How can Jesus say that it is better that He go away so that He could send His Spirit? Wouldn’t Jesus in the flesh be better than a Spirit that you can’t see or touch? This episode is a sample sermon on John 14 and 1 Thessalonians 5:16-19 that models how to discuss the role of the Holy Spirit today in relationship to prayer with conservative evangelical Christians and how to lead large groups to listen in prayer.
This sample sermon models how our team helps conservative evangelical Christians to re-consider what the Bible has to say about the Role of the Holy Spirit and then in the same service model what it looks like for the Holy Spirit to lead, guide, teach, remind, and show things to come (Jn. 14-16).
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Transcript
The Holy Spirit and Prayer (Sample Sermon and Prayer)
[00:00:00] Don Love: This is the New Covenant. That’s better than the Old Covenant! And it’s not just about having the Bible. It’s about having God with us, Emanuel, indwelling us. The Spirit of God is inside of us. There’s something powerful about this. It’s not just about Jesus dying for our sins that we can go to heaven someday, and we need to preach the gospel till he comes. It’s about the Spirit of God, abiding in us and us in Him, it’s not about just us moving into the father’s house someday. It’s us having fellowship with the Father and the Son through the Spirit until that day that we move into that house.
[00:00:58] Don Love: Part of our ministry at pray through it as speaking to conservative churches about prayer and the role of the Holy Spirit demonstrating the biblical foundation of conversational prayer (that’s both speaking and listening in prayer). And how this listening in prayer is so essential to experience inner healing and intimacy with God Recently, what’s been especially exciting is the churches that we have been speaking in more and more, are churches led by pastors whom first experienced life changed through praying through things with us, then planted seeds by unashamedly sharing their testimony of struggle and healing with their congregations, and then, at the proper time invited us not only to speak, but to begin helping to develop their prayer teams. You heard last episode from one of those pastors. In this episode, we want to share a sample sermon with you where we open up the Gospel of John and 1 Thessalonians to discuss the relationship between the role of the Holy Spirit and praying without ceasing. Then the sermon and the episode concludes as we model what it looks like to lead a whole church to listen in prayer, for the first time.
[00:02:08] Dale Pierce: You will be blessed this morning by this couple by what they have to bring I met Don probably four or five years ago now at one of the Word and Spirit gatherings in the free church in Knoxville. And we were doing some listening prayer together, and Don kind of stepped in and I was praying with Don over a man next to me. And as Don prayed, he was helping this man kind of unpack some of his things and reflecting with the father over some things that were going on in his heart. And I could hear things going on in my heart, reflecting on what this guy was saying as Don, was leading Him. And through that time, I actually was healed of some of the sin and brokenness that was in my heart as Don was praying for this guy. And that’s where our friendship kind of kicked off. And Jen and I had been a part of some things that they’ve done with Christ Community up in Greeley. And so it’s just a privilege to be able to have someone come who will help us lean into not only who the Holy Spirit is or how God wants to work in us through that, but how we can listen to Him for ourselves and help others in that regard as well. And so I’m excited to have Don and Jennifer here. Don, Jennifer come up and lead us the scripture and then lead us in the way that Father leads you.
[00:03:17] Don Love: Yeah, It’s been a privilege getting to know Dale to just see his desire, not just to know God’s word alone, but to have that personal relationship that comes alive as you’re knowing the God of the Bible and now we’re getting a stay at their house. That’s really cool when you get to actually stay at the pastor’s house and not everybody gets to do that. This is my wife Jen and we’ve been married now for almost 20 years. We have a ministry that we started is called Pray Through It Ministries. Today we’re going to be focusing in, especially on John 14 and 1 Thessalonians 5. So you might want to pull out your Bibles now to John 14. And we’re going to be considering today, the role of the Holy Spirit in relationship to our prayer life. So I’m going to be looking at this John passage here, along with the Thessalonians passage about praying without ceasing and kind of see how these things fit together. And we’re going to just have some opportunities to practice listening in prayer, as well as give you guys an opportunity to ask questions. So, Jen, if you’ll read for us the excerpts,
[00:04:18] Jennifer Love: John 14, starting in verse 15 if you love me, you’ll keep my commandments and I will ask the father and He will give you another helper to be with you forever. Even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. You know Him bring it dwells with you and we’ll begin you. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you in a little while. The world will see me no more, but you will see me because I live. You also will live. And that day, you will know that I know my father and you in me and I in You Whoever has my commandments and keeps it. He, it is who loves me and He who loves me will be loved by my father. And I will love Him and manifest myself to Him. I am going to skip to chapter 15, verse 26, 15:26 But when the counselor comes, whom I sent you from the father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the father, He will bear witness about me. And you will also bear witness because you have been with me from the beginning. I have said all these things to keep you from falling away, they will put you out of the synagogue. Indeed. The hour’s coming. When whoever kills, you will think he is offering service to God and they will do these things because they have not known the Father nor Me. But I’ve said these things to you that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told them to you. I did not say these things to you from the beginning because I was with you, but now I’m going to Him who sent me and none of you asked me, where are you going? But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the counselor will not come to you. But if I go, I will send them to you. And wHen He comes, He will convict the world concerning sin, righteousness and judgment concerning sin, because they do not believe in me concerning righteousness because I go to the bother and you will see me there longer concerning judgment because the ruler of this world is judged. I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when the Spirit of Truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth for, He will not speak of his own authority, but whatever He hears, He will say. And He will declare to you the things that are to come, He will glorify me for, He will take what is mine and declare to you. All that the father has is mine. Therefore I said that He will take what is mine and declare it to you. This is the word of the Lord.
[00:06:58] Don Love: I grew up in a tiny little country church, lot smaller than this one, mainly Mennonite folks coming there and we believed that the Holy Spirit, especially convicts people towards Salvation. And so, that was good. And we also believed that He would convict you and maybe make you feel bad. If you did something wrong or tell you, you should do something wrong. And we believed that the Holy Spirit would call you to ministry. Maybe very specifically, you could say I’m call to this part of Africa to minister, to this specific people group in this specific way. And we wouldn’t question that, even though there’s not really a verse that says this specific person’s called to this this place, We knew that the Spirit of God would convict you and lead you towards something more. And we believed the Holy Spirit would illuminate scripture. The doctrine of illumination simply means that as we’re reading through the Bible, God, will help it make sense to us. We can’t understand it without Him because we’re fallen people. But with the Spirit, He can bring us out of wherever we are pulling us up out of the muck and mire and help us to understand the scriptures and then even help us apply it. So some of it’s interpretation and some of it’s application, but it’s not that He’s going to give us some interpretation that no one else ever had. The church is going to be able to say yes or no. As a whole, every member will be able to test and their Spirit. Yes. This is what the interpretation means. We can look at the text and be able to figure those things out. And so we talked about the Holy Spirit a lot. He wasn’t in as many songs as Jesus and the Father were, but He was still there in songs here and there. And that was good. But as you study through this passage in John, Jesus seems to think there’s something bigger deal about the Holy Spirit than the tradition that I came from. And in fact, the thing that really messed me up in a good way, I had a student come up to me at one point and said, well, look, it says that it’s better that Jesus go away, so the Holy Spirit could come. How can that be? Would’nt it be better to have Jesus in the flesh standing here right beside me to hold me and talk to me. And I just wouldn’t, that’d be amazing just to have Jesus right here. How can it be better to have a Spirit with you? And I came up with some theologically sounding answer, and I was almost impressed with myself about it, but as I walked away, I think it probably was the Spirit of God convicting me- like that’s not a good enough answer. And I’m like, that’s not a good enough answer. And I started to struggle too because my students really appreciated my conviction and how I would say, this is the Word of God. What are we going to do with this?! And, and some of might have a problem with what it says. I might have a problem with what it says, but I’m like, this is what the Word of God says, what are we going to do about this?! And so I was very polarizing as a professor. And so some students liked me and some students didn’t like me, After a while though, I started realizing the way I’m doing this is not with gentleness, and patience, and kindness, and you started adding it up and there was hardly any fruit of the Spirit there.
[00:09:45] And so for me, I’m like, way to go Jesus, where’s this for the Spirit stuff you promised me?! You know. The apostle Paul said, this would come come Where is it And so after awhile, it’s like, Lord, I’ve given it myself to you, to be a pastor, to be a missionary, to do whatever you want me to do. I’ve abstained from all the things you told me not to do.
[00:10:02] I not done those things. So surely you would lead me in this! And I should be able to have this stuff. And so after awhile I started questioning well, is this really the right God? I started asking and praying and I was listening in prayer and didn’t even necessarily know it, but I would say things like.
[00:10:20] Lord, would you show me, are there any other religions I should look into? And the sense I got was, well, why don’t you try Christianity? And I knew what was going on. My wife had been reading some odd books. And she would be reading through them. And every once in a while she would show to me and said, could this be biblical? And I would look at it with all my Bible background. And I would think, you know, I don’t think the way that they’re saying it is right, but I think it could be. I think what they’re saying is right. But they just need to use different verses because they’re totally using scripture out of context here. But you go to John and you look here, cause that’s where I’ve been studying for a lot of years under John scholar folks, I’m studying John. And I think from John, this could be it, this could be true that the Lord does speak in these ways. And so I saw that things were happening in her life. Things were happening in our church. But I don’t want to join the prayer team. I was like more power to you. That’s someone needs a to do it. But not me.
[00:11:16] As these things started changing in my life, I started understanding more and more thinking about the disciples and how they’re interacting with Jesus. We tend to think we would do better than the disciples. Right? But at the same time realize Jesus wasn’t always the clearest teacher. He was intentionally teaching. So the part of the part of the crowd was confused and he told the disciples as much. The mysteries have been given to you and not to them. How are you going to understand the parables? If you don’t even understand this parable and you kind of think like Jesus, maybe it’s kind of on you. No one understands you.
[00:11:48] But, then, finally we get here this passage we just read. We are now at what they call the farewell discourse. Jesus is saying goodbye. Moses did the same thing. And He’s telling the disciples, all this stuff Judas has just left into the night and now we start unpacking things. And as he talks, the disciples are saying, “finally, you’re speaking to us about parables.” Finally, this all makes sense to us! Thank you so much! Finally this makes sense. And even then he says, you know what? “I have a whole lot more to tell. But you can’t bear it. Now, when the Spirit of God comes, then He’s going to tell you,” and He goes on and unpack what’s going to happen here. And He explains there’s going to be this other counselor that’s going to come is going to be a Spirit of Truth. He’s not going to speak anything on his own. He’s only going to speak when he hears of the father and the Son saying. And this is a big deal, because remember all throughout Jesus’ ministry, He says, the Son can only do what he sees the Father doing. And He’s trying to disciple the disciples to say, look to the father, we’re going to do what He wants to do. But He doesn’t always unpack how He knows what the father is doing. And then we have to be careful because from our conservative background, this idea of Jesus being man and God, it’s hard because there’s some verses talk about Jesus learning and growing and growing in favor.
[00:13:00] You look at that Luke passage, there’s a passage there. Jesus learned stuff. Where Jesus doesn’t know stuff. Matthew 24. It’s like, wait a minute. I thought He was God. Well, yeah, while he was on earth here, he didn’t know all this stuff. Setting aside all that he knew. All that he was in some sense. I want to get to theological in the weeds. But there is this relationship with the Lord through the Spirit, and then he models this for us. And then he tells us now I’m going to send the Spirit. And one of the things that he tells them, if you look at John 14:17, this is a pretty simple but important passage. John 14:17. It says that the Spirit is with you and He will be in you. And now today, we have this doctrine of indwelling- we call it. The Holy Spirit lives in it. We’re this temple and Paul talks about us being a temple of the Holy Spirit that is within you? And if we’re not careful, we take that passage to me just about sexual immorality, because he says don’t do certain things because you’re the temple of the Holy Spirit.
[00:13:58] But other places in scripture, we see this major emphasis about we are the temple. And if you understand this we’re the place where heaven meets earth! There was only one temple. It was in Jerusalem. And now we all individually and collectively are the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. The place where the high priests couldn’t come to. There’s one feast at one time, a year where they’re only allowed to do one sacrifice. And that’s the only one time a year that, that high priest could go in. And so thats who we are! The Spirit of God is inside of us. There’s something powerful about this. And if you think about it, what he says to the disciples is that the Spirit is going to lead them, guide them, teach them, remind them, and show them things to come. Those five ministries of the Spirit are going to be happening in the apostles. And in some churches they’re going to teach- Yeah, and that’s how we got the Bible! And now for us, we’ve got the Bible! So we got the Bible That’s great!! But this is the New Covenant. That’s better than the Old Covenant! And it’s not just about having the Bible. It’s about having God with us, Emanuel, indwelling us. It’s not just about Jesus dying for our sins that we can go to heaven someday, and we need to preach the gospel till he comes. It’s about the Spirit of God, abiding in us and us in Him, it’s not about just us moving into the father’s house someday. It’s us having fellowship with the Father and the Son through the Spirit until that day that we move into that house. And so when we look at this relationship, I’ve heard over and over in very conservative churches, it’s not a religion, it’s a personal relationship with Jesus. The other one I hear is, you know, head knowledge versus heart knowledge. It’s this many inches from your head to your heart and you gotta have that. But I’ve not heard many sermons about how do you truly have a personal relationship and how do you move from your head to your heart, your heart, your head, and even the head and heart are about good. Some people are abusing Jeremiah saying, oh, the heart’s deceitfully wicked….That’s the old covenant heart! The new covenant heart is a heart of flesh where God’s word actually grows in this. Right. So if we look at this passage here, there’s something powerful about Holy Spirit. And what we’re discovering is that the Holy Spirit doesn’t just illuminate scripture. When it comes to interpretation, he illuminates it an application, which means He’s illuminating our lives. So we’re told to take captive every thought that sets itself up against Christ. Guard your heart because it’s the wellspring of life, but then we’re often not taught how to do it. We’re just like read your Bible and pray. And we’re kind of thrown into it. It’s like getting thrown into the pool when some of us swim and some of the sink and it doesn’t always work out for us that well. We know that the Bible is key to this. We know that prayer is key to this, but we often leave the Holy Spirit’s role out of this. And then it becomes problematic for us. So if we turn now, 1 Thessalonians chapter five, 1 Thessalonians chapter five, as you’re doing that, one of the things I want you to recall, if you’re keeping your finger and the other John passage, you can figure… sorry, you probably already lost it. In John 14, your finger in John 14.
[00:16:59] So finger it in there. In that John 14 passage, one of the things that its going to talk about is for the world, it’s going to convict the world concerning. Sin, Judgement, and righteousness. What I realized is many of the conservative churches were taking that to be the whole of the Spirit’s ministry. But He’s saying about that for unbelievers convict the world concerning sin judgment righteousness, but for the disciples, it’s going to be those things I said, lead guide, teach remind show things to come.
[00:17:30] One of the questions we have to deal with first off in this church, are we under the great commission, go into all the world, preach the gospel. Is that for us? You know, that was said yesterday disciples. Right? Okay. So this year we said just the disciples too. So is this just for the disciples or is this for us too. You know, pretty much Jesus only taught Jews, right.
[00:17:50] Mostly. So it’s not just for the Jews or is that for us as well? You know, this is kind of funny, but whole churches will make their denominations about this. And they’ll say like, ah, those red letters aren’t for us, they’re for the Jews or these aren’t for us, it’s for the apostles. And then we end up here with this New Testament.
[00:18:06] And for me, I thought learning Greek and Hebrew would solve all of my theological problems. I felt like it’s the Lord’s word. He revealed it from, you know, through the Spirit. If I have this new covenant, this New Testament, I’m going to go. And there’s still stuff that Paul throws out there every once in a while.
[00:18:20] Jesus talks about the angels, not marrying . What? Okay. Tell me more about this. He doesn’t, I’d like to learn more about agents. Too bad. There’s not enough in there. Why are you baptized for the dead? Baptized for the dead?! That’s weird! What is that?! Tell me more, Paul? No, there’s no more. So every once in a while there’s things come up and like, oh man, it would be nice if the Lord were here to like, help us interpret this. You know? So the Lord doesn’t just give us a new book. We have all the Bible, but we also have his presence indwelling us, not just like these old people in judges where the things come upon them and leave. But indwelling us, this is a big deal. So as you look at this passage in first Thessalonians 5:16-19, some of the shortest verses you’ll see.
[00:19:06] So first Thessalonians 5:16-19. Rejoice always. That’s a whole verse! Pray without ceasing. Another whole verse. Give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. When you look through some of this, okay.
[00:19:23] Pray without ceasing rejoice, always. Two of those things seem to be centered around rejoicing and giving thanks? So that kind of makes sense, right? You’re going through your day. Something good happens. Like thank you, Lord. Other things happen and good or bad you think, well, I’m going to rejoice before the Lord right now. So whether it be good or bad, you’re lifting up rejoicing. You’re lifting up praises and Thanksgiving. And that’s part of that praying all day. So it’s not necessarily a prayer list of like here’s all the 40 people that I know are sick and ailing. I’m go to carry that with me, prayed about that all the time.
[00:19:55] No, there’s an interaction between the Lord and you. It’s not just our prayers going up. There’s a response of the Lord coming down as well, that has to do with the Holy Spirit.
[00:20:05] So I’m going to suggest when we’re looking at prayer, we need to see it more conversationally For some of us that was hard at first, just to start talking to the Lord, like you would talk to a friend, that’s the way I was taught to Pray. Talk to the Lord like you’re talking to your friend and then after a while, that’s that’s good. But then it’s like a friend that never talks back. And then it’s like, well, that’s kind of frustrating. Then the question is, “well, is He not talking back?” And maybe we’re expecting something. different Maybe we’re expecting audible words or a picture of the sky or whatever the case may be. Maybe what we’re expecting isn’t the way that the Lord speaks as much. The Lord doesn’t always speak to us in and audible way. In fact, he might bring up an image or an emotion or a memory.
[00:20:50] The Holy Spirit is called this mighty counsellor. The way I was taught, He’s like in heaven. This mediator between us and God. And so, far away He’s mediating from us, but that doesn’t quite fit with the idea of Him indwelling us. Unless, it’s both. It could be both. But we got to remember that indwelling part. The other part is really with us as kind of a Jimminy Cricket that makes you feel bad. If you did something wrong or tells you, you should do something. But what I’ve found is we tend to think that if we feel bad that must be the Holy Spirit. That also can be the enemy condemning us. Right? And depending on the pastors that you grew up with, if you grew up with a fiery pastor that yelled at you a lot and convicted you in the sense of you shouldn’t do this, you’re gonna actually maybe confuse the enemy’s voice for the Lord’s voice. And so you see condemnation coming at you and you think, yes, Lord, I am horrible. Yes, Lord. I am Yes Lord, I am unredeamable. Yes, I am unforgiveable.
[00:21:40] And there’s these things that are running in the background of your mind. And if you’re not careful, you will think every single thought that you have in your head is your own thought. When already we know that the enemy puts things there and there’s already this three-way conversation between you, the Lord, and the enemy.
[00:21:55] So when we are thinking about this role of the Holy Spirit, we need to be very careful to not think as just when you have Bible open. I’ve seen memes before where people will say, if you want God to speak, He’s not going to do it while your Bible is closed. You have to open your Bible. As though, like you could silence the Lord by shutting the book. You cant, such silence the Lord. Now understanably if you’re not reading the Bible, if you’re not committing it to heart, you’re limiting some of the ways the Holy Spirit could work, because one of His ministries is reminding. If you’ve never heard it, it’s going to have to be revelation rather than reminding. And I’ve seen that happen too and it freaked me out because I didn’t know the Spirit did this stuff! So praying with people and they’re starting to quote scripture that they believe they’re hearing from the Lord. And they’re not just hearing a couple of words, it’s like whole verses. And I’m like, you know, that’s a verse, right. Then they’re like, no, it’s not. I don’t think so. I don’t, I’ve never heard the verse. Yes, it is. Let me show you right here its a verse and Lord’s bringing it to their minds and they’d never even heard it before. Or so they thought. They’d never even memorized that they didn’t know it was a verse. So we’ve been leaning into some of the mysteries of the Holy Spirit because we started listening more in prayer. And we’ve started understanding, well, wait a minute. If I’m praying and something comes to me and its an attack from the enemy? Well, maybe I should lift that up to the Lord? And have the Lord speak about that. Lord, is there anything true about this attack, that’s on me? Well, yeah, there’s a part of it’s true. You didn’t do this thing you shouldn’t do, but the Lord sharpening us to something greater! Or we might have disempowering emotion that we need to lift up. We need to realize the Lord has given us checks and balances literally in our own body and in the body of Christ for us to be able to pray through these things, to understand like, why am I feeling this? What is this? Once you start understanding there’s actually a message in the emotion. You can start to say, what would you show me? What is this emotion I am feeling? And he might even realize, oh, I labeled it this way, but it’s actually this thing and oh Lord, why do I feel this? Oh, well it’s because of this. You believe this thing about yourself Well I don’t think that’s true? I mean, it kinda feels true. I don’t think that’s true. Well, why I feel that’s true Lord? Well because of this person told you this, who is in authority over you and you took that as a little child when you were six and that’s been running in the background ever since.
[00:24:04] So essentially what we do in our ministry. is we help people understand the illumination of the Holy Spirit, not just in the word of God, but also in our own lives. As I was praying about this ministry, we’re trying to decide, do we leave some of our traditional jobs and start helping churches process life through prayer? I was asking Lord, what do you want me to do? And the sense I got was ” my people forgotten to listen.” And for some reason, even though I’ve heard it and then wrote it down, I’ve thought “they have forgotten how to listen.” Cause you know, teacher me, I thought like, oh yeah, Lord, i’ll teach them. We’ll design a curriculum. We’ll do all this we’ll teach them how to pray. And the sense I got back was no, I said, they forgotten to listen. And then I realized. Oh, so pretty much all I need to do then is demonstrate how to listen in prayer, and then they’ll do it. And that’s essentially what happens. So some of you are already ahead. You’re already doing this. You’re already asking the Lord about your emotions. You’re already asking about your thoughts. Some of you nodding your head, like Yeah, I do this in my devotions all the time. Doesn’t everybody do this? No, not everybody does this. So today I’m going to just invite the Lord in to pray through some of our emotions, pray through some of our thoughts and just kind of do a little bit of an exercise together. And as we do this, I’m going to dedicate our space for Lord’s work. I’m going to pray the Lord, but bring your mind to rest or heart peace, just be in a posture of listening.
[00:25:25] And then as we do that, we’re just going to be creating a space for the Spirit of God to move. And some of you, when you feel this peace, it’ll be a peace you’ve never felt, or at least in a long time. And if you sense the Lord is just calling you into that peace to sit there and wait in that peace and absorb that peace. That’s fine. Others of you, we’re going to be asking questions to the Lord. And you were like, this is too fast. I can’t hear this quickly. That’s okay, the Spirit can lead you in that direction and you might feel like oh, wait a minute. What are you going to do? I’ve never done this before. Well, have you ever been, whether it be on a tractor or driving a car or running or whatever the case may be, your mind is actually at rest then suddenly you hear what you believe is like the still small voice of the Lord or this impression of the Lord. And you get the sense of the Lord is leading you in this. I think we’ve all had that. It could be in the shower. There’s just weird times when your mind is at rest. And then all of a sudden the Lord catches up with you.
[00:26:18] And to some degree, we look forward to that, like, when’s the Lord going to catch up with me again? That’d be so great! But if we start to realize, maybe the Lord is already in conversation with you. Maybe the enemy is already in conversation with you. And it’s only when we slow down that we actually hear the conversation that’s going on in the background. Turning down the background noise so we can see what’s going on in that quiet space. And by the way, some of you have learned to live very busy lives, very loud lives so that you don’t hear what’s going on in the background. And some of you you’d have a hard time falling asleep because when you’re trying to quiet yourself, all the noise is still there that you’re trying to hide. And so some of them, you can only sleep out on exhaustion and that’s not the way to live. That’s not the kind of Sabbath that the Lord is inviting you into. So let me pray for you and we’ll jump into it. And we’ll lead you along the way.
[00:27:09] Lord God, we dedicate this place to you. We ask Lord would you just set up a boundary Lord that only that, which is holy would be in this place. Anything we brought with us, it’s not of you Lord. We ask would you just push that out beyond the boundaries Would you bring our minds to rest and our heart peace and Lord ask would you show us what emotions have we been carrying this week? The Lord, would you lessen them? Would you help us to see them to feel them from a distance Lord that they would do no harm to us Would you give us a sense, Lord, what are the emotions we’ve been carrying with us this week today? Would you search our hearts and help us to know Lord what is it that we’re feeling? Some of you know right away, but it’s not necessarily the first thing that comes to your mind, but it’s that thing you can’t put out once it comes and it could be a word or a picture or a memory or emotion, or even a song. The Lord might be speaking to you in some different way. You can speak however he wants. Lord, I pray that you show us, or what’s the biggest emotion that we have been feeling this week? Would you bring this into clarity Lord I ask Lord he would push everything else out to the sides, everything that’s seeking to distract. Would you bring this front and center close in our hearts and our minds? We might understand what it is. And Lord, would you show us, what’s the biggest thought we’ve been thinking about this week? Would you bring that to our hearts and minds? We might see it sense it understand it. Would you test Lord this emotion? Labeling it correctly? Show us if we’ve labeled it right? And some of you, and you’re trying to label it with your mind, but you need to label it with your heart. Some of you, others, you need to label with your mind rather than your heart. Just try it on. Almost like you’re trying on clothing. You can kind of feel if it fits. Lord would you show us? Lord why are we feeling what we’re feeling? Is there anything we’re believing that’s causing this feeling? And Lord, I pray for our beliefs. Would you show us, are they true or false? Would you give us a sense, Lord, is there anything we’re believing? That’s a lie right now thats getting in the way of our relationship with you and causing these emotions in this way, or totally blocking our emotions for some of us. How many of you were making some progress here, you know, your belief or your emotion, you just raise your hand. So we get an idea of where we are. How many of you, it’s almost there, but it’s kind of blurry or it’s far away. It’s just like, I can’t quite get it. Or would you bring this close Would you bring this to the clarity? Would you hold it still once you know, the truth Lord would you show them the truth, of this lie that they’re believing. So you, it’s a partial truth. And that’s part of the problem is it’s the lies mixed with truth. And you need the Lord to divide out part of the lie from the truth. So how would you divide the lie from the truth so that they might see what the truth is not tainted by life? Once, you know the truth. See if you can hand that lie over to Jesus, some of you it’s it’s, it’s helpful to just picture handing this lie over to Jesus or this emotion over to Jesus and see what He does with it. Remember how we talked about how you do an interchange between your cares and this peace that surpasses all understanding. Sometimes if we can be able to picture it, it’ll help because. you can Interact with a picture better than you can emotion. Sometimes others have, you’re really good at interacting with the, and that’s the best way, but just picture, hand this to Jesus and see what He does with it You feel it leaving you and going to Him along with the lies you believe how many of you there’s something that you want to get over, but you feel like you’re just going to take it back. If I give it up, would you raise your hand Get a sense of that? Okay. Let me pray for you, Lord. Would you show them Why are they holding onto this thing that they know to be not true? Would you show them, is there anything else they’re believing that’s helping them to hold onto this? Would you show them any perceived benefit of this thing they’re holding on to you
[00:32:11] Would you? Shine light on it and help them to see what it really is is that the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Truth and He’s supposed to lead, guide, teach- be a mighty counselor. So Lord we call upon you to be our counselor in this moment. Would you help us to release these things that are getting in the way of our relationship with you and others? So Lord I pray today. Would you guide us Would you help us to be in tune with your Spirit? Lord we know that you’re always everywhere all the time. But Would you help us on this side? Help us to find you to understand you, not that you have hidden yourself. But Lord, we are hidden from you. Some of us are trying to hide. Some of us are just lost. and don’t know It, we ask would you guide us Lord you have promised us that if we believe in your son, that your Spirit would come and live inside of us and that Spirit’s presence would be like an engagement ring An earnest that would show us that we are yours and you are on, we are yours and you are ours. So we ask would you help us not to miss out on the Spirit of God because of the abuses, the lies that have been surrounding who the Spirit is and what He does, the fakes, the felonies, the imitations that are set out there in order to discredit you and what you do, any cults or anything, Lord that is mimicking, you are trying to. Cause us to shy away from you. We ask Lord would you purify us or that we would be a pure people following your word, following your Spirit, not misled by the things we’ve been taught that are, that have been handed down to us that are not truly the traditions that we were supposed to hold onto. Like Timothy says Lord, we ask, you would help us to hold onto those truth things that we handed down to us, purifying. Anything that’s been intertwined by tradition. That’s not. And held on to everything that is good by tradition that you have passed out to us. So we ask Lord that you would purify this people and that you would awaken them and your Spirit more and more, or that we might understand the ways that you lead us here today. So Lord, we pray that you would guide us in this time that we have together, that we might discuss and help others together. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.
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