JUL 16 2023 | Paul’s Third Missionary Journey S1E7 | Eutychus Raised from the Dead at Troas

Sea Change Church · Paul's Third Missionary Journey S1E7 · "Eutychus Raised from the Dead at Troas" · July 16, 2023
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

The book of Acts chapter 20, verses seven through 12. On the first day of the week, we came together to break bread. Paul spoke to the people and because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight. There were many lamps in the upstairs room where we were meeting. Seated in a window was a young man named Utica, who was sinking into a deep sleep.

As Paul talked on and on when he was sound asleep, he fell to the ground from the third story and was picked up dead. Paul went down, threw himself on the young man and put his arms around him. Don't be alarmed, he said he's alive. Then he went upstairs again and broke bread and ate. After talking until daylight, he left. The people, took the young man home alive and were greatly comforted.

This is the word of the Lord. Well, good morning. If you have your Bibles open up to Acts 27 through 12. You'll also find in your notes there we are following Paul, uh, through his third missionary journey. He has finally left Ephesus. He's on his way to troas, uh, and headed down and continuing to do the things that Paul do, uh, preach the word in power, continue to walk in signs and wonders, uh, bore people to death. With his public speaking. Actually, he preaches into death. And Paul actually says that in the scripture. He says, I'm not really eloquent with my words. And he had a tendency to drone on.

And so as you see in this scripture, he boredom Utica to death. I mean, literally preached the guy to death, okay? And it can happen. I've had it happen. Well, I've gotten close, you know, at least in a slight coma on occasion, Paul goes down and then Paul do what Paul do. He prays for the power of God. And Utica is raised from the debt.

He's walking in God's power. There's a debate in Christianity. There has been for a long time. Um, whether the power of God and miracles exist today. If it's something that's relevant for believers today, we're gonna try to maybe answer that question or at least, uh, put some thoughts, uh, on your plate to think through. But what I will say in regard to our secular world and, and some of the Christian followers is this.

We're living in the age of the ordinary. We're living in an age of the understood what we can understand, living in an age of the common, the mundane, the predictable, the routine, the regular and the rote. What I mean by that is while people are, have a huge need to experience something transcendent are culture seems to be anchored in what we can know or prove.

Even though if those things that we're told we can know or prove are disproven, unproven on a regular basis, until we can find the next thing we're told we can believe in, and then we believe in that thing, the Bible offers us a glimpse into something that is transcended. It offers us something into the power of God. The nature of God.

And today I wanna talk about living in that transcendence, or at least being open to what is transcendent. Uh, we're gonna look at the, uh, at the, excuse me. We're gonna look at miracles, and there's gonna be three things we're going to look at today. You'll see these in your notes. The first thing I'm gonna look at is miracles.

Often follow the teaching of God's word. Now, I wanna expand that because since I wrote that on Thursday and night, I've expanded it. Miracles, often follow the things of God. God's things like prayer, like worship, like unity, the things of God are steeped in his power. And when you immerse yourself into the things of God that are powerful, uh, it seems to set the table and be a fuel for miracles.

We'll see that here in just a moment. Paul was preaching and then a miracle happens. Jesus oftentimes would teach and then he'd heal. Not always the case, but oftentimes in the scripture, you're going to see the table be set for miracles by the things of God preaching the word and things of that nature. The first thing is miracles, often follow, I would say, if you wanna cross that out and put the, the, um, the things of God or teaching the word of God. Number two, miracles.

Follow faith. Faith is always a component of miracles. So we'll talk through that. Uh, faith in the importance of faith. You can circle the word faith. And then number three, Paul operated in the naturally supernatural. What I mean by naturally supernatural, uh, first thing we wanna look at today is what are miracles? I wanna give you a definition for what miracles are.

Miracles are a supernaturally manifested event or happening, but oftentimes works outside of natural law. Give a quick example. I tore my acl. I've torn my ACL three times, two on my left leg, one on my right, and the second time I tore my acl, I went, uh, was getting ready to go to the surgery and a guy at church came up to me and said, Hey, I had an a c issue and I got healed and I didn't have to have the surgery.

They canceled the surgery. And I said, ah. He goes, can I pray for you? And I'm like, couldn't ha. So I said, okay, praise for me. And I go up to the Scripps Clinic with Dr. Keith from Scripps, um, uh, up here. It's a great surgeon. Worked for the Padres for a long time, uh, put me under to do my knee surgery, um, had the MRI and everything wakes me up. 20 minutes later, my wife was with me.

20 minutes later, he goes, Hey, we went in and we, we had to cancel the surgery because, uh, you had complete, um, restoration of your acl. Um, I would've had to deconstruct your Now I'm like, but I remember this sentence. All right. I'm like, oh, why'd you gimme morphine? What's going on? And he's just like, I would've had to deconstruct your knee to reconstruct your knee.

Never forgot that. I remember laying there in that right up there, um, off the 56. And he said that to me, and they sent me home. And three days later, I was out playing basketball and was out. And I went another 20 years until I actually tore that again. And then that time, God didn't heal me. I prayed again, but I got 20 more great years of a mid-level basketball career without a, without an injury. So I am a mid-level player, but nonetheless, I know my role. St. Augustine says this, miracles are often contrary to nature.

Miracles are not contrary to nature. Excuse me. Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature. That's really key. Let me say, leave that up there. Miracles according to St. Augustine are not contrary to nature, but only what we know about nature. We are living in, uh, a western society after the enlightenment, which is reaching for unknown things, mysticism, astrology, transcendent experiences through microdosing l s d through the more powerful pot, and all these things, the marijuana that people are going for.

And we're reaching for something transcendent. But we living in this, in this, um, juxtaposition, like no, we just, we're just science people. It's gotta be proven and it's gotta be ordinary. It's gotta be common, and it's gotta be something that we understand. And that is a life that is very stable. But I think misses the unknown. I don't think there's anyone, scientists included that would say that we know more than we don't know.

We are going to constantly be living in the unknown, unknown. And so what this passage does is it opens up the world of the unknown for us. And what I wanna do today is maybe crack that door a little bit more for you to think, how much of God's power do I believe in? Am I accessing? Is there more? And how do we actually do that? The signs and wonders, the word signs and wonders are miracles is found in the Bible 56 times, okay?

And as you look at it, you're gonna see signs and wonders. That term is used 29 times in the Bible. It's 13 in the Old Testament, 16 in the new, the term miracles are mentioned 27 times in the entire Bible, 10 in the Old Testament, 17 in the New Testament. You see this from the beginning of creation, which is a miracle. Not mentioned as a miracle, but it is a miracle.

But you see miracles from the start of creation all the way through the Book of Revelation. Now, there is an argument in the church, uh, with a word called dispensationalist or sensationalist cessationist, who believed that these miracles were for a time such as this, but maybe not a time such as we're living in now. And so they would say that it kind of kickstarted the miracles kickstarted the, the earth. It kickstarted the, you know, Jesus work on ministry, and then we'll need it again at the end. Times, I, I have a hard time just common sense, understanding why you have miracles from the beginning all the way through the Old Testament, all the way through the new, every bear in the New Testament and revelation, which is past where we are now.

But God at this moment just says, Nope, nope. Don't need it. Uh, he just pulls it out. I mean, just common sense wise. Um, I ask myself that question, uh, how much you believe in miracles is really going to be up to you. But you do see it mentioned there's a lot of biblical, um, references to miracles. Now, before we dive into this text and three important passages in this text, I wanna say that Jesus gives a real caveat when it comes to miracles.

First of of all, he said, um, you know, woe to you who don't, you know, believe in anything. You know, it says sometimes we'll see that there's a scripture here in a moment that I'll be reading that shows where Jesus says He was amazed at their lack of faith. He wasn't able to do miracles because of their lack of faith. I mean, he created the cosmos, right? Like it takes a lot to amaze Jesus, you know, but it says that he went to a place and he was just amazed.

Like there's not too many times in the scripture where it shows Jesus just being wowed. Like, whoa, he was amazed by their lack of faith. I wanna tell you, you do not want to be in that camp. You do not want to be in the camp of cynicism. I mean, cynicism is one of the worst like traits that you can nourish in your life. You don't wanna be a cynic. He also says, you're not looking for a magic show.

He says to other people, Hey, you know what? All you guys want is miracles. You want me to be a medicine man? You want me to be somebody who is just doing all these miracles and you're chasing miracles. And I've been in different si situations in different places where there's the miracle chase is on. We're looking for the next miracle.

We're looking for the next rema word, we're looking for the next, you know, this thing. And they're, they're just binging more upon the things of God than oftentimes God himself. So Jesus is trying to find a balance. We wanna walk in that balance. And so we see that balance, um, here in the scripture. I wanna say what the purpose of miracles are before we dig into those three scriptures. Purpose, um, purposely. And the question is, what are the purpose of God's miracles? Well, the first is a revelation of God's power.

You'll see it is a revelation of God's power. He wants to reveal who, who he is, and he's not doing that for himself. He's doing that as an act of grace. And if God works a miracle, he's doing it as an act of grace. He doesn't need to prove himself, and he doesn't need to show how powerful he is. I was just reading about King Henry in England.

I was reading Winston Churchill's, um, the, uh, the history of the English speaking peoples, and he was talking about King Henry. And one of the things King Henry would do is when he would fight against different, you know, armies, he would only demolish them to a certain point, and then he would give grace because he said he wanted to be shown as sovereign.

And he said, destroying somebody is not sovereign. He says, sovereign is not a use of force. Sovereignty means you just rule and you don't have to show a use of force. Now, whether that is the reason why God does things, I'm saying that God doesn't have to prove himself, but he does so as an act of grace so that we might understand him.

So he does show himself. And if a miracle does happen, it is an act of grace in order to benefit us. Number two, it is a confirmation of God's word. Talk about that in just a second. Three, for deliverance, sometimes we need to lower the bar of what we think a miracle is, right? A miracle isn't always raising somebody from the dead.

I heard about a couple who, we had a couple in our church that were divorced for 20 years. They got remarried after 20 years or more. It was maybe it was 23 years. Um, that was a miracle in my opinion. Every Tuesday night at 6:00 PM I get together people that are sober, and every day they're sober is a miracle. I've seen people heal from depression.

I've seen people heal from anxiety myself. I've seen miracles. And so sometimes we need to just lower the bar a little bit. But it is oftentimes deliverance. Um, faith is a miracle, and miracles increase faith. So sometimes God wants to increase our faith. And then lastly, uh, the fifth reason I have is, um, so that he might comfort people. Go to verse 12. Verse 12.

It says that people took the young man home alive and were greatly comforted. And oftentimes, God wants to create miracles so that he might comfort us because God loves us. And so we see that here in that scripture. So the question is then is do miracles happen today? Let's jump into it. Go to verse seven. This is under the heading miracles.

Often follow the teaching of God's word. Verse seven, on the first day of the week, we came together and to break bread circle, break bread, Paul spoke circle, spoke to the people. And because he intended to leave the next day, he kept on talking until midnight. That was his first mistake. A couple things we underestimate when we look at scripture is how powerful the things of God are.

And if you want to walk in the power of God, you need to surround yourself with the power of God. I heard it said once time, little prayer, little miracles, big prayer, big miracles. I would say the more you surround yourself with the innately powerful word of God, the more power you will have in your life. We see two things in this scripture that God, that Paul is regularly doing.

Paul is regularly plugging himself into the things that he knows, knows, generate the power of God. One is the fellowship of the believers. The fact that you are here today is a uniquely, uh, intrinsically powerful, uh, act of discipleship and following God. And God will bring power upon your life, one, by encouraging you in your spirit.

Two, by hearing the word of God, there will be changes in the metaphysical world, in the metaphysical nature of your soul in relationships, because you showed up today, it says in the scripture, do not forsake coming the meeting together of the saints or the breaking of bread together. I would say one thing about breaking bread is breaking bread together is uniquely intimate. It's, it's, it's, it's a light form of intimacy because you don't often break bread with people you despise.

And so the breaking together of bread and eating together was something that they built their community around. I hear believers often say, you know, Hey, I don't really need to go to church. You know, the forest is my church. The ocean is my church. I hang out there. I go to a stretching class, an intense hot stretching class beforehand.

And then afterwards I go to the ocean and I put my feet in the sand. And that's my God. Well, that's not Christian. You can meet God there in that place. You can be solo. But we are not meant to be a solo people. God has meant us to work together in unity. He made us to be communal for a reason. And there is power of that. And if you want power in your life, and like I said last week, uh, if you want to get to the destinations that God has called you to the furthest destinations on the farthest vistas of everything that you can see, it has to happen in community. God can do it because he's sovereign alone, but over and over again, he proves that he does it in community.

Did Jesus need 12 disciples? No, he could have done everything on his own, but he does it in community. So the first thing that he did was Paul connected himself to relationship. This miracle is a result of that relationship happening. And the miracle happened after the, after the miracle of, I guess you could call it the miracle of relationship.

And relationships are often times miraculous in a way that they come together. Somebody said to me this week that when they became a Christian, they were being discipled by a believer. And they said, there's three things you need to know. And they, they said there was a tripod. And the guy told me that that person said like this, they had a tripod.

And he said, the first thing is you need to read the word of God. Read the word of God every single day. The second thing is you need to pray every single day. And the third thing is you need to be in regular community serving other people and being with other believers. Those three things, you do those three things and you will be on point and on track.

And I really couldn't argue with that. There are other aspects to the faith, but those are kind of like the big three that you're gonna see. So on the first day of the week, they came together to break bread. I wanna say make, make going to church regular, um, you know, make going to church something that is, you know, something like, you know, three, three times a month, four times a month. Be part of a small group. Like, change your calendar as much as you can to be around believers or at least around other people.

I think that that's really important and that's gonna bring power in your life because God's created us that way. I think Paul spoke, he's preaching the word of God. He's preaching the word of God because the word of God is powerful. Paul was constantly immersing himself in the things of God. He was speaking the word of God. He was speaking the Old Testament scriptures.

He was spending time with believers. He was giving himself away. He was being generous. He was, he was sharing the word of Christ. He just kept plugging himself into the power. If you want the power, plug into the power, you know, we want to do things on our own. We live in a world right now that is seeking, seeking power. They're seeking transcendence. Eugene Peterson said, there's ways in which we human beings can experience transcend, but it's not the true transcendence that God has called us to, because he's made us to always desire more than we can have on our own.

He said the first thing is crowds. People like crowds, churches like crowds. And he said, and singing, you go to a concert and then that moment you feel transcendent went to a concert this last year, um, and I was at the concert and the music came and it reminded me of all these things. I got all teary-eyed there at the concert. I was all by myself.

I was at a concert. I went by myself and I was just in this moment, you know, I was just feeling it, you know, concerts, crowds, he says. The other thing is, he says, sexuality can make you feel transcendent. That's why you see this huge rise is we've moved away from the truly transcendent people are seeking transcendence. So you see the rise in pornography and the rise in, in hookup culture and all, and, and that happening. So one with crowds. He also said that, um, that sexuality, other is substances and addiction.

So you see the rise right now. You hear things like microdosing, you know, people are using LSD now, but just use a little bit, you'll be fine. Um, I, I, I've, I've battled, I I've, I've ground tested that I'm just gonna tell you that doesn't work, okay? Um, you know, you see people seek seeking power. You like marijuana is like off the charts.

The amount of believers that are using marijuana now, just because it became legal, you know, I just drink some gummies to go to sleep at night or whatever. You know, we start moving into these things because we're seeking something else. And God is calling us to seek him for that power. And so we see that. And so what Paul is, is, is doing is different than trying to find a distraction to be his power.

One of the things I realized this week is my life oftentimes is living between dopamine and boredom. I dunno about you, but I just live between seeking the next dopamine hit and then I'm bored, as opposed to like investing and moving into things and trying to break out of that cycle and plug into the things that bring real contentment. Paul does that.

So that's the first thing we see here in this passage. If you want to experience miracles or if you want to set the table for miracles or experience more of the power of God, change your life to set the table of your life with God's word, worship, spending time with other believers, prayer, meditation, like, just make it a thing. The second thing is this, miracle fall miracles, follow faith. Go to verse 10. Paul went down, threw himself on the young man, put his arms around him, and he said, don't be alarmed. He said, he's alive.

And Paul basically raises him from the dead. Now, Paul, we believe has been raised from the dead himself, uh, once before. We talked about that last week on a second missionary journey. But I want to say something about miracles and this argument or this discussion within the church as if miracles do exist today. If there is a dispensation, do things like tongues exist, do things like healing, raising from the dead.

Um, those are some of the high end miracles. I still think like marriage is being saved. There's still miracles. Does that exist today? I wanna, I wanna assure you of one thing. If you don't believe in miracles, you will be proven right. You will be proven right? I cannot argue with you. You will be proven right? Jesus actually says that the verse that I mentioned, um, a moment ago, uh, is mark six, five through six. It said he, that's Jesus could not do any miracles there except lay his hand on a few sick people and heal them.

And he was amazed at their lack of faith. Jesus himself, because he had self-limited, obviously God can do whatever he wants, but Jesus had self-limited himself. According to Philippians chapter two. He had self-limited himself and he was working and collaborating with us. This shows the collaborative partnership between God and us.

There is a little bit of us. How much is God? How much is us? I don't know. I can't have that argument. I know that I just need to keep stepping out as much as I can to meet God in that process. And there were no people, not enough people that were willing to believe. If you don't believe in miracles, you will be proven right according to this verse. Now, can God be sovereign?

Can God show up and blow your mind and change your opinion? He absolutely can do that with His grace. He could. You know, I, you can never, like I said, prove that miracles exist because let me, lemme just tell you this. If Jesus came to your bedside tonight and he shows up and he's like, whoa, I'm glowing. I'm Jesus. Check this out. Uh, and he's standing there and you have like a two hour conversation with Jesus and you, it's just intimate and amazing.

Like you touch him and he showed you his wounds and it's amazing. Lemme just tell you, you'll wake up in the morning and you'll ask yourself a question. Did that really happen? Uh, you will have to look back at that the rest of your life and ask yourself, was I dreaming? Was that real? Because any that happens in precludes that you have to have faith before and after the miracle. It was very easy for me to take what Dr.

O'Keeffe said, he is an amazing guy. And say, Hey, you know, the MRI was probably wrong. It did show my ACL completely rolled up into a ball like a snail is what he said in the pre-op. But I could have looked at him and said, you know, the m sometimes they get the MRI wrong. You know, I could believe that, but I don't believe that I have chosen to believe that God healed my leg.

And so as I look through that, it's, I believe that that miracles follow faith. And if you don't believe in miracles, you're not gonna see it. But here's what I want to have God prove to me. I'm going to die and breathe my last breath, challenging God on this miracle issue. I want to continue to step out. And you know what? May maybe miracles aren't for today. Maybe miracles aren't for this moment.

Maybe someone won't get healed. But I'm not gonna quit praying for healing. I'm not gonna quit praying for marriages. I'm not gonna quit praying for God to go beyond and in a supernatural way. He's gonna have to disprove me over and over again. And every time he does a miracle, I'm gonna have to have the faith to believe that it was a miracle and not a coincidence. And that's just how we're gonna roll.

Because I don't want to move into cynicism myself, and I want to believe because you know what one of the greatest things are? Is, is hope. Hope. And this is a world that has no hope. We have a world that's living with an end times theology right now, you know, that believes that the world is ending for one reason or another, but they have no hope of what, what is happening with that. Final thing is this, Paul operated the naturally supernatural. Verse 11, then it says, he went upstairs, broke bread, Nate, and talking until daylight didn't learn his lesson, he left.

I love that Paul, immediately just miracle. Done. Let's go upstairs. Let's eat, let's keep talking about God. One of the things I really liked about John Wimber, who, um, really saw a season of signs and wonders and miracles in the seventies and eighties through the Vineyard Church, he had this thing called naturally supernatural.

And he passed away right after I got to the vineyard. So I got to experience a little bit of him just for a few months before he passed away. But one of his things he did was he said, we don't have to, to act weird to do miracles. And he said, you know, if I, I went to one of these clinics where he was speaking and he said, you know, if someone, you know is you're talking to somebody in the street and they say, oh, I've got this pain on my shoulder. He said, you, you just say, Hey, do you mind if I pray for your, I believe in prayer, can I just pray for your shoulder and put my hand on your shoulder? Yeah.

You know, a lot of people will say yes. And he says, you know, just pray and say, God, you know, we just pray for this shoulder, pray. You put it in alignment. We just know that you love this person here. Would you bless them and call them into your, you know, and just kind of be natural? And then how's your shoulder feel? And, but you're always afraid to ask afterwards, right? You know what I mean? Like, you know, okay, well, God didn't heal that. I'm gonna keep praying for it, but at least you stepped out and believed and you did it in a natural, in a naturally supernatural way.

And that's one of the things that I like to remove from the supernatural is the theatrics. I mean, one, I was in a Pentecostal setting for a long time. It wasn't a charismatic setting. And I saw a lot of things that I felt like were theatrics. I felt like I saw a lot of, I'm not sure we actually need that. Maybe we can just be a little more natural.

God has a way for each of you to walk in the supernatural that is perfectly tailored for who he made you to be. Lemme say that again. God has a way for you to walk in power in the supernatural that is completely tailored to who he has made you to be. There is no prescription for. This is how you get a miracle. There is no rule book for this is how you have to do it.

Shake your leg two times, move one hand up in the air. Preach says verse. That's witchcraft. We're not looking for witchcraft and, and things that we do to make things happen. We are asking God to, in faith, to do something powerful in His name, for his glory, for his purposes. And so we step out and we do that in a natural way.

What I wanna challenge you to do is start doing it. Here's three ways to walk in God's power, and we're done three ways, and I did not put this, you're gonna have to write this down. I think I added this on Saturday. First, is this, surround yourself with the power. Surround yourself with the power. You are either being drained or you were being filled.

It's very hard to stay neutral, very hard to find ballast and stay neutral. Things either drain us or they fill us. And some things are, we're meant to be. You know, you go pour out in ministry, you're doing what Harry's doing in Africa. You're gonna have a day, you're gonna be drained, you're gonna be giving yourself out. There's a, there's a kind of energy that comes from that, but you're burned out.

You gotta go fill yourself. And so one, surround yourself with the power. Take the word of God and open it in your house. Buy a printed Bible. Buy a printed Bible, open it in your house and have a weekly verse and highlight that verse and let your children walk by it. Leave it open and have it be the verse of the week. I will promise you, your children will read the verse and they will be impacted by that.

Surround yourself with worship. My daughter's rooms, I used to put, um, worship on in their rooms. We surrounded them with worship. We would pray with them at night. We surrounded them with blessing every time. Not every time, but many times when they get outta the car, when they left the house in the morning, I dropped 'em off.

I would lay hands on them and I would bless them as they go to school. I wanna surround them with blessing. This is where the power is. Little, little prayer, little power, little god's word, little power. Much of God's word, much of his presence. This you will, you will inherently, it'll rub off on you. You can't bump into God without that power touching you.

Remember, the woman touched Jesus. She's like, yeah. He's like, Hey, power went out from me. That that is the same thing that happens today. If you read the Bible, I bet God could would say to you, you know what? Power just went out from heaven. When you pray, hey, whoa, what just happened there? Power just went out. Just drain heaven.

Just drain it out. Number two, identify where you need a miracle. You know, a lot of us just talk about problems, just problems, right? I got a problem. I can solve it in my own understanding. Stop calling it a problem and just go to God and say, this was a problem. This is my new miracle need. I got a miracle need. God, I need you to show up.

I need you to show up. This week. I had a problem. I finally, I said, I need to take this to God. God showed up and I had this problem, and the person I was talking to said it was weird. Like there was this thing, and then it just went away. And I was talking about this, this issue, and I, and I thought, well, that's when we started praying.

That's when all of a sudden I got it right. Identify where you need a miracle. Does your marriages need a miracle? Does your life need a miracle? Your finance need a miracle. Does your heart need a miracle? Do you need a medical miracle? What do you need? Just identify the miracles and then start going after 'em. Don't let 'em just be problems of your own understanding.

Take things outta that and say, God, I gotta take this out of this camp. My worry camp. We're gonna put it in the miracle camp. God, I need a miracle. I don't know why I have an accent today, but I do. Number two, three, follow your intuition. I was listening to Rick Rubin. He signed the Beastie Boys. If you know who Rick Rubin is, great producer, not a believer, but he's a bit of a secular sage.

I listened to some of his stuff. Um, not a believer at all, totally metaphysical, but he says a lot of things that are true. And so I, he comes up on my, my Instagram feed sometimes. So he had this thing and he's like, there is more out there than we know. He said, there's actually more than we than that we don't know than we know.

And he goes, he goes, and there is a thing that we are connected to that. And it's called intuition. Now I call it the Holy Spirit, but he said, it's intuition. He goes, I have started to follow my intuition. He goes, sometimes when I get, Hey, you should go left instead of going right, he goes, I go left now. He said, sometimes call this per, he went on a business deal or whatever. I would say it was great advice.

And I realized I need to start doing that again. Following the Holy Spirit is just like that. Except we don't call it intuition. Maybe you want to call it intuition, but your, your gut, something will tell you, Hey, reach out to this person. This week I was doing something and I just thought, reach out to this person. And I, and I thought, ah, I gotta look. Okay.

I reached out a good friend of mine, and they texted back, you know what I really needed to hear from you? I, I'm finally at a place today where I can share some stuff. I, I was so of the Lord that you just wrote that. And it was just the sense I followed it. Sometimes it's, you know, something in your heart will say, you know, don't go Loya Boulevard.

Go over Mount Soledad today. Uh, seems that's the longer way to go. Now, just follow it. You know, if it's, if it's no, no, no harm, no vow, if it's not gonna break the word of God, see what it would look like if for a week you just said, holy Spirit, speak to me. I'm gonna follow my intuition. It's one that says, Hey, shut up.

And don't say that to your wife. Like, follow that. You know what I'm saying? Like, you know, whatever it is, follow that thing and begin to step in. Or if something says, Hey, pray for this person, or, Hey, bless your kid, or, Hey, whatever it is, that is how we begin to walk, because God's power is out there, and how much you want of it is really oftentimes up to us.

How close do we want to be to God? Amen.