
They did not have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit
back then, the Holy Spirit would just come upon them
at certain times.
That's what would take place in the Old Testament.
We'll look at a few examples.
But today, in the New Testament,
after the ascension and glorification of Christ,
you and I have that great privilege, that great promise
that the power of the Holy Spirit is something
that won't just come upon us,
but it's actually something that you and I can walk in
and know every single day
and have the Spirit of God teaching us.
There's that great story there in Judges chapter 14.
Look at verse five, of course, this is the story of Samson.
It says, then went Samson down and his father
and his mother to Timnath,
and he came to the vineyards of Timnath,
and behold, a young lion roared against him.
And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him,
and he rent him as he would have rent a kid.
You know, and I always wonder, I always picture that
like he's grabbing it in the jaws
and just like splitting its head.
Too much?
Like a kid, like, I mean, did he tear limbs off of it?
He's renting a lion, right, a young lion.
It's amazing.
This is the Spirit of the Lord, and you know, it's like,
this isn't just, you know, some night-night story for kids.
This happened.
And he had nothing in his hand.
It was all God, it was all the Spirit of God,
it was all the power of God.
Look, the promise is there, the privilege is there,
the power of the Holy Spirit is there for us.
It's available if we want it.
You say, well, I don't need to tear a lion.
Hey, the Bible says, you know, our adversary, the devil,
walketh about as a roaring lion,
seeking whom he may devour.
You know, the vineyard of this world has a devil in it too,
has a lion in it too.
It's called Satan, and he wants to devour us.
You know, we need the Holy Spirit to come upon us
so that we can resist him, so that we can rent him.
And obviously, you know, I'm not saying
we're gonna go out and do some kind, you know,
turn into one of these Charismatics or something
and start exercising demons and all this stuff.
But you know what, if the Bible says, you know,
if we resist the devil, he will flee from us.
How are you gonna resist him?
You know, God will give us a way to escape.
He will not suffer us to be tempted
more than we are able to bear it,
but will with the temptation also make a way to escape.
You know where that escape is?
It's on our knees, in prayer, asking God for power,
asking God to help us resist temptation, to resist sin.
It's there and it's available if we want it.
And I'm just, all I'm saying tonight is you need it.
That's all I'm saying.
It's a promise, it's a privilege,
and you need this power in your life.
You must have the power of the Holy Ghost
if you're gonna achieve anything for God in this life.
If this church is gonna accomplish anything,
it's gonna be done in the power of the Holy Ghost.
It's not gonna be done in the power of the flesh.
We must be filled with the Spirit as a body
in order to accomplish great things for God.
And it's a privilege for us to do it.
It's not just a duty.
It's not just something we have,
some drudgery we have to bear.
Look, it's something we get to do that is exciting,
that is something, you know, it's a great thing
to be able to see God's hand move and work in our lives
and in this church.
It's powerful.
It's available to us.
Look at verse 19.
And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him,
and he went down to Ashkelon and slew 30 men of them
and took their spoil, and gave change of garments
unto them which expounded the riddle,
and its anger was kindled,
and he went up to his father's house.
So he's going out and just doing these great exploits
and the strength and the power of the Holy Spirit.
It's great power that's available to us.
Go to 1 Samuel chapter 11.
Of course, there's the other story of Samson,
and you're going to 1 Samuel 11 in Judges 15,
where the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him
once more, remember when he had been bound with the cords
and he broke them like flax, the Bible says,
and then he takes the jawbone of an ass
and slew a thousand men therewith
in the power of the Spirit?
Look, we could go out and we could deliver people,
we could defeat the enemy, we could do great things
if we had the fullness of the Holy Ghost in our lives.
If we walk in the Spirit,
if we avail ourselves of the privilege,
if we believe the promise, we will have the power.
It's there.
The Bible says the Spirit of the Lord came upon,
or rather, let me just give the background real quick.
Remember when Samuel, excuse me,
yes, Samuel was telling Saul to go back, right,
to go back to where he was from,
that he was going to be king, right?
And he's saying, on your journey,
you're going to run into these guys,
and they're going to have bread and wine,
they're going to give you some,
you're going to meet these minstrels,
and the Spirit of the Lord will come upon thee, right?
And thou shalt prophesy with them, he said,
and thou shalt be turned into another man.
You know, it's such a great picture
of what the Holy Spirit will do in our lives.
It'll transform us.
It'll change us.
You know, obviously in Christ, all things have become new.
You know, behold, all things have become new.
Old things are passed away.
We know we have that new man, but do we walk in it?
It's there.
When the Spirit of the Lord comes upon us,
it's like we're turned into another man.
That's that great story in Samuel.
The same thing can happen in our lives.
If we'll get serious about the things of God,
if we'll stick with the things of God,
if we'll live for the Lord,
we will be turned into another man.
People won't recognize this.
They'll say, you've changed, and you'll say, yes, I have.
Why?
Because I took advantage of the privilege,
because I took advantage of the promise,
because I have the power of the Holy Ghost,
and all have been changed.
Look at 1 Samuel 11, verse one.
Then Nahash the Ammonite came up
in a camp against Jabesh Gilead.
So this is when Samuel, or Saul, has been anointed king.
This is the beginning.
He hasn't really started doing anything yet.
And then these Ammonites, Nahash,
they come up against Jabesh Gilead,
and all the men of Jabesh said unto Nahash,
make a covenant with us, and we will serve thee.
So they want to come to terms.
You know, they want to have a negotiation.
I don't know what was going on back then,
but these Ammonites had some weird negotiating tactics.
And Nahash the Ammonite answered them,
on this condition will I make a covenant with you,
that I may thrust out all your right eyes
and lay it up for approach upon all Israel.
Said, oh, you want peace?
Then each of you has to give me your right eyeball.
It's either that or die.
At that point, it's like, take the eye.
So I mean, what a great position to be in.
And it says in verse three,
and the elders of Jabesh said unto him,
give us seven days' respite,
that we may send messengers unto all the coasts of Israel,
and then if there be no man to save us,
we will come out to thee.
He said, give us a chance to at least
see if anyone will come and fight for us.
Okay, and if nothing happens, then you know what?
We'll serve you.
You can take out our right eye,
and it'll be your approach
that Israel was too cowardly to deliver us.
Verse four, it says,
then came the messengers of Gibeah of Saul,
and told the tidings in the ears of the people.
And all the people lifted up their voices and wept,
and behold, Saul came after the herd out of the field.
So he's coming upon this weeping.
And Saul said, what aileth the people that they weep?
And they told him the tidings of the men of Jabesh.
So they rehearsed the story to him.
Look at verse six.
And the Spirit of God came upon Saul.
And when he heard those tidings,
when he heard those tidings,
and his anger was kindled greatly.
When the Spirit of God came upon him,
he got angry, he got mad.
You know, this is another reason
why you must have the Holy Spirit in your life.
This is why you must take advantage of the promise,
why you must take advantage of the privilege.
This is the power that the Holy Spirit will give you
to make you mad at sin.
You know a reason why some people
never get certain sins out of their life?
Because they're not angry about it.
They're not upset.
You know, they just let the Amalekite
keep poking them right in the eye,
every chance they, whatever they want.
You know, we need to get angry at sin.
And if you have the Holy Spirit,
you will get angry at sin.
But I thought, you know,
I thought the fruit of the Spirit
was just love, joy, peace, and all that sweet stuff.
Well, yeah, that's a big part of it.
But you know, there's some things in this world
that are worth getting angry over.
There's some things in this life
that are worth getting upset about.
There's some things that we as God's people
should be mad about.
And say, I'm angry, I'm not gonna put up with this anymore.
You know, sin in our personal lives,
sin in, you know, this world should be called out
and rebuked strongly.
We should be angry about that.
You know, just because some preacher gets up
and gets all mad and starts shouting
and hollering about some sin,
you know, don't write that off.
That just might be the Holy Spirit filling that man,
coming upon that man in that moment.
Who are we to sit there and say,
oh, that doesn't seem very godly.
That doesn't seem like anything a Christian should say.
Well, you know what, when Saul heard this,
these tidings of these wicked people
who wanted to come and make a reproach
against God's people, you know,
he heard it, he heard the people weeping,
and he said, that's making me mad.
It was right after the Spirit came upon him.
We need to have the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives
to make us angry and upset at sin.
And not let the works of the flesh move in.
Well, we're just be complacent.
Just roll over for sin.
Just let it carry us wherever it wants
and take over our lives.
We have this privilege, we have this promise,
we have the power, we need it, we must have it,
because there's a purpose.
Look, there's a purpose to being filled with the Holy Ghost.
There's a reason for it.
Why did God make that promise?
Why did Jesus say, hey, I will send a comforter?
Hey, the Holy Spirit shall be in you and dwell in you.
Why did he take the time to remind us
that we can be filled with the Spirit?
Because there's a purpose.
If you would, go to Acts chapter 13.
Acts chapter number 13.
I'll just read to you from Micah.
You're going to Acts 13.
In Micah, it says in verse eight,
truly I am full of the power by the Spirit of the Lord
and of judgment and of might
to declare unto Jacob his transgression
and to Israel his sin.
What was the purpose for Micah?
Why did the power of the Spirit come upon him?
Why was he full of the power by the Spirit of the Lord?
To declare unto Jacob his transgression
and to Israel his sin.
You know, it takes the fullness of the Holy Ghost
to declare transgression, to call out sin.
Gotta have it, gotta have that.
There's a purpose there.
That's what I'm making, I'm making that point.
There's a purpose to it.
Luke chapter four, verse 18.
I'll read to you.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me
because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me
because the Spirit of the Lord
didn't have anything else to do.
Didn't have anything better to do.
Because why not?
No, there's a purpose behind it, folks.
There's a reason why the Spirit brings power into our lives.
There's a purpose so that we will preach the gospel.
You know why it's so hard to get some people
to quit being such a bump on the log for God,
to actually go out there and preach the gospel?
Because they're not filled with the Spirit.
You know, they're not filled with the Spirit
to go out and to declare, to go out
and to preach to the poor.
Look at Acts chapter 13, verse 49.
Of course, we were just in this chapter last Thursday.
It says in verse 49.
And the word of the Lord was published
throughout all the region.
Excuse me.
But the Jews stirred up the devout and honorable women
and the chief men of the city
and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas
and expelled them out of their coast.
Look, there's always going to be setbacks
in the Christian life.
There's always going to be setbacks.
There's always going to be resistance.
There's always going to be fallouts.
There's always going to be things going wrong.
There's always going to be people stirring up.
There's always going to be people causing trouble.
There's always going to be setbacks.
But what was their attitude?
Look at verse 51.
But they shook off the dust off their feet against them
and came unto Iconium.
They kept right on going.
They just kept right on serving God.
They didn't let this stop them.
And notice verse 52.
And the disciples were filled with joy.
Oh, after all this has taken place,
after people are being jailed and killed
and after Herod's vexing of the church
and he got the Jews rising up
and stirring up all these people,
making all these promises,
they might have just said,
hey, maybe we should just quit.
Maybe we should just give up.
Maybe we should just stop trying.
It just seems like everywhere we go,
we just have problem after problem after problem.
No, they just shook off the dust of their feet,
went on to Iconium,
and as a result, they were filled with joy.
Filled with it.
And what else were they filled with?
The Holy Ghost.
We need to have the Holy Ghost
because it will help us to endure.
It will help us to continue to keep serving God
in the face of setbacks.
To not just drag us down.
And I'm just here to tell you,
you keep serving God, there will be setbacks.
There's gonna, you know, it's two steps forward,
one step back sometimes in the Christian life.
In building churches and living for God
and raising families,
there's always gonna be difficulties
and trials and setbacks.
But you know what?
If you have, if you avail yourself
of this privilege, of this power,
of this promise that is given us of the Holy Ghost,
you'll just be shaking the dust off your feet
and say, onward.
I'm just gonna keep going.
I'm just gonna keep serving.
And it's not just gonna be some, oh, woe is me.
You're gonna do it with joy in your heart.
You're gonna do it filled with joy.
But who is it that's filled with joy here?
The disciples.
The disciples were filled with joy.
It wasn't just anybody.
Wasn't just your average guy that believed on Christ.
It was a disciple.
We've looked at the power.
We've looked at the privilege.
We've looked at, what else, the promise.
We've looked at the purpose to declare, to preach, right?
Now we gotta talk about the procurement.
Procurement.
How are you going to procure the Holy Spirit?
How are you gonna get it?
I gotta use a P word because it's alliterated, right?
How are you gonna get it, right?
How are you gonna procure the Holy Spirit in your life?
Well, according to Acts 13, you gotta be a disciple.
The disciples, you say, man, it sounds great
to be able to just go into these battles
and have these fights and go in there
and not let anything stop you and not get discouraged,
but to continue on filled with joy,
shake the dust off your feet and keep on moving.
Man, that sounds great.
That sounds like something I want.
I want that power.
Okay, great, gotta be a disciple, though.
And there's a difference between a believer and a disciple.
You know, you can be a believer
and not be filled with the Holy Ghost.
You can be sealed.
Doesn't mean you're gonna be full.
You have to be a disciple.
Go to Galatians chapter four.
Galatians chapter number four.
Galatians chapter four.
Jesus said, if you continue in my word,
then are you my disciples indeed.
If you continue, then you are my disciple.
It's an if-then.
It's very matter-of-fact.
Meaning if we don't continue in his word,
then we are not his disciple.
You saying I'm unsaved?
No, there's a big difference.
Still saved, just not a disciple, right?
Jesus had many that believed on him,
and then he would preach some hard thing,
and then many of them departed and followed him no more.
And he turned to his disciples and said,
will you also go away?
And Peter said, you know, where will we go?
Thou hast the words of eternal life.
You know, we need to keep following.
We need to be a disciple.
We need to follow God's word, continue in it.
You know, that's the privilege,
that's the promise that we have in the word of God.
That's how we procure it, by being the disciple.
By getting that from, how are you gonna get that from God?
By continuing in his word.
By not quenching the spirit.
I mean, that's a command in scripture in 1 Thessalonians,
chapter number five.
Quench not the spirit, it's one line, it's one verse,
verse 19, quench not the spirit, next verse.
I mean, that's something we should not be doing
in our lives.
Look, if we're quenching the spirit,
you know, when we have that inevitable setback,
it might be enough to stop us.
You know, we might, maybe we'll manage
to shake some dust off, but are we gonna continue on
filled with joy?
In the face of adversity, in the face of setbacks?
Not if you're quenching the spirit.
If we're quenching the spirit, it will set us back.
I mean, excuse me, it will, you know,
you're not gonna go on in light of the setback.
Not with any joy, not with any power.
The disciples have that.
Disciples don't quench the spirit.
Disciples continue in his word.
They try to not grieve the spirit.
I understand we're always gonna have sin,
but you know what?
We're not in just this habit of sinning.
We're not just going out and willfully sinning.
We have struggles, we get angry at sin,
we get mad at sin in our lives, we resist sin,
and we fight against it, we get victory,
and then we are filled with the Holy Spirit,
we're filled with joy, and then we're able
to continue on no matter what.
Galatians chapter four, look at verse 22.
That she put off concerning the former conversation,
the old man which is corrupt according to deceitful lusts.
What is he saying there?
Put off the old man.
Put him off.
Meaning, it's like the old man is this like garment
that's still clinging to us.
And every morning you wake up and it's like,
it's like this nasty film on your teeth, right?
You gotta brush your teeth,
because it's all set in.
That's like the old man.
The old man's just constantly creeping back in,
constantly settling back in on us.
Every day we gotta wake up and just,
ah, get off me, old man!
You have to put him off concerning
the former conversation, the old man.
Why should I?
Because he's corrupt!
He's corrupt!
Let me hang out with this corrupt guy
and see how far I get in the Christian life.
Corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.
Oh, it's not that bad.
You're being deceived by lust!
You gotta put that off.
And what?
And be renewed in the spirit of your mind.
That you may, and that you put on the new man
There's a process here.
This is how, again, how you get the Holy Spirit,
how you procure it, right?
How you become the disciple, you continue the word,
you get rid of the old man, you put on the new.
You walk daily in the spirit.
Wherefore, verse 25, put away lying,
speak every man's truth with his neighbor,
where members one of another, be angry and sin not.
Let not the sun go down upon your wrath,
neither give place to the devil.
Now, if any of that was automatic,
then why in the world would Paul have to command it?
If he says, hey, neither give place to the devil,
but you don't even have to worry about that,
because that's automatic.
Just sounds good.
Makes for good preaching, right?
No, you have to not give place to the devil,
because the devil wants to take a seat.
The old man wants to sit down with you,
and he wants to invite the devil over.
And he wants to get the flesh worked up again.
And he wants to quench the spirit in your life.
Why does the devil so afraid of you getting the old man out
and getting the new man on?
Because there's power in the Holy Spirit,
because he knows it's a promise.
He knows it better than some of us know it.
He believes it more than some of us do,
that we can have the fullness of the Holy Ghost.
And the last thing he wants is a church
that's filled with Holy Spirit-filled people
who understand the purpose and the power of the Holy Spirit
and going out and doing a great work of God.
So you know what he's gonna try and do
is just constantly throw that old man back on you,
try to get the devil back in your life.
You have to resist him steadfast in the faith.
Every day, you gotta die.
Gotta get rid of that old man.
Not give place to the devil.
Let him, verse 28, that stole, steal no more,
but rather in labor, working with his hands
that thing which is good that he may give
to him that needeth.
Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth,
but that which is good to the use of edifying
that may minister grace unto the ears
and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.
You know what that tells me is that it's possible
for a Christian, for one of God's children
to grieve his Holy Spirit.
And if we're grieving the Holy Spirit,
if we're quenching the Holy Spirit,
then we're surefire not filled with it.
Then we don't have the power.
You might have the promise, but there's no power.
How are you gonna get it?
Well, for one, stop grieving him.
Stop doing those things that grieve
the Holy Spirit of God.
This is a reality, folks.
This is something you could walk in.
This is the supernatural Christian life.
You know, things aren't gonna move around
and cupboards aren't gonna fly open and stuff like that,
but you know what, it's every bit as supernatural
as anything you'd see in some Hollywood movie.
And it's real, it's not fake,
it's not a bunch of special effects.
The fullness of the Holy Ghost is something
that every single one of us could have.
It's something that every single one of us needs.
And the only way we're gonna get it
is when we stop grieving him.
Grieve not the Holy Spirit, whereby you seal
into the day of redemption.
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor
and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice.
So you can see again, you know, here at Galatians
and Ephesians where we look,
he's always contrasting the two, right?
He's saying, here's the Holy Spirit,
here's the works of the flesh.
Don't grieve the Holy Spirit and don't do these things.
Right, he's always giving us the opposite
of one or the other.
Have the Holy Spirit, why?
So that you don't have any, so all the bitterness
and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking
is put away from you?
So again, it's not just that, oh, I'm gonna forego
the power of the Holy Ghost and everything
and just live in this neutral area.
You know, this spiritually demilitarized zone
or something like that where the devil,
I'm not gonna be on God's side,
but I'm not gonna be in the devil's
and everyone's just gonna leave me alone.
I'm not gonna be filled with the Spirit,
but I'm not gonna do the works of the flesh either.
No, it's one or the other.
If you're not filled with the Spirit,
it's gonna be right back to the works of the flesh.
If you decide to continue to grieve the Holy Spirit,
then you know what, you're gonna have bitterness,
you're gonna have wrath, you're gonna have anger,
you're gonna have clamor.
And when people begin to exhibit these traits in their life,
bitterness, anger, evil speaking, malice,
it shows you a lack of the Holy Ghost in their life.
It's a lack of spirituality.
When people start to be filled with these other things,
the works of the flesh start to take over.
When they start, are just giving in to the lusts
of the flesh.
When they're desiring the things of this world.
When they have no problem just quenching the Holy Spirit,
grieving the Holy Spirit.
It's not that they don't have the promise,
it's just that they don't have the power.
And without the power, they won't fulfill the purpose.
These are the pitfalls that we're looking at.
What's one of these major pitfalls?
Look at verse 32.
And be a kind one another, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another, even as God hath for Christ's sake
forgiven you.
Probably nobody in the room would argue
that forgiveness is a good idea.
Probably a good policy to have in your life.
But notice the way in which we are told to forgive
as Christians.
Forgiving one another, even as Christ for your sake
hath forgiven you.
You know, we're to be forgiving other people.
Forgiving one another, even as God has forsaken you.
Or excuse me, forsaken, forgiven you.
God hasn't forsaken you.
It's just a little slip of the tongue there, it's all right.
Right?
That's how we're supposed to forgive.
You know, so when we get stubborn, we get full of malice,
bitterness, anger, and clamor, and evil speaking,
and we're just not gonna forgive somebody,
it's like, well, I mean, why not?
Hasn't Christ forgiven you?
To what degree should I forgive somebody?
I don't know, to what extent did Christ forgive you?
You know, let's look at a few things.
Go to Psalm 103.
Psalm 103.
Let's look at the, let's be reminded
of the forgiveness of God.
Because some people struggle with forgiveness.
And people have different ideas of what it means to forgive.
You know, forgiveness basically, you know,
means you're not gonna harbor anger,
you're not gonna have malice,
you're not gonna have resentment
towards people who maybe even have hurt you.
Right?
People have done you wrong, they did you dirty,
they offended you, they did something to upset you,
and you have every right to be angry
and upset with that person.
And maybe even need to talk to them about it
and get some closure.
But what you don't have the right
is sit there to harbor these angry,
resentful feelings towards people.
Bible commands you to forgive.
It's a command.
And look, if you're not, and again,
this is all tied in with the Holy Spirit.
Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God,
and he gives all these other things,
and be kind, forgiving one another.
Right, the fruits of the Spirit, it's love, joy, peace,
longsuffering, gentleness, faith, goodness,
meekness, temperance.
Right, peace.
Forgiveness, it's all tied in with that.
If you're not filled with the Holy Ghost,
you're gonna have a really hard time forgiving people
the way you ought to.
And just say, well, you know, I didn't run him over
with my car in the parking lot, so I guess I forgave him.
I haven't slashed his tires.
That's not forgiveness, friend.
You know, forgiving, it's a conscious decision
to let go of things.
It's a conscious thing.
You know, and I've talked to people about this,
we've debated about this, about whether or not
forgiving means forgetting.
Does forgiving mean to forget?
Because some people say, hey, if you don't forget,
you haven't forgiven.
And other people say, well, you could forgive,
but not forget.
Now, what I'm not saying is that when you forgive people,
you just condone their behavior.
Like, oh, that's not that bad.
It's okay, no big deal.
That's not, it's not condoning.
I think sometimes people think that when you say to forget,
you're saying, condone their behavior.
That's not it.
Because it's, and what I always think,
and I've debated this, is like, if you haven't forgotten,
what is it that you haven't forgotten?
The offense.
Whatever it was that was done to you
by somebody else that hurt you, that did you wrong.
If you haven't forgotten that, you know,
how are you gonna think about that and understand that
and not feel anger and resentment over it?
You're just gonna rehearse some infraction,
you're just gonna rehearse something in your mind
that they did and not have any emotion about it?
You know, I'm just trying to think this through.
You know, to me, when I'm told in the scripture to forgive,
even as Christ hath forgiven you,
in the same manner in which God has forgiven me,
I'm supposed to forgive other people,
I lean towards the forget camp.
You know, I lean more towards that side,
like, hey, if you haven't forgotten about it,
you probably haven't forgiven.
And look, there's some things that are hard to forgive,
aren't there?
There's things, there's people in my life
that I've had to forgive for the same thing
repeatedly in my own heart.
And you know what, and I'll continue to do it
every day of my life.
There's people that have hurt me and done things
and wounded me so deeply that I have to just say,
you know what, I forgive, I forgive, I forgive, I forgive.
Constantly, well, not constantly.
But you know, more than once.
You know, that's a struggle.
You know, praise God, the way he forgave us and that was it.
That's not something you have to constantly do
for every infraction.
You know, I believe that to truly forgive, you've forgotten.
That's the struggle.
That's what makes it difficult to forgive.
The Bible says in Isaiah chapter one, verse 18,
come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord,
though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow,
though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
He's not gonna leave a single blot of sin.
When we got saved, when God forgave us,
he cleansed us of everything.
He didn't just forgive most of it, he forgave all of it.
Every sin, every commandment we've broken,
every time we've offended God, he forgave it all.
That's how we are supposed to forgive.
Forgive everything.
Look at Psalm 103, verse 10.
He hath not dealt with us after our sins,
nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
For as the heaven is high above the earth,
so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.
That's how much God has forgiven,
as far as the heaven is high above the earth.
That's an illustration of how much forgiveness
God has for us.
And yet, we can't find it in our hearts sometimes
to forgive people over these little things.
You know, when people have a hard time forgiving,
I have a hard time believing that they're filled
with the Holy Spirit.
When they're just brooding and they have malice and anger,
they're just hanging on and they're resentful and bitter.
You know, it's like, well, how much can you sit there
really telling me that you're walking in the Spirit
when you can't forgive people over, you know,
really trivial things in the big picture?
A lot of the things we get hung up on sometimes
and just get angry and mad about people over,
in the big scheme of things, are really quite
inconsequential and very trivial
when you really think about it.
We just like to focus on it and make it bigger.
Because we don't want to have to do the hard work
of actually forgiving people,
of actually having to ask God to help us
and be filled with the Spirit.
It goes on, verse 12.
As far as the east is from the west,
so far hath he removed us from our transgressions from us.
That's how, you know, how far is that?
How far is the east from the west?
You can't put a rule on it.
You can't measure that out.
It's just this.
It just keeps going.
That's how far God has removed his transgressions from me.
Praise God.
You know what he's asking me to do?
Forgive others, even as I have forgiven you.
And you know what?
No one's done anything to me
where I've had to forgive that much.
Now, maybe other people have gone through things
where it's, you know, it takes a lot more
to separate those things.
It takes a lot more forgiveness to get over certain things.
I don't know.
You know, but if he could separate us from our sins,
and our sins are things that have offended a holy God,
our sins, the offense that we made towards Christ and God,
would land us in hell.
And yet he's forgiven it.
All of it.
Verse 13, like as a father pitieth his children,
so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.
He takes pity.
You know, the Bible says it is a glory
for a man to pass over a transgression.
It says glory.
To just pass something over and say,
you know what, I'm just gonna take pity
on this individual.
And just forgive them, and you know what?
I believe, forget.
That's my opinion.
Go back to Ephesians chapter five, I'll end there.
You know, I wanna throw that bit in there on forgiveness
because it's such an important thing.
You know, we don't wanna bite and devour one another.
We wanna forgive, we wanna be long suffering,
we wanna be tenderhearted toward one toward another.
How are you gonna do that?
How are you gonna fulfill that command in Ephesians?
How are you gonna fill that command in Galatians?
How are you gonna avoid the works of the flesh?
How are you going to put off the old man?
How are you gonna, you know, put away bitterness
and wrath and malice by being filled with the Spirit?
Be filled with the Spirit.
Obviously, again, it's a command.
It's something we have to do.
But it's more than just a command, folks.
It's a privilege.
It's a promise.
You know what, and there's power in it.
There's a power there.
And we can have that in our lives if we want it.
It's there, that forgiveness.
Look, it's a great thing to be able to forgive people.
I don't know if you've ever experienced this,
but somebody comes up to you after, you know,
you've had some kind of scuffle, some kind of,
they've committed some kind of infraction,
you know, whatever.
And then they come to you like months later,
you know, that thing, I'm real sorry about that.
You're like, what are you talking about?
You know, I've had people do that for me.
I know for sure I've been forgiven by people
because I'm married.
You know, it's kind of a joke, but I'm sure there's,
you know, she doesn't even remember what she forgave me for.
She can't even recall, right?
But I've had other people too, you know,
they're just like, what are you talking about?
Oh, that old thing?
You know, I'll forget things and it's just like,
people will bring it up and be like,
oh yeah, I forgot about that.
And I'm not trying to say that to brag,
like, oh, look how forgiving I am.
You know, that's something we should all be able to do,
to just forget, let things go.
Life's too short to sit there and just resent people.
And you know what, the Bible said,
let me read this to you before we close up
on this issue of forgiveness.
He said, when you stand praying, forgive,
if you have ought against any, that your father,
which also is in heaven, may forgive you your trespasses.
You want forgiveness from God,
you better be willing to forgive other people.
But if you do not forgive, neither will your father,
which is in heaven, forgive you your trespasses.
That's what Jesus said.
You know, if we're gonna hold things over people's heads,
you know, what if God started holding some things
over our head?
I don't know about you, but I need God to forgive me.
I have trespasses, I'm not perfect.
We walk, you know, we try our best to walk in the Spirit,
walk in the new man, but you know what,
it's a battle every day, and sometimes that old man just,
he leaps on the old back out of nowhere,
and it's just, next thing you know,
you gotta get down on your knees and say,
God, I did it again, I'm sorry, help me.
You know, hopefully that comes fewer and farther between
as you live the Christian life, but you know,
you're gonna be able to forgive yourself,
and you're gonna be able to forgive yourself,
and you're gonna be able to forgive the Christian life,
but you're gonna need forgiveness, bud,
so you might as well just start forgiving other people,
and quit hanging onto things, and quit being malicious,
and quit being bitter.
Look at Ephesians chapter five, verse 17.
Wherefore, be not unwise, but understanding
what the will of the Lord is, and be not drunk with wine,
whereas in excess, and here's where we get the title
of the sermon, but be filled with the Spirit.
You know, and I wanted to preach this tonight,
because being filled with the Spirit is a command,
but if all you look, if the only way you see it
is some just dry directive, you're probably not gonna be
very inclined to obey it, are you?
But if we learn to start to see it,
for the privilege that it is, for the power that it gives,
and for the great purpose that it serves, you know what?
We might be more inclined to obey this command,
to be filled with the Spirit.
Let's go ahead and close the word of prayer.
Dear Lord, again, thank you for the great promise
that we have in the word of God,
that we have the Comforter, we have the Holy Ghost,
we have the Spirit of God not having only sealed us,
but Lord, but even given us opportunity
to be filled with his power.
And Lord, I pray you'd help us as your people
to not grieve you, to not quench you,
but rather to be filled with the Spirit
so that we can know the fruit of the Spirit,
and all that it brings to our lives, the power that it is.
Lord, we pray that you would help us now this coming week
to live and serve you, and live for you and serve you.
In Christ's name we pray, amen.
All right, we'll go ahead and sing one more song
before we go.
Well, I guess I'm singing it too.
We're gonna sing 169 Come Thou Fount,
Old Habits Die Hard, right?
It's just hopping on a pulpit.
Song 169, Come Thou Fount.
Song 169.
Let's sing it out.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10,
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 21, 22, 23, 24,
25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37,
Jesus, come out of this highway.
Come what may, he comes for fun.
Raise your mouth high.
There's no warning.
I will gladly give you hope.
Here I am, my God, and evermore.
barnaby
Thanks for coming everybody.
Thank you.