Listening to the Holy Spirit

Pentecost is a day of great expectations. When we think of the story of Pentecost, at least what is offered in the New Testament, we go down that Rolodex of miracles that is offered there in Acts 2, and it is just one big wow after another.

We start with the wind that comes forth, rushing and gusting, and we say, yes!

And then we know that the languages begin as they are able to hear and understand in their own tongue, and we say, yes! Way to go, God!

And then there's the aspect of the tongues of fire that appear on the heads of the followers of Jesus, and we say, way to go, God! And that again is a big yes.

And then to imagine that on that one day, to imagine that 3,000 people became disciples of Jesus Christ one more time. We say, way to go, God! Yes! That's something that we want, and that's something that we can understand.

And then we are an extension of that day of Pentecost when our time and our place came, and when God began to work with our minds and our hearts as was brought out this morning.

And then there we are in that pool of water, and the minister is down there with us in that pool of water, and he says, have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior?

And you say, yes! And then he says, and have you repented of all of your sins, which is the breaking of God's holy and righteous law?

And again, guess what we say? Hopefully. I've never heard anybody say no yet when I'm down in the water with them, but again we say, yes!

And so it's very exciting. Here we are in that sense, the birthday of the church in the New Testament.

It's the great roll of the dice that every get behind, and we say, boy, God, you are on, on, on.

But I have a question for you this afternoon, friends. What happens when God says no?

That is no to you, and yes, no to me.

Please notice, I didn't say what happens to God. The question that I have for you this afternoon is, what happens to you when God's answer is no?

We are offered such a story in the book of Acts in chapter 16. Join me, if you would, over in the book of Acts.

And let's pick up the thought in Acts 16 and in verse 1.

So much of the book of Acts is written under the inspiration of the Spirit by Luke to show the power and the force of the Holy Spirit and what was happening.

And I tell you, when you read the book of Acts, it's a book of action.

And to a large degree, the church was on a roll. Notice here in Acts 16 and verse 1, speaking of Paul, And he came to Derbe in Lystra, and behold, a certain disciple was there named Timothy, the son of a certain Jewish woman, who believed, but his father was a Greek.

And he was well spoken of by the brethren who were at Lystra and Iconium.

And Paul wanted him to go on with him, wanted to mentor him and take him as a young assistant.

And he took him and circumcised him, because the Jews were in that region, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.

And so here we are with Paul. He is in the course of the second missionary journey, going through Asia Minor, which today is known as the modern state of Turkey.

There's just one roll after another. Derbe's going well, Lystra's going well, they preached the Gospel, got out of there alive, which was a good thing in those days.

And now here's the possibility of a young man who is both Jewish and Greek. He's going to come on a board. He says, look, for the sake of everybody else, as a young man you're going to have to be circumcised.

And you know what Timothy says? Yes! That's a good thing when you have a young man that says yes at that stage of his life. So things are going, going, going, going. Things are great. Big expectations being fulfilled. So much so that, notice verse 5, we have what we call one of those famous Lucan commentaries. Remember, Luke was a doctor. And every so often he had to kind of take the temperature of the church and let everybody know what was going on. So the churches were strengthened in the faith and increased in numbers daily. That's called a Lucan commentary. And he had to insert that no matter what the early apostles were going through, that at the end of the day, because of the Holy Spirit that was inside of them and motivating them, that God was in charge and the message was getting out. But now, verse 6, now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, notice, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the Word in Asia. That's what we might call one big fat no. No, you will not preach in Asia. Now Paul could have said, but wait a minute, you know, like Horace Greeley would say, 1800 years from now, go west, young man, go west. Here they were in Iconium, Derby, Lystra. It was natural to go west to the province of Asia. That's where the big lights were. That's where the big city was. That's where Ephesus was. That was the crossroads of the west and east coming together. That's where eventually the seven churches of Revelation would be. I'm doing your work. I'm out here knocking myself out day and night. 25 hours, 24-7 as we say, in one day. Don't you know what I'm about? I'm preaching your work. I'm knocking my fanny out here. I want to spread the gospel. Make sense to me. God says, no. They notice what happens. After that, they came to Mysia and they tried to go to Bithynia.

That would be a good idea. Up there would be the great cities of Mysia. Nicodemia had large pockets of Jews in those regions. The synagogues would be there. It would be a springboard for the gospel. After all, that's what Paul was about, wasn't it? He was out preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God. That would just seem natural. If you can't go west, young man, remember that song we had back in the 60s? Those of you that were in the 60s, way up north. Up north! Go north! Go up to Bithynia. Notice what it said here. But the Spirit did not permit them. Now what's going on here? And what's happening? How did the Holy Spirit communicate this to Paul and party? I don't necessarily know and it's not mentioned here. May I say, nobody really knows exactly what happened. Allow me to offer you some suggestions.

It may have been a vision. It may have been a dream. It may have been through a prophet. We know in other circumstances in the book of Acts, a prophet would come before Paul and party and give them admonition and or encouragement from God. It could have been a prophet. It could have been from an inner conviction.

It might have been, perchance, one of those three times where Paul was suffering from that thorn that was in his flesh that may have hampered him. I don't know. You don't know. I've kind of offered you some things to think about.

But I do know this. I do know this, that even Paul, Mr. Onward and upward, let's march to the kingdom. Let's go to the finish line. Let's go get it. There's a crown of righteousness awaiting all of us. That's Paul at his best. But I know Paul was human, too. Paul could have become discouraged if he didn't understand why God said no. We need to understand that. We need to understand that sometimes, just like the Apostle Paul, friends, that we're not necessarily working against God. We're working for God and with God.

We've surrendered our lives to God. But at times, the Holy Spirit is going to tell you from the front row to the back row, and all of those that are in between, He's going to give us a no. Why is it important that when the Holy Spirit tells us no, that we understand that God gives us yeses as much as He gives us nos, and that we understand the importance of not becoming discouraged? Discouragement can be, and or depression, may I be frank for a moment, please?

Discouragement and depression can be an occupational hazard of Christians, if we're not careful. I'd like to share a story to bring this to point. It's said that the devil once decided to go out of business, and he offered his tools for sale. They were attractively displayed. Allow me to share some of them with you, please. There was trickery, hatred, jealousy, malice, deceit, sensuality, and there were many other evil tools. Each was marked with a price, but in the center was a wedge-shaped, much worn tool, priced higher than all the other tools put together. Somebody asked, well, what is that? Satan was asked that question, and he replied, that's discouragement. He replied, but why is it so costly?

Because it can do my evil work better than all the other tools. And with it, I can make the lives of many folks of simply no value. I can make them just lie down and give up and become useless, and they don't even know I am the one who is using it. That's why I'm looking forward to bringing you this message today, friends, right out of the Bible.

Because there are some things that we need to understand about God's yeses and God's noes. And we need to understand simply this point, that as firstfruits, we need to understand at times that when it looks as if there are reversals in our life, and that God is not, for one reason or another, answering or seeing things our ways, that it is very important to recognize that as firstfruits, and we've heard a lot about agriculture today, that we are brought to nurture, and we are brought to be ripened not only by God's yeses, but by God's noes. And that's a very important fact that we have to understand.

I could be, for one, I won't ask you to raise your hands. I mean, I love it when God says yes to my prayers, yes to what I'm doing as an individual Christian, yes to what He is doing as I work with all of you in a church circuit. Now, there's the kind of God that I can just kind of really get excited about. Yes, yes, yes, yes. We love yes, yes, yes, yes. But it's when the noes come that separate the fair-weather Christians from the firstfruits that God is trying to develop. And the message I want to bring to you today is simply this.

Learning to listen to the Holy Spirit. That is the name of this message. Learning to listen to the Holy Spirit. Paul had to listen 2,000 years ago in Asia, and we need to learn that lesson today. You know, it's interesting that on the evening before He died, Christ offered His followers a promise with a threefold guarantee. And I'd like to center on that verse. That'll be our anchor verse, and we're going to pick it apart. We're going to look at it. We're going to break it down.

We're going to analyze it. Because we're going to find in it a series of markers to guide our path, to comprehend and obey God's perfect will when either it is yes and or whether it is no. Join me if you would in John 16, 13. Let's collectively read it together for a moment before we break it down. John 16 and verse 13. Let's understand this is on the last night of Jesus' earthly ministry.

And he is sharing those things that are going to be oh so important to His followers. And he probably realized that it would only be, frankly, until later, that they could fully digest it and begin to understand it. But nonetheless, he wanted to share it. If you're opening up your Bible, let's understand it's probably in red print, because these would be the words of Jesus the Christ Himself. And He says this, Now that went pretty quick, didn't it? I guess I can go. We just did it. Sermon's over. Some of you will be happy. But didn't I say that we're going to break it down into three points? Absolutely. There are three specific points that I'd like to center on just in that little verse. First of all, let's notice this. Point number one, friends. The first point is this. The Holy Spirit is a trustworthy guide. The Holy Spirit is a trustworthy guide. Notice what it says there at the very beginning. When He, the Spirit of Truth, has come. That's very important, friends, and my encouragement for all of us today is simply this. Whether God is giving us yeses from our prayer life right now, or is laid out a big fat no, what I want to encourage you about is simply this. God is truth. God is honest. God is pure. And God has your best future in His mind and in His heart. This incredible gift of God, called the Holy Spirit, guides us towards discerning what is true versus what is false.

The Holy Spirit literally guides us, and that's going to be an important word that we're going to build on in point number two, between that which is true and that which is false. It peels away the illusions and the infatuations of momentary happiness. And it guides us to that which is wise versus that which is foolish. And or listen to me, please, because we can handle that. We're really glad when God's Spirit saves us from doing something. Can I put it this way? Dumb! But what happens when God comes along and says, I'm going to intervene and I'm going to guide you by my spirit of truthfulness, because you just want to settle for this when I want to bring you to that. You're basically wanting to settle for that which is humanly good versus that which I want to bring into your life, which is my perfection. And so God by His Spirit takes off that veneer and He brings us to reality. I couldn't help but think of that with what we've experienced here in Southern California the last couple of years.

The spirit of truth. We've read that. Some of you have heard this verse mentioned for 30 or 40 years. When Paul was speaking about the spirit of truth, let's understand that truth was not highly valued in the Roman world. We're basically operating off of a Judeo-Christian ethic over a couple hundred years now, 300 years from the Protestant Reformation that has spread and to a great degree has immersed itself in the culture. People back in the ancient world did not have an understanding of truth. If you don't believe me, then please read the Bible. Just go to the book of Titus, where Titus is just frustrated up to... there. He says, Paul, you've sent me down here and I am surrounded by these cretins and they are a bunch of liars.

They're just plain out-and-out liars. And Paul is an older man. He just says, it's all right, Titus, get it out of your system. You stay there. God's put you there. Tell them to repent and hold the fort. I like those short notes like that. It's just, read Titus, that's it, hold the fort. You're going to stay in Crete. Now, you don't have to read Titus for a while. But the point is this, in the beginning of Titus, God says, we worship and we follow a God who cannot lie. Let me share a thought with you. We think of what we've gone through in Southern California recently here with this subprime meltdown. How many young families, and they do bear responsibility as well, but how many young families saw with big eyes and big hopes the American dream, and there was the realtor, saying, oh, come on in. We've been waiting for you. Just come on in. Isn't this a beautiful house? Just sit down. Feel it. Oh, you just look really good, and that sofa was made for you. This house was made for you. Little miss, come on over. Kind of get into that kitchen. Now, I know your mother only had like a five by eight kitchen, but this is one that you can kind of move around.

Come over here by the sink. Isn't there a lot of room in here? Don't you kind of just really like it? I know you're young, and you're going to like to have parties, and we've got this big family room. Big! And I know you don't have that television yet that's going to cover the wall, but just think of it up there. You watch all those programs you shouldn't be watching anyway.

And, oh, you haven't been upstairs. Five bedrooms. And it's only a couple without children. Five bedrooms. Oh, come on up. Come on up. You can afford it. You can do this. How long have you been out of work?

Oh, don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Don't even need to see an employee's stuff. And, you know, those payments, those things that, you know, everybody keeps on warning. Don't worry about it. Three to five years down the line, you'll be out of here. No problem before the big balloon payment comes of $3,500 a month.

Oh, yeah. I have a question for you. And please understand that God does bring realtors into the church as well. It's all right. There's a twofold problem here, isn't there? As P.T. Barnum used to say, which I won't go into.

But how much truth was in the sales job? Now, those young couples, those young people, their eyes were as big as saucers, and they want the American dream just as much as some of you young people out here want. What I'm trying to share with you, because sometimes we can become jaded by the society that is around us, that God is brokering us a deal that his own son paid his life with.

We don't even need a down payment. But in that sense, we have something to give, don't we? But we worship a God of truth that is going to tell it exactly like it is.

And we need to understand that, simply this as we go along, that life is based upon making many decisions.

Life is basically a compilation of all the decisions, all the choices that we have made.

And each day we are up to here in making decisions, both big and small. What I want to share with you when it comes to the Holy Spirit is simply this. The Bible doesn't clearly spell out how to make every decision that comes our way in a day. But it does succinctly declare that God's Spirit will grant us on the site, in the zone, discernment, on which way to go on a particular matter. And that's very important to understand. The Holy Spirit is that which God gives us. Because all of us every day are just like we're Adam and Eve, we're in the garden. And there before us every day is the tree of good and evil and the tree of life. There's the tree of good and evil of which we can wrap our arms around and wrap our desires around. It really looks good and it looks right.

And then there's the tree of life in which we have faith and we have confidence that while we may not see it for the moment, that God will give us what we need and that He will give us the full supply of what we need to be in His Kingdom one day. Those choices are with us every day and they don't look like trees. They look like cars. They look like homes. They look like decisions that we're making in our families, between husbands and wives, between in-laws and outlaws, just joking, between children and parents, between teenagers and their teachers at school. There's trees all around in our life and God gives us this Holy Spirit to make right and proper decisions. Join me if you would in John 14 and verse 6 for a moment. Let's anchor ourselves by a self-disclosure of none other than Jesus Christ Himself. Let's understand that the head of the body that we follow, that we worship, that we strive to emulate, let's notice what He says about Himself. Jesus said to Him, I am the way and I am the truth and the life and no one comes to Me except the Father through Me. Jesus describes Himself specifically as being truthful and that is very, very important to understand. Join me again in Isaiah 7. I already went to Titus, so I'm going to skip over that, but notice Isaiah 7, an aspect of the Holy Spirit that is functioning in us. Verse 14, Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign, behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel, and or God with us. Many of us are familiar with this verse of prophecy out of Isaiah, but perhaps we're not as familiar with what it says here in verse 15 and 16. The curds and honey he shall eat that he may know to refuse the evil and to choose the good. For before the child shall know to refuse the evil and to choose the good, the land that you dread will be forsaken by both your kings.

But up here in verse 15, it says specifically a promise about our Savior and the one that we emulate and the one whose spirit is in us says that he would know to refuse the evil from the good. Why is that? Because He is the way, He is the truth, and He is the life. And we can bank on that. Now, when we look at this, point number one, the wonderful thing is as you develop greater sensitivity to His guidance, you will worry much less about decisions that you make.

Because the Holy Spirit is a trustworthy guide. Now, let's talk about this for a moment because I realize that there are very real decisions that some of you are making right now. And some of you may just simply be in limbo. Even Church of God members can be in limbo, even though another church coined that term. We all know what it means to be in limbo, and we can be kind of in between, and we can kind of be in a wilderness area.

And we can be saying, you know, God, look, I've been in Your way of life for 30, 40, or 50 years. I deserve better than this. Here I have been Your faithful servant. And this is what I want to do, but it seems as if You're blocking me from that. It seems like I can't go any further on my own. Why will You not get out of my way and let this be?

Because, well, it should just be that way. Give me a break, God. Have you had one of those give me a break, God moments? Or am I the only one? Don't make me nervous up here. Paul could have had one of those give me a break, God moments. Could have become discouraged. That tool of Satan could have really wound him down. What I'm encouraging you on this Pentecost 2008, wherever you are in your life, and I'm just coming at you as a follower of the Word and a disciple of Jesus Christ, and as one that reads the Word and reads the examples out of the Bible, give it time.

If God is not answering your prayer, there is a reason. We need to go to Scripture. We might need to seek counsel. We might have to dynamically, in a sense, positively demand of God, give me an answer, God, so I can see where you're leading me. We might need to counsel with one of our elders or myself or somebody that you respect in the congregation. Why does there seem to be a roadblock? Or is it a roadblock? Or is it really a bridge to the future that God wants you and me to have as effective disciples in this way of life?

I think that's something that we need to ask ourselves. What I want to share with you is this, and I'd like to leave this term. If you'd like to take notes as a student of church, then take this down. I like to look at the Holy Spirit as being a shepherding spirit. It's a shepherding spirit. It guides. It leads. Susan and I have had a whole summer of watching the sheep out our backyard.

For those of you that haven't heard about the sheep, you're going to hear about the sheep one more time. Sorry. But they bring in the sheep up in Sun City, and we've had about 500 sheep behind us. It's just amazing how the shepherds that they bring in and the sheepdogs that they bring in, how they guide the sheep to big tall grass.

The sheep don't want to leave where they are right now because they're just happy. You know why? Because they're sheep. I've never seen a bad attitude sheep. I've seen a few goats like that. We also have about 250 goats out there. We did. But sheep would just be happy to keep on munching down until all of a sudden they found that they were in desert. That's what happens. We have this beautiful field behind us, and the weed is up, and it looks really great.

Then the sheep get in there and go, oh, how pastoral. I think I'll take up oil painting. It just looks beautiful. But what you forget, as beautiful as those sheep are out there as they're meandering around and doing their thing, in about a month or two it's going to look like desert.

But they would stay in there thinking that they are just as satisfied as can be, but the shepherd guides and takes them out of there and brings them into pasture. Pray this prayer. Ask God's shepherding spirit to guide and to lead you, to come to understanding of why perhaps some of those doors seemingly are closed right now in your life.

Remember, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, is no less than God. It is the Spirit of Jesus. That's why Jesus can live in us, why we say that we have Jesus in us, why the Christ is in us. The Spirit, the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit of Jesus, as mentioned in different places in the New Testament, it's the same thing. And what does it say about that the Lord is my shepherd?

I shall not want. That is the most pretty prose until you have to put it into practice. Especially when you want something like Paul wanted something. He saw a target rich man over there in Asia. I can't wait to get a hold of those hearts over in Asia. Let me at them. Come on, Barnabas. Come on, Sylvanus. Come on, Timothy, if you can walk. No, just teasing. Come on. You're forgetting the story. Anyway, that, come on. Target rich. Set the toner. Boom. God says, no. I have a question for you. We'll take about a pause. Take out a piece of paper, please.

I'm going to test you on all the scriptures I've used so far and have you sign it. I want you to think about it for a moment. It's called the interactive portion of service. I want you to think about it for a moment the last time God gave you a big fat no. When did God last give you a big fat no? And here you were trying to do everything you could, just like a good little Christian, just like the Apostle Paul.

You think about it a moment. I'm going to rest. If you haven't written one down yet, be prepared to receive one in the near future. Remember, firstfruits are ripened not only by God's yeses, but by God's noes. Let's go to point number two. The second point out of this, as we go back to John 16, verse 13, it says that the Holy Spirit will guide you into all truth.

It says that this gift of God that He would bring, as Jesus ascended, He said, another comforter is going to come, and I'm not going to leave you like a bunch of orphans. I'm going to send you some support. It says, He, speaking of the Spirit, will guide you into all truth. The emphasis here is on the word guide. It comes from the Greek, which means literally, the verb literally should be taken as to lead the way. Now, this is very important, I think, especially for those that are new in this way of life and just awakening to the Scriptures.

Christ didn't say that His Spirit in us would drive us, or force us, or control us, even if we wanted it to. Come on, God! Just make me. Just push me. And by the way, if that doesn't work, drag me into righteousness. Drag me into Your will for me.

Is that how it works? Sometimes it would be just so simple to be a spiritual robot. Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. You know, just have our buttons pushed. Instant righteousness. Instant character. Whatever you want to call it. But that's not how it works.

God has given you and me, and maybe some of you are going to be hearing this for the very first time today, God has given us the greatest opportunity and the greatest obstacle all in the same bundle. You know what it's called? Free moral agency. The right and the privilege to choose. If you don't believe me, have you talked to your cat recently? And if you do, you've already got a problem. Okay, no, I'm just teasing. Especially with the cat answers back.

Your cat is not in your home kind of thinking what it's going to do tonight. And it's not weighing all the options. Do I bite the dog on the foot tonight? Do I stand at the top of the stairs and try to tumble my captors down and make a cat break? Shall I go out and play with the other cats tonight? You know, cats don't have free moral agency. And by the way, dogs don't either.

They don't have choices. They operate based upon cause and effect and simply instinct. God has granted you and me, and that's what makes us different than the animal kingdom and why human beings are not, hear me, animals. It's because God put His Spirit in us, and He granted you and me the opportunity to make choices. And that's where the challenge comes in, as to what choice we will make.

And God does not force us. He does not overpower us. He does not dominate us. He does not domineer us. He does not possess us. That's from that other spiritual force. God's Spirit empowers. It guides. Join me in Romans 8, 14, for a classical, scriptural definition of that in Romans 8 and verse 14.

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, that are led by the Spirit of God, not pushed, not dragged, not overpowered, but led. These are the sons of God. We might use another Biblical phrase here. For those that are led by the Spirit, these are the first fruits of God. Now, let's understand something, how the Holy Spirit works as it leads us. It doesn't leave us in the sense of not knowing what to do. Join me if you would for a moment. God is very proactive about His ways. We're going to go to the Old Testament, and then we're going to hop over to the New Testament. Join me if you would for a moment to Deuteronomy 30. Even as they say that the Holy Spirit does not push us into doing right, God encourages us to go in that direction.

In Deuteronomy 30, and let's pick up the thought in verse 19. This is speaking to the covenant people of old, the nation of Israel. I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. As a wise head of the family, God weighs and shows us all the options.

He's not doing any snake oil sales. He's not doing any abracadabra down below. He says, now look over here. Here's the pros and here's the cons. Here's the blessings. Here's the cursings. Read the book. You can see where it's going. But then notice what He does. He encourages us. He's in the grandstands of heaven saying, look Sally, look Susan, look Doug, look Andrew, look Roland, look Bob, look Reuben, look Bob. Choose life. Why? That both you and your descendants may live. But God didn't just leave that into the community of old. Join me if you would now in the New Testament. Let's see how God addresses the Israel of God now today under the new covenant, John 16 verse 13.

In that same set of passages on that last night of Jesus' life, He defines the Holy Spirit here. In John 16 and notice verse 7, nevertheless I tell you the truth. See, Jesus always comes back and He's going to tell us the truth. You know, how often have we been on a used car lot, doing a real estate deal, being at work, having a new job, whatever it might be, a teacher that tells you, oh, you're going to get an A on this exam because I was your teacher. But it's not the truth. They're just telling you what they want to say, or they're telling you what you want to hear. When Jesus speaks from the Scriptures and in the Spirit in us, He is telling the truth.

And Jesus never said that it would be easy. Do you hear me? Jesus never said it would be easy. He did say it would be worth it.

It is to your advantage that I go away, for I do not go away. The Helper will not come to you, but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, notice, He will convict the world of sin. He will convince the world against sin. But not only of what is wrong, I want to show you something else that maybe you've never noticed. Are you with me? Out of this set of Scriptures. And it says that He will also, in this conviction or in this convincing, convict of righteousness and of judgment and of sin because they do not believe in Me, but also of righteousness because I go to My Father and you see Me no more. I suggest from this set of Scripture that the Holy Spirit not only convicts us or convinces us, as we have those two trees before us in our eye range all the time, that it convicts us and convinces us, moves away the layers of wrapper around things so we can really see what it's like. Just like those old Vietnam goggles, those nighttime goggles, to where you can really clearly see even in the dark what is out there and that God's Spirit moves and penetrates. Do you believe that? Do you believe that whatever you're going through right now in your life, the Holy Spirit inside of you can penetrate through the doubt and through the darkness and through the confusion that might be surrounding you right now, that it can convince you that this is not the way to go and convince you that God has something not only good but better and perfect for you in your life as you surrender yourself to His will and put yourself in neutral and surrender your good ideas and your good plans and all of your good actions and say, Lord, I need your help. That leads us to the third key. Interesting. The third key out of John 16.13 says that the Holy Spirit speaks and He will speak. That's what I want to share with you today. It says the Holy Spirit speaks. Now, in our understanding and in our doctrine, let's just do a sidebar for a moment, that in the Church of God, we do not believe in a third person in the Godhead. But the definition and the action here is that God will speak through this agency that is inside of us because there is no less than God Almighty inside of us. God is holy. God is Spirit. That's what the Holy Spirit is. And as the book of Ephesians brings that, I think Mr. Sharp did want to get to. I think we finally got there once he got his vision set. God says that He has put the down payment, the earnest of His Spirit inside of us. He's not giving us anything less than Himself. If God says He's putting Himself in us, can I ask you a question? I suggest He's putting Himself in us. Thus it is God that is speaking in us and to us. And it says He will speak. But the question often arises, again, does God speak to humanity today like in yester-age? And I believe the answer is yes. And what I want to do today as your pastor is to encourage you, as we leave Pentecost today, to be listening for the voice of God in your life. That's going to be essential. Now, He may choose different means and different vehicles to reach you through the agency of the Holy Spirit. And that can come through different ways. And we need to understand that. It can come through a message. It can come through a talk and a conversation by the water fountain.

It can come from the mouth of babes. If I can share for a moment with Susan, she's going to get to me after this. But so often with challenges or dynamics that are in her life, and she's praying about something, that she'll immediately go to her library. She will pull a book, and she'll open a chapter. And it is speaking directly. It might be in the Bible. It might be a book, a Christianity book. And that is specifically mail ordered for her at that moment.

There's no doubt about this. There's no doubt about that. And we need to, frankly, friends, if the church of God is to thrive and to grow and develop more and to be that witness and that light that God wants us to be in this day and in this end time, we have got to be convicted that God is inside of us, that God is speaking to us, that God is prompting us, and that we need to act upon what He is telling us to do and surrender our good plans. And yes, make sure you check out the bad plans while you're surrendering the good plans and listen to what He is doing and be acclimated to it. I know Mr. Smith just gave a message yesterday about what was happening between the time Jesus was resurrected and when the Holy Spirit came. I want to tell you something, folks. Those people knew that Jesus had promised something really great and really neat. He said, listen, don't leave Jerusalem. Don't leave home without it. Because I'm going, so what I'm going to send you is going to be really neat. And they didn't understand it like we do because we're on the other side of the story now. But they knew that they had been promised a comforter. And they had been promised that whatever was going to come their way, that Jesus was going to send them. The whole church, as they tarried, to use the biblical language, that means wait, as they waited for that to happen, they were filled with anticipation. They were filled with expectation. They were looking. They were searching. They were waiting. They were excited. They were on fire. They were in a dangerous spot once they came back out of the Galilee in Jerusalem. Last place you want to be when your group leader was just crucified.

But they knew that God had promised them something extraordinary. And it was worth their life to wait for it. And it was worth their life then to have that live in them until the end of their days. Brethren, we have got to be rooted in the book of Acts and on this day of Pentecost.

You see, I believe that Satan would like to discourage us or confuse us to simply think that the Holy Spirit isn't everything that it's cracked up to be.

It's everything and more. And that Holy Spirit will speak to us. It speaks to us in different ways. It can speak to us from the Scriptures. It can speak to us from a book. It can maybe convict you today as I'm talking to you. A little child can come up to you and say something that's a one-liner that will change your life. I know how God spoke to me. In fact, I was sharing this story with Susan the other day. And it is simply this, that I don't know how often God speaks to me in my life, but I do know this. Each and every one of us has been given a story to share with people. And I love sharing this story with people, especially when they have really tough problems like being in hospitals with cancer. And they have challenges and they look at me and they say, Robin, do you think that God still heals? I say, absolutely. I wouldn't be here if God did not heal divinely and miraculously. Now, I know I'm ugly, but I'm a miracle on two legs. I say that I know that age 16, when I had spinal meningitis, and when I was given up for dead and I didn't even know if I was going to make it through the night, and everybody done what they could for me and then left me alone, and when I closed my eyes, I did not know if I was going to wake up the next morning. But I do remember that night, my folks were a family of faith, you know, Jack and Tommy, and they gave me to God as their teenager. My brother had already died some years before, so I was the only surviving kid. And they gave me to God in faith. I had the oil anointed on my head. I had the laying on of hands by a very brave man who came over knowing that I was sick, and still came in that room and anointed and laid hands on me. You know, many of you have been around spinal meningitis and know about it. And I remembered I went to sleep. And in the morning, about five o'clock, five o'clock in the morning, you know what? You know the only sound that you hear in the morning at five o'clock in the morning?

Is a mockingbird. I don't know if it's like that in your neighborhood, but it is in mine. The old famous mockingbird. My eyes were closed. My eyes were closed. And your eyes have been closed before when those crazy mockingbirds go off. But that mockingbird, I will never forget the sound of that mockingbird. And to me, to me, that was God speaking to me and beginning to lead me as a teenager to give my life to Him and to you as a minister of Jesus Christ. Now, I never wanted to be a minister. If you grew up where I did in Pasadena, the last thing you ever wanted to do was be a minister. Doug will remember that. We were in the same parochial school together. But that it was the beginning of the journey. And I know that God was speaking, reminding me, why did He put that mockingbird? I can't get that note of that mockingbird out of my head. It will be with me until the day that I die. Because it was an instrument of God to let me know that I was alive and had been healed so that I could share my story for the rest of my life. That there's a God above that gave a son that by His stripes that we are healed. And He is still working the miracles of Acts today in our age. And that, brethren, is what we need to proclaim. We need to share what God is doing and wants to do with humanity and share the story. God may speak to you in a different way. God may come to you in a different way. What I'm asking you, though, is to be sensitive, to be aware, never to limit where that voice of the Holy Spirit is going to come in and say, this is the way, and walk you in it. That's very, very important. You know, I got so excited about it. I'm over time. Let me just share one more thought. The only way that we can do this and have our lives surrendered to God the Father and Jesus Christ, brethren, is to have a neutral heart. What does it mean to have a neutral heart? So often in life, even as good Christian folk, people of the book, religious types, and we think that we're serving God, but are we serving God or are we serving ourselves?

And we can get our life into first gear, into overdrive, thinking that we're doing God a favor. Busy, busy, busy, busy. Back, back, back, back, back. And sometimes the hardest thing for us to do is to put it in a neutral. To put your life in a neutral. Now, being in neutral, there's nothing humanly passive about putting your life in neutral. Just in neutral. It's more that we're either going to put it in overdrive or, okay, God, you just want me to die. You just, or like Paul, you just want me to be stuck in Iconium. So you just put it in Park. God doesn't want me to go anywhere. I'm not going to go anywhere.

Now, I know none of you have ever done that. You've never had that talk with God.

You know I've had that talk with God.

We must, more than ever, I think, put our life's gear into neutral.

And say, God, whatever you want of me, this first fruit, this little petite, called out a season by your grace, first fruit, I will do whatever you want me to.

See, if God is in us within that, what we might call that New Covenant Shekinah miracle, remember in days of old the tabernacle where the Shekinah literally came in? The Shekinah was the presence of God and it would come and it would fill the tabernacle, wouldn't it? With the very presence of God. We today are that temple of God, isn't that what Paul tells us again and again? We're the temple of God. God's Shekinah presence, His essence is inside of us. If it's inside of us, then God doesn't need our ears. But He does need our listening heart.

I want to challenge you. I want to give you some heart work. Because as you leave, this is only the beginning of the rest of your life today. I want to ask every member of our congregation to really consider this coming week, do I have a listening heart? How attuned is my heart? Not my ears. Not what I'm hearing from Mr. Sharp or Mr. Smith or Mr. Miller today or the others that have spoken this weekend.

Not what I'm taking up here in the three little bones in this exterior ear. But is my heart listening?

Because it's understand the Holy Spirit is not just a giver of information. And I think sometimes, if I can be so bold to say this, may I? In the Church of God community, we look at the Holy Spirit as simply being an information conveyor belt. Rather than God's instrument of transformation and that it is telling us to obey God in faith.

Do you hear me?

Are you there? Are you wanting to have a listening heart? Are you wanting to grow? Are you wanting to be this witness that we have desired to be these many years and why even the United Church of God picked up 13 or 14 years ago that we might be this instrument that is in the body of Christ as Mr. Sharp brought out. It's a spiritual organism, but we've galvanized as a collection of believers to preach and to teach. What? Simply doctrine?

There are many people that practice doctrine. Practicing doctrine will not move you into the kingdom of God.

God is not after your head. He's after your heart.

And I believe that in the Church of God more than ever, we need to be challenged in our hearts and to prepare our hearts for greater service. And understand that God has places and things and people that He wants us to meet, but our hearts have got to be prepared. It's got to be activated by the Holy Spirit. We've got to respond to that Holy Spirit, and we've got to be listening to God. Join me if you would. Let's finish thought. Let's go to Acts 16 and finish the story. Conclude.

Acts 16 Because we kind of left Paul in a potential pout.

Big fat no came. No, can't go to Asia. Another big fat no came. No, you can't go to Bithynia.

Verse 8. Let's finish the story. So passing by Mycaea, they came down to Troas. And a vision appeared to them in the night. And a man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with them, saying, Come over to Macedonia and help us.

What do we share here, friends?

God had, by the forbidding of the Holy Spirit, had closed the door on Asia. By the forbidding of the Holy Spirit, He had closed the door on Bithynia.

Paul didn't probably recognize at that moment that the great door was opening to Troy.

And Troy would be the launch pad for the Gospel going over to where? To Europe. Places like Athens and Corinth. And places like Philippi. Book of Philippians. He'd meet the Bereans. We all love the example of the Bereans. All these people that he never thought he was going to go to. So that instead of slamming doors, God was as that good shepherd to the Holy Spirit, guiding Paul to the place where he wanted to be. Paul had a lot of good plans for the Church, but God had the best plans, and He provided the third option. Not Asia. Not Bithynia. But Troy. Question. How many of you out here are ready to go to Troy? Or are we still stuck on Asia in our lives? Stuck on...trying to push our way up to Bithynia. As we leave these services today, thank you for coming. My courage meant to you as one Christian to another is more than ever, have a listening heart to the Holy Spirit of God. It's ready to speak to you.