JUL 3 2020 | Holy Spirit Workshop S1E3 | The Role of the Holy Spirit

Sea Change Church · Holy Spirit Workshop · "The Role of the Holy Spirit" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · July 3, 2020
Genesis 27:30–38
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

It just bugs me when people start their videos with a button press. So even this part will be edited out by me. Well, hey, good to see you, everyone. At the Holy Spirit class, we have not scared you away, which is awesome. Welcome. We are on episode three today of the Holy Spirit class, and we'll be talking a little bit later, asking you some questions about what God's been doing since you've been experimenting. Maybe you have been experimenting. Maybe you have not. One of the people in our church came to me and said, hey, I'm watching the workshop online, and I started praying for dreams.

And I had two really cool dreams, and then I had one that was really super troubling about a person, and I hadn't talked to them for a very long time. And then that morning, the morning after I woke up from the dream, right after I woke up, they texted me, that person. And then another person called me later in the day and said, hey, this person's been on my mind. You want to pray for them? And I haven't spoken to that person for a while. Somewhere real close to that.

But the thing that was interesting is the person who told me this story said they thought they'd experiment. And so they began to ask God to give them dreams, which is a great ask. But one of the things we want to realize is with the Holy Spirit and with Jesus is we want to do a lot of asking. We want to, one of the things, the reasons we get things from God is because we ask of things from God. And so she asked for dreams, and we talked and we processed that.

Now, the reason I bring that up today is because dreams are one way. And I would say if you're going to look at a corpus of how God speaks to us, they are one way in which God speaks to us. But they're probably less reliable than perhaps the word of God. But as we know, people can easily take the word of God and twist it, make it say what it doesn't mean. Just because you quote the Bible doesn't mean it's writer of the Spirit.

So I would say that dreams are part of the way that God speaks to us. But I would say it's a little bit further out in the orbit than, you know, one of the moons that's circling the truth of the Holy Spirit when it speaks to us. It can be a little bit further out, although if it's from God, then it's 100% true. But the Bible also says we only see in part, and we only prophesy in part. So I am always operating with the assumption that whatever I'm hearing from God, I probably got some of it wrong.

Otherwise, we move into this platform of perfection, this platform of you have these hearers, and they have a gift of hearing and soothsaying, I guess would be another way to say it from a cultural way. So whenever I'm hearing from God, I want to check what I hear from the Holy Spirit. Hi, Bruce. I want to check from the Holy Spirit in a multiplicity of ways. And that is how we filter out if we really heard from God.

Now, sometimes we're hearing from God in a moment. So, one example, I was in the backcountry in Big Bear a couple years ago, about five years ago, and I was with a friend, and this guy's motorcycle, we were eating lunch, and we were hiking, and I saw a guy on a motorcycle, and he could not get his motorcycle started. And I just had this sense from the Holy Spirit, it was a thought, I get a lot of thoughts from God in my mind, we'll talk about that.

And the thought was, go lay hands, ask him to lay hands on his motorcycle, so it'll start. And it was about a half hour, he was cussing and upset and the whole thing. And I thought, ah, and this was kind of during my Holy Spirit PTSD time, right, when I really didn't want to be doing those things anymore. But I had done it a lot, and had a lot of moments and experiences with God. So, I went up to him and I said, hey, I'm a Christian, and I feel like God speaks to me sometimes, and I just, can I try something out, do you mind if I just, like, lay hands on your motorcycle and pray?

He's just like, no, anything can get me out of here. I was really surprised at how open he was. So, I lay hands, I give the most meager of prayers. I'm like, Lord, bless the motorcycle, you know, thank you, you know what I mean? I let it start. And then I asked for the keys, plugged it in, and turned it on, and it started going a little bit. It was actually flooded, but it started going a little bit, gave a little bit of throttle, a little bit of throttle.

Within 30 seconds, I am like, brrrr! You know, I'm just winning at that point, you know. Pull it off, and he's all, oh my goodness. He goes, I was going to have to walk home. He goes, I'm going to go find my friends. I'm going to tell all my friends what I'm doing. That's amazing. I'm going to tell all my friends that I met this guy and he prayed for my friends and on. Now, that is just once when the Holy Spirit spoke to me, and I thought, well, it's in the moment.

I don't really have time to check this against Scripture, except the Scriptures I know in my mind. I don't really have time to call a group of counselors to see, is this the right decision? I don't really want to offend this motorcycle rider. In the moment, I just had to make a quick decision. And the more that I have come to know the Holy Spirit, because you will come to know the Holy Spirit, and it'll get easier to hear his voice, the more it'll start being like, hey, I remember there's been like 25 other times this has happened, and I've gone for it, and God has just shown up.

And this is what I've learned. So part of hearing from the Holy Spirit is experimenting. So we're talking about tonight about the role of the Holy Spirit, but the role of the Holy Spirit in regard to us hearing from the Holy Spirit. And then we're going to have a workshop tonight. We're going to do some great social distancing. And we're going to have circles. We're going to break you guys up into two groups. We're going to have a mush pot, and somebody's going to sit in the mush pot, and we're going to give two and a half to three minutes where you hear from God, and you speak to that person what you felt like you heard.

So, look, you're going to use wisdom there. You're going to do your best to step out in faith, but also be wise. But we're going to record each of those so that you can perhaps hear from God from each other and give us an opportunity to try to hear from God. So many times in those situations, somebody has said, I was just going to say that, or I had the exact thing, or you hear afterwards a person that touches something in their life that God's been speaking to them about, and there will be, you know, tears will come or something like that.

There will be these confirmations. This is a workshop, and you can make mistakes in a workshop. We're going to be really have a lot of grace with each other, and we're going to do our best to try to hear from the Holy Spirit. And from this point on, this class is going to start, excuse me, this workshop is going to start to throttle up. We're going to start to actually step out and do things in faith. Eventually, we're going to end up praying, worshiping in the streets somewhere.

We're going to do some other workshop exercises and experiences. But this is the Holy Spirit, and today we're talking about the role of the Holy Spirit in regard to speaking to you, in regard to drawing you near to the Father, in regard to teaching you and counseling you how to make decisions in your life. And so one of the things we want to make sure that we're balancing is an idea to hear from the Scriptures and also balance that with hearing in our spirits and in our mind when the Holy Spirit speaks to us.

We'll talk a little bit about that. There is a tendency, because the Word of God is tactile, because the Word of God is a written thing that you can hold and look at, you can study it and study the Greek. There's this tendency to highly value the Word of God, even beyond the Holy Spirit speaking to your heart directly. Now, I'll talk about how when the Holy Spirit speaks to us, the Bible is being given to us so we can filter that, so we don't get crazy and do things that are anti-biblical.

But we need to balance the ability to experience and know God alongside of being able to only hear from the Scripture. And there are a lot of movements who only hear from the Scripture. Now, they will say that the Scripture is being Spirit-led, and the Scripture is one way God leads us. We're going to talk through that today. Before we do, let's just pray. Lord Jesus, we just want to invite you. So let's just invite the Lord.

You can put your hands out or however you want to do, whatever posture of your heart, and just say, Spirit, I just invite you. We just invite you. Holy Spirit, come Holy Spirit. We invite you, Spirit. Come Holy Spirit. Just welcome a man right now. Even if you're online, some around the world listening to this, same Spirit, transcendent. Just allow us to be transcendent tonight, God. Holy Spirit, just open the posture of your heart to Him.

Just take a big breath. Like Harry did on Sunday, just take a big breath. Breathe in the Spirit. Exhale all the stuff of the day. The Spirit lead us and direct us. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Greg, would you do me a favor, Greg? Would you close that back door for us? Because we will get a motorcycle or one of those gardeners with a blower here at some point, I would imagine, knowing us. I'm going to start with John in the Scripture, John 14.

Jesus speaks in John 14. It's in your notes. About the role of the Holy Spirit. The role of the Holy Spirit. And he says a lot. This is a big pericope. This is a big portion of Scripture. I'm going to pull some chunks out of it. It's great for you to go home and meditate on Scripture. One of the ways we hear from God is meditating on Scripture. And then He will speak to us through the Scriptures. But it has become the primary way the majority of Western Christians hear from God.

And they don't hear from God in other ways. And I think that God speaks through tons of it. I mean, a multiplicity, an eternal amount of ways. It says He speaks to us through creation. It says creation cries out. That creation was the Bible before the Bible existed. Creation was the Scriptures before the Scriptures existed. And creation still cries out today. And you can hear from God in nature. We know about that. It talks about that in Romans 1 and chapter 2.

Let me read this, though. Verse 16, chapter 14 of John. Now, this is Jesus speaking. And He says, I will ask the Father. If you can, circle the Father. The Father is in this passage six to ten times, somewhere in that number. The Father. So when Jesus speaks about the Holy Spirit, in this passage, it is richly packaged amongst language of the Father. A paternal Father and the Holy Spirit. We are a Trinitarian church.

But it says, I will ask the Father and He will give you, it's a gift, He will give you another helper. A comforter. Now, this is the Amplified Bible, which means comforter, advocate, intercessor, counselor, strengthener, one who stands by you. And He will be with you forever. Circle that word if you have a pen. Forever. Really, really key. The Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive and take to its heart because it does not know, see Him or know Him.

But you know Him because He is the Holy Spirit who remains in you continually and will be with you forever. Continually. That word is actually eons, which we'll look at in a moment. Really important. You're seeing a Holy Spirit who is guiding you from now to eternity. The same Spirit that you are experiencing now is the same Spirit you will be experiencing in eternity. We have to get away from this unbiblical idea that we serve a different, lighter form of the Spirit here on earth than we will experience in heaven.

That it is a spiritual journey and it's the same Spirit that you will be serving for eons. It says, and then Jesus says, which is interesting, this fatherly child language, He's wrapping it in a context of Father. This Holy Spirit role. He's talking about the role of the Holy Spirit. He's wrapping it up in an idea of fatherless children and a father who wants to give you a comforter and I'm not going to leave you and you are not orphaned.

Which is a really unique thing. You think if you're just going to teach on the Holy Spirit and the role of the Spirit, why all this stuff about Dad? Why all this stuff about you not being an orphan? What does that have to do about anything? Well, it really has to do with the absolute role of the Holy Spirit. We'll speak about it in a moment. But the Holy Spirit is speaking to you from a platform of you discovering your father.

So we see that here. And it says, Jesus says, I will not leave you as orphans. Which means comfortless, bereaved, and helpless. I will come back to you and after a little while the world will no longer see me but you will see me because I live in you and you live in me also. On that day, when the time comes, you will know for yourself that I am in my father and you are in me and I am in you. So the word know, you will know.

If you can circle the word know. I think a lot of Christians feel like we can never know. That's another point we'll talk about in a moment. I'm setting this up. But this understanding that Jesus says, I want you to know. I really want you to know things. I want you to know in your heart. Deeper, you know, just this deep understanding. So there is a way that he wants to send the Holy Spirit to communicate with you so that you will actually know something.

But not walk around all the time in the dark thinking, well, did the Holy Spirit speak to you? I'm not really sure. I don't know if I'm even supposed to know. You are supposed to know. The sheep will know his voice and we want to live upon a paradigm that God, Jesus, did not die on the cross so that he could go play hide and seek with you. Jesus didn't die on the cross to make it harder to find him. He died on the cross so that the Holy Spirit might not live away from you in a temple made by man somewhere but within you and that you have direct access to the throne of God and the Holy Spirit will make known to you what you need to know in the time that you need to know it.

Jesus has made it very clear that he will let you know everything you need to know when you need to know it if you are following a certain set of conditions. We won't go into all that tonight but part of it has to do with holiness, getting away from sin, seeking his face, but if we are doing those things you will know everything you were supposed to know. Go to verse 23. Jesus answered, If anyone really loves me he will keep my word.

That's one of the if statements. My Father will love him. We will come to him and make our dwelling place with him. We meaning the Trinity. One who does not really love me does not keep my words and the word which you hear is not mine but it is the Father's who sent me. So there is this context. If you're going to hear from the Holy Spirit there needs to be obedience. One of the key things of hearing from the Holy Spirit is walking in obedience.

People come to me all the time and often and say I don't hear from God. Can you help me hear from God? And I just want to start with this question. Do you know that God has told you certain things in your life that you should not be doing? Yes. Are you following that instruction? No I haven't. I still have them in my life. So you are hearing from God and sometimes the platform to the next level of revelation because God leads in levels of revelation.

You'll even see that in scripture. In heaven there's these levels of revelation that he gives. The primary starting point for a relationship with the Holy Spirit is obedience. Starting with obedience and actually doing the things that you know he has said to do. So these are these if statements. These if and statements that if you do this and you do this then you will understand me. So it's wrapped in obedience but it's also wrapped in this understanding of knowing God as a father.

Let's skip down to verse 25. I've told you these things while I'm still with you but the helper which means comforter, advocate, intercessor, counselor, strengthener, the one who stands by you like a lawyer, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send key you can circle the Father will send the Holy Spirit to you in my name in my place to represent me and act on my behalf he will teach you all things he will perfect you in peace and my peace I give to you not as the world gives to you my peace I leave with you do not let your hearts be troubled and then it says do not let your hearts be troubled nor let it be afraid let my perfect peace calm you in every circumstance and give you courage and strength for every challenge you heard me tell you I'm going away and I'm coming back to you if you really loved me you would have rejoiced because I am going back to the Father the Father is greater than I it goes on where he talks more about the Father and then he says let us go but the thing that I wanted to start from the primary platform that I want to start with tonight is that if you look in your notes you'll see this on the second page of your notes is understanding that your relationship with the Holy Spirit is primary purpose of the Holy Spirit or the primary purpose of the Holy Spirit is to connect you and ground you to a Father God for eternity I should have put loving Father God the whole purpose of the Holy Spirit to know the Holy Spirit now there are elements of purpose beyond that in the temporal world this is a temporal world that we live in and in that temporal world God has given us things to do where the Holy Spirit will work with us but even this world will pass away so the primary purpose can't be so that we could live really well and powerful in the power of the Holy Spirit in the temporal that can't be the overarching purpose of the Holy Spirit there is an overarching purpose of the Holy Spirit that if you understand that overarching purpose you will live with a bigger vision of what God's doing in your life than just seeing is I need the Holy Spirit because I'm in spiritual battle in this world and I need words from the Lord and I need comfort in the moment and I'm living and the Holy Spirit gets boiled down to your life in the moment and the timeline of your life and what God's doing in this moment the Holy Spirit's purpose is partially that but the overall arcing purpose and where I really want you to go global in your thinking of the Holy Spirit is that the primary platform of the Holy Spirit is to introduce you to continually lead you to a Father God a Father who loves you for eternity now if we look at this it says in the verse 14 it says excuse me if you go to chapter 14 where is it said I gave that word eons let me see where I found it I did not oh there it is so if you go to verse 17 about halfway through it says but you know him that's God the Father because the Holy Spirit remains in you and continually and will be with you continually be with you when I look up that word continually or forever it meant that this same Holy Spirit like I said a moment ago will be with you for eons that's the exact word and so as we think about the Holy Spirit and this workshop of a class I want you to understand that your relationship with the Holy Spirit is an eternal relationship not just in this moment it is bigger than that now besides understanding that the primary job is for you to know your Father and to connect you to a Father in everything that you do every time whether you pray for someone and they're healed whether you're in a time of deliverance whether God gives you a dream whatever your relationship whether you just sit and you get the peace of the Holy Spirit on you or you walk in the fruits of the Spirit whatever happens in your relationship with the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit is always going to bring you bring glory to the Father and try to bring you closer to the Father we don't want to compartmentalize the Holy Spirit where we have a Holy Spirit relationship that doesn't lead us to the Father and so we tend to do that we tend to like we have Jesus people they're just really into Jesus and then we have Father people they're just all about the Father but the law and the love of a Father and then we have the Spirit and some people are just chasing the Spirit constantly if you chase the Spirit you will regularly end up at the feet of the Father and so your relationship with the Holy Spirit is one of fatherhood and one that the Holy Spirit wants to lead you to the entire if you go on I talked a moment ago I put in the notes it says we cannot separate our view of the Holy Spirit's work in the world from this patriarchal view I know patriarchy has a I mean it has a besmirched meaning now in our culture but just because the culture thinks something doesn't mean it's biblically correct God has set himself up for one reason or another I mentioned this in a Sunday sermon recently as a loving father and if you had ever experienced a loving father like God as a loving father you would never have a problem with patriarchy why God didn't set himself up as a loving mother and base the entire world on a matriarchy I can't tell you do I think he could have done that absolutely if he would have chosen to but for some reason God chose to reveal himself to us as father and as a loving father and the Holy Spirit will try to continue to move us back to that place and this is why the Christian view of family means that it is not a necessity but one of our highest goals is to bless fatherhood and motherhood but to have you know there's a ministry called every every home I was listening to who's the T.D. Jakes the African American bishop and he's had a ministry that he was doing that said every every kid needs a dad every child needs a father and so if you want to understand you cannot separate father from our journey to follow the Holy Spirit or from the faith itself and so this is so interesting so you can go back and look more through that but it's just something that I thought was interesting that when Jesus talked about the role of the Holy Spirit which we'll talk about more we're going to go into hearing him how we hear from the Holy Spirit that is inseparable from our understanding as father and as that here's the origins of the Holy Spirit if you look at the very origin of where we get the Holy Spirit from where does the Holy Spirit come from now we know that the Holy Spirit was in Genesis it was hovering over the water but if you were to ask people how did the Holy Spirit come into my life how did I get the Holy Spirit well I received Jesus and Jesus gave me the Holy Spirit it's incorrect scripturally why do you have the Holy Spirit because the father sent you the Holy Spirit the father sent you the gift of the Holy Spirit John 14 16 it says and I will ask so Jesus asked in submission to the father and he will give you another helper this is the Holy Spirit so why do we have the Holy Spirit because God himself sent the Holy Spirit that we might walk in power now let's look at what the Holy Spirit means now we see the origins and we see the framework so the framework is this eternal spirit that you were connected to eternity and you were connected to history in the back you know in all directions in the love of the father who has sent you the spirit and he sent you the paracletos now this is a Strong's reference Strong's if you don't know is a concordance of Greek words if you look up blue letter Bible on Google you can start looking up different words and they'll give you a number every word in the New Testament has a number based upon a Greek word every Greek word's been given a number and then it breaks it down so let's look at paracletos paracletos is a Greek word for the Holy Spirit it is the number is 3844 so if you wanted to find this you can just put in Strong's 3844 in Google or in Duck Duck Go or whatever and it'll come up and it says that the definition for the Holy Spirit is close and beside now this is something we're constantly wanting to develop we're wanting to develop an intimacy with the Holy Spirit we're wanting to develop a closeness there's lots of things that remove us from this intimacy many of us are terrified of this intimacy I want to say one of the things I know about watching really good fathers with their kids daughters that if you have a really strong father who's loving who's not harsh who really represents the kind of father that God is not that we will ever do that but I have found especially with raising girls myself that it allows them to have a stronger sense of intimacy as opposed to being afraid of intimacy it actually gives them more strength boundaries and it isn't hard for me to find a woman who I know has had a good father it never was matter of fact when I was even running away from the Lord and in the bar scene it was seriously when I was it was really easy I'd meet a girl I don't know why I thought this as an 18 or 19 year old in the bar scene in Mexico why I would meet a girl and I would think she must come from a broken home I can just tell it's in the way that she talks it's in her own self image I could just tell I'm not saying I was always right but there was this sense of intimacy and closeness that the Holy Spirit wants to bring that comes from also having an intimacy with the Father so when we have an intimacy with the Father it also presents an environment in our own lives where we invite the Holy Spirit as well to be close besides us so we want to walk next to him and it says that this word also allows us to make a call and what that means by that is when we walk in closeness you will be able to make a decision on whatever you're doing in the moment because you're based in this intimacy and in this closeness to the paraclete who is next to you to make a call to make a decision so there's a closeness of a counselor who's walking right beside you properly it's a legal advocate advocate now this is important because the Holy Spirit works upon the laws of God and the laws of God are just and true and have power and so when the Holy Spirit speaks to us and we follow what the Holy Spirit does it comes with authority and power it says the legal advocate who makes the right judgment call because he's close enough to the situation Holy Spirit is close enough to the situation and the closer that we are to the Holy Spirit who understands every situation completely the closer the more understanding and the more we will live in truth paracletos is an advocate advisor helper it's a regular term in the New Testament of an attorney a lawyer someone who is giving evidence that stands up in court so there's this sense of really having stability when you're following the Holy Spirit that you won't be double minded you'll have this strength it'll be like you have roots into the ground because the Holy Spirit will give you wise counsel that we filter through different ways we'll talk about that in just a second but it'll give you a stability so as you walk in the Holy Spirit we don't want to follow models of the Holy Spirit that cause us to be unhinged I've met a lot of people in the Holy Spirit movement that they're just they seem emotionally and mentally unhinged always chasing the Spirit always some new conspiracy theory of what the devil is doing always running around it just feels manic to me it just feels absolutely manic we'll see in a moment here that when the Spirit comes the Spirit brings a place of peace one of the ways to know that you're walking with the Holy Spirit is you will have a sense of peace in your Spirit itself so we see that with the Spirit that it is grounding it is based in truth and as we'll show in just a moment it will bring peace now I want to talk about a massive barrier and here's one of the barriers I think for believers especially in working with the Holy Spirit the question is do you have faith in the Holy Spirit like you have faith in Jesus we have faith in Jesus many people would say I have faith that Jesus saved me from my sins but if you were to ask them do you have faith that the Holy Spirit speaks to you and you regularly can know what he is telling you to do understand it and act appropriately many people will say no I don't know because I don't even know if he speaks to me and when he does I kind of like think well maybe that's a coincidence I don't really step into it I'm not really sure I mean it's not as sure as like getting a Bible verse like if somebody gives me a Bible verse I feel really you know you feel really connected to it because it is something that you can actually kind of see and touch and control one of the major barriers is we just don't believe that the Holy Spirit speaks to us nor do we trust it when we hear and walk from a place well this is this is how I wrote it when it comes to the Holy Spirit most believers and I put most at least in the Western world that I have found start from a place of disbelief when relating to the counsel of the Holy Spirit rather than a platform of proactive faith you'll get a thought you should do this you'll get an idea you'll have a dream you'll have something will happen in your life where God is just crying out he's speaking to you and you'll be like I'm not not too sure about that and you so you start from this place of doubting that God actually speaks to us the prime one of the primary things and if you want to start a you know have a class fill up at a conference and you're speaking do it on hearing the direction of God or hearing the voice of God because when you do that people are thirsty to hear the voice of God and they don't feel like they can or they don't feel that they do so what I wanted to say is as we're moving forward and as we have our experiment tonight I want you to flip to an idea of like I'm not sure if that's God to I'm pretty sure that might be God and let's not make it definitive I'm pretty sure that might be God but that is on your front foot as opposed to I'm probably wrong it's probably not God as we are doing this workshop I want you to assume that what you are hearing is from the Lord we're going to tell you how to filter that so if it violates some of the principles of the word or different things then obviously that's not true I had someone come to me once and the Holy Spirit shared to me that my wife that I'm with I married the wrong person and there's this other person that God they had these different reasons and I was just like no no that whole thinking God's not going to do that that violates the word of God that's a no okay well they were convinced and they went off and did what they wanted to do which is what most people generally do anyways and then we build frameworks of theology to support what we want to do so I'm not saying that because that is obviously something that would hold us back but I want you to start acting as if God speaks to you just do it for six weeks six more weeks God spoke to you so you're driving down the street you get a thought in your mind or in your spirit two different places one or the other in your heart and something just says go back and apologize to the person whatever or pull the car over and give that person fifteen dollars or turn off that show or do this positive or give a hundred dollars to unity for orphans or whatever it is you have this we want to we want to just start from a platform that that's God and I want you just to do it if it's not violating anything and it's not going to injure anybody then the only thing that can go wrong is your own personal pride that you feel like you screwed something up or messed it up or made a mistake or whatever but we want to step into that it is a place and that's a massive barrier Jesus says in verse 25 and 26 I have told you these things while I'm still here but the helper comforter advocator intercessor counselor strengthener the one who stands by the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my place he will teach you all things do you believe that do you believe that the Holy Spirit actually won't just kind of give you a suggestion that might be right or that you're not really sure no the Bible says that he will teach you everything you need to do all things not some things all things he will teach you and you will know it God does not give us he is not a God of unknowing he doesn't it isn't if you read the scripture we don't follow a faith where we're supposed to wander around in the dark and think maybe that was God faith it actually says becomes a substance it becomes real faith at some point you trust it so much that it actually becomes real why does faith become more real than this pew I said this a few weeks ago in one of the sermons because this pew will pass away and not be in eternity but faith in God will last forever and so something that is of God that will last forever actually is a substance it has more reality than something you can touch or see we want to try to start living into that reality believing that the Holy Spirit was sent to us that we might be taught what to do and how to live turning the corner now moving on before we come in for a landing here I want to talk about understanding the Holy Spirit's role as a teacher and this word teacher I think it's diados I was trying to pronounce I think it's diados but this understanding role of a teacher is to instruct or to impart knowledge now this is really interesting if you look at the word as a western church especially if you grew up in a church that wasn't really focused on the Holy Spirit you're going to be there's going to be a huge emphasis on teaching on having the word of God and teaching the word of God because you can read it you can see it it's definable it's it's the word it's it's something I talked about this in the sermon last week but part of the meaning of the word teaching is that he imparts knowledge to you is it possible that God can impart knowledge to you without using words is it possible that God can impart truth to you without you being able to see it understand it or he can give you knowledge about something you don't even understand or give you peace beyond your understanding or do we always need the Bible in order to lead us now if the Bible is necessary to always lead us then how were the apostles led before they wrote the Bible you see Peter Paul they had the Old Testament scriptures there was no New Testament teaching they were making it up as they went now you could say it's the apostolic age and obviously they wrote these things down and it was the apostolic age and God did that let me give you another example what if it is 1922 and you're in Russia someone leads you to Christ right before you're sent to the Siberian gulags you have no Bible you've never studied the scriptures and now you're a Christian in a gulag trying to follow Jesus but you don't have a Bible guess you can't follow Jesus is that true no it's not true why because the Holy Spirit is able to guide us now thank God he gave us the word of God because it gives us confidence it's such a beautiful tool the scripture is the most beautiful book in the world it's unbelievable it leads us to all truth I love the Bible but does God speak to us outside of the Bible absolutely and so learning to hear the multiplicity of ways that God speak if you go into the into the desert if you go into the forest if you sit in silence sometimes if you watch a movie sometimes if you listen to music all of a sudden God starts to speak to you beyond the word of God and so I'm not saying that we don't use the word of God but I want to say that God speaks to you outside of the word of God and everything he speaks to you that is of God will be backed up by the word of God that's why it's important we know but it is important to understand that if you didn't have a Bible and no access to a Bible and you didn't know the Bible you could still have the Spirit of God to lead you into all truth and you'd have to get very good at hearing and experiencing the Spirit through different manners let's talk about these four ways oh before I do that and I said this a moment ago anything the Holy Spirit teaches you that's occasionally he will trouble our spirits for a reason there'll be like a upsetness that comes with it but the majority of the time that something is from the Spirit you will feel peace Jesus in this teaching on the role of the Holy Spirit keeps throwing in things that shouldn't be there throws in this thing about a father throws in this thing about orphans and then he throws in this thing about peace like no you know I need a counselor I need an advocate I need a teacher I need all these things in life verse 27 in the middle of this teaching on the role of the Holy Spirit he says oh and by the way my peace I leave with you my perfect peace I give to you not as the world gives do I give to you what I have found is that when the Holy Spirit instructs me beyond teaching me but he instructs me in one way or another I will know it because it'll come with peace not long ago I had a business decision and I was frustrated with how the person was reacting and everything in me said they need to pay the price I'm not gonna I'm not gonna relent on this and it was righteous and it was true and it was right and I was I was right I know I was right I know I was scripturally right but something in my heart said no give grace take the loss yourself it was not just for me to take the loss because I wasn't the person who did anything wrong they were it wasn't right it wasn't true but something told me to take the loss and it came with this incredible sense of peace when I said okay I took the loss and in the end it ended up working way better in my favor than it ever could have worked out what I want to tell you is when you're hearing when you're trying to discern what the spirit is saying to you it comes with peace if you are in a relationship with somebody and you're trying to convince yourself let's say you're not married you're dating you're trying to convince yourself that it's the right relationship if you settle down you will know very quickly in your heart if this is the right person or not there will be a sense of a peace about it that comes with it or there'll be a sense of attention follow the peace one of the one of my if I can give you anything tonight when it comes to making decisions for life or following the Holy Spirit which is both follow the peace always follow the peace the peace has never let me down the quiet still voice peace of God and when the Holy Spirit comes and instructs you he comes with peace that's why Jesus threw it in to this pericope this teaching on the scripture four ways we hear from the Holy Spirit and then we're done and we're going to hear from him as a group how does the Holy Spirit teach us well there's four primary platforms of communication I these are my four primary platforms there's many God I've been really interested in the idea of God speaking to us through colors I know this is interesting but there was this little girl I knew and she passed away from cancer but before she died she had this she was laying in her deathbed her parents were with her and she started speaking about colors God and color God because he made God made all the colors God says it to the colors we're not even in touch with it so she went off and she spoke about colors and I've been really interested with just how God can communicate through a color like this is just like trying to expand my whole thinking not that I'm going to build a theology based on the colors of God because we don't really see it in the Bible but how does God speak to us in these four primary ways and so God can speak to us in a lot of ways but the four primary ones that I found are this one through the spirit testifying to your spirit so in your spirit we'll talk about that in a second through your mind the mind and the spirit are different the heart is related to the spirit the mind of the spirit two different places where God speaks to and we want to have a unison between the mind of Christ and the spirit the Holy Spirit that dwells and testifies with our spirit you want those things to be in synchronicity one of the issues we have right now one of the reasons I think we have so much mental illness in regard to anxiety depression and these whole things is because we have people that have had broken hearts from the broken family and so we shut our hearts off and we live a mental life and the mind when it doesn't have the heart as a yoke an oxen and a yoke the heart and the mind are supposed to work together the mind has to do all this extra work on its own because the heart has been closed off and so you're trying to figure out things with your mind but you're not living from your heart and then all of a sudden you have anxiety that all these things start coming in and breaking that's why we have broken minds it breaks our minds so but God's the spirit speaks us to the spirit in our spirits through our minds through God's word obviously through the scripture really important and then also I put number four for the council of others I could have had a list of 20 ways God speaks to us here's four that I want you to really focus on as we go through this workshop through the spirit our spirit through our minds through God's word and through the council of others let's look at the first one with with our spirits in Romans 8 16 it says the Holy Spirit the spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God you're it was somewhere here I don't know where it all exists feels like it exists near my heart somewhere your spirit your very essence the spirit of life when you when that when you lose the ghost they saw when your Holy Spirit you know goes up when your spirit leaves your body you're dead life is in the spirit and God breathed life into us through the spirit and the reason life exists is because of the spirit of God living within you so somewhere within us there is this spirit this spirit has truth and understanding of God tattooed all over it we'll give you a verse for that in a moment this spirit in here is desperate to connect to its father and is desperate to hold hands to connect with the Holy Spirit it's searching constantly to be transcendent your spirit wants to be transcendent it cannot be transcendent on its own although it is eternal until it actually connects with the Holy Spirit so it says that the spirit will bear will testify to your spirit this means that sometimes without words the Holy Spirit will have something that he wants to communicate to you and he will somehow I don't know how he does it communicate to your spirit and just in the core of your being and it's hard to explain these things with words because we're talking about things that there aren't really words to explain but somewhere in in the midst of that while that's happening he will testify to your spirit and you will know deep in your core this is truth this is right this is wrong because in our hearts God has written his law upon our hearts which means also upon our spirits all of your spirits have the law of God the law that Moses gave let me just give you a a scripture to back that up Romans 2 14 and 15 indeed when the Gentiles who do not have the law this would be talking about people that lived on the Hawaiian islands 2,000 years ago do by nature what the law requires they are a law to themselves even though they do not have the law that's what that means is if you think about a native Hawaiian 2,000 years ago the law of God is written on everyone's heart how do we know in every society that murder is wrong how does every society every single one know the same thing that all throughout we all have the same core where does where does morality come from this is one of the big arguments as I'm speaking to people in the world recently I'm like where does love come from tell me what is it tethered to where does it you can't tell me where it comes from or what it is it says that there is these things that are tethered to our spirit that we have this law and it says that they do things these people when people do things that are that the law moves them towards they it says in verse 15 since they show the work of the law is written on their hearts their conscience also bear witness and their thoughts either accuse them or defend them what this scripture actually says is this let me just break it down super easy that if you have a person who's a native Hawaiian 2,000 years ago and something in their spirit says don't murder and they move towards and they won't murder somebody and be kind to your neighbor and all the things that are written the very law that is written on their hearts if they do those things when they die they will be judged before God and they don't have the law and they don't have Jesus God will judge them according to whether they followed the law that was on their hearts and it will be the testimony and they will be saved even without Jesus even without the law because they followed the law that was written on their hearts and they will judge them how God weighs that out all out I don't know why do I tell us this because sometimes the spirit will God will speak to you and you'll just know that's the right thing to do so as you're hearing through this from the spirit over the next week or so as you work with this if you get a strong sense in your heart the spirit testifying to your spirit about things that are righteous things that are right you just get a feeling pay attention to that it'll usually be backed up by scripture pay attention to the spirit the spirit will testify to your spirit there'll be a simpatico that is happening there the other is through our minds Romans 8 5 and 6 says those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh but those who live according to the spirit set their minds on the things of the spirit the mind of the flesh is death but the mind of the spirit is life once again and peace God will speak to you through your mind I oftentimes get thoughts I want to give an example I had a guy come forward for prayer one time big tall kid he was about six foot four something like that and he was standing there and as God said came up he said the Lord told me he's he's a swimmer so he comes up I'm on the prayer team and he walks up and I said hey nice to meet you I gotta pray for you and I go hey by the way just are you are you a swimmer he's up yeah how'd you know I'm a swimmer I said you know I don't know why but it's like the Holy Spirit told me that and then Lord said well he's the captain of the team and I said are you the captain of your swim team yeah how'd you know the captain don't know I just saw a picture of the captain I saw a picture in my mind I had to captain on this you know you're wearing the thing and the whole deal and I don't even know what happened after like there was no I don't even know where that went but the Holy Spirit just gave me he just spoke to my mind he just gave me a thought sometimes the Holy Spirit will speak to your mind I'm a visual person God speaks to me in pictures recently I had a picture of someone in the federal government asking forgiveness for the sins of the federal government and this government official was washing the feet of indigenous Americans of white Appalachians people who are in poverty induced systems that are stuck because of the system white people in Appalachia it was African-American it was also in Chinese representing those that were buried underneath the railroads as we built the railroad system through America and they were not asking forgiveness because of the color of their skin they were asking forgiveness for an unjust governmental system that has put systems in place that has you know caused atrocities and sometimes that was just a picture so I began to pray into that picture do I do I know if that's a God sent that to me well I could say maybe not but gosh it's not a bad thing to pray right so I just been praying into that it's like a I would call it a not an open vision where like you've seen it I've only had one of those an open vision that was when I was having a heart attack at one point we'll talk about that another time but I had an open vision come up in front of me but the majority of visions that I've had are just thoughts in my head just like you would think think of yourself right now swimming in the ocean boom you just did it same thing I get the exact same thing God speaks to my mind he instructs me and he gives me ideas and partners with me sometimes he speaks to me in my mind and then it affirms with my spirit and I feel like this boom in my mind yes that's right and then I go back to the word of God and I find that those things are right and those things are true so God speaks to our spirit he speaks to our minds and he speaks through God's word obviously God's word says all scripture 2nd Timothy 3 16 and 17 all scripture is God breathed and useful for teaching rebuking correcting training and righteousness so that servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work obviously the word of God we want to spend a lot of time in the word of God knowing the word of God directing us and giving us counsel but like I said earlier just because you have the word of God doesn't mean you're going to know what to do with it you have to be led by the spirit the Bible is of no use if it is not led by the spirit who testifies to your mind and to your heart and to your spirit the Bible is of no use to you if you don't have a way to translate it and understand it it is the spirit of God that actually takes the tool of the Bible and allows us to understand it it also allows us to look at what we decide to see if it is godly and right and then finally another way we hear from people through the counsel of others Proverbs 15 22 without consultation plans are frustrated but with many counselors they succeed one of the best ways to figure out what God is doing is to go to people that you respect and ask what they think now at some point you just need to stop doing that because it just gets confusing but to listen to people and then take it away and say yes that resonates with my spirit God will speak to you directly through your mind God will speak to you directly through your spirit God will speak you directly Holy Spirit will speak to you directly through the word of God and through the counsel of others tonight we're going to take our five-minute break right now and then we're going to circle up where we get a chance to hear from God in our spirits in our minds and then we're going to have somebody in the mush pot they're going to have to be very brave we'll have a few people they will sit in the middle and then we will do three minutes where you share words we'll record it have them recorded on their phone and see what God speaks to us through the counsel of others I'll give some more tips on that in just a moment but until then that is tonight's teaching and we're going to move into the workshop portion where we're going to be speaking over each other if you need to use the restroom tonight you