The Community Church: Sermons and teaching

It's funny. It's always it's always the first question we get asked in Southport how was the journey? But we had a wonderful journey. In fact, I had a particularly wonderful journey because Ruth was driving. And it's always good to it's always good to be alive at the end of a journey when she's driving. So, you know, is there a train?

No, that was very, very gracious of my wife to drive me so that I could be fresh and ready to bring you the word of the Lord. But God's already been speaking this morning, listening and and I want to I want to we're going to we're going to read in one Corinthians two in a minute. So if you want to open your Bibles there, that's a good place to a good place to start, one Corinthians two.

But the very first kind of exhortation we have this morning was about the Holy ness of God and that kind of amazing kind of conundrum that there is between that God is is kind of so holy and unobtainable, and yet he imparts that same holiness to us. So that we can have that intimate relationship with him. That would be entirely impossible without his wonderful work of grace and, you know, Jesus, Jesus quotes and and many times in the Epistles, it's quoted the the phrase from the Old Testament, be holy as I am holy.

And it sounds at one one in one way it sounds like an unobtainable until you realize that God is saying be holy with my Holiness, not with not with your own holiness. Because your own holiness is never is never going to reach far enough. And yet he graciously and Christ gives us imparts to us a share in His own holiness.

And I think often and I know you've been looking for a number of weeks and and I've been tasked as well to talk to you about the Holy Spirit. And I think that we often forget his first name. Yeah. What's what's, what's his first name? Holy. You know, I believe that the Holy Spirit wants to be on a first name basis with you.

He wants to be on a first name basis with all of us, you know, and we can think of that about the wonder of the intimacy that he will he will speak and he will know our name. But he wants us as well to know that He is the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit. And I think we can we can forget that.

And in forgetting that, we can actually then we can miss where the power that God wants us to experience comes from. Let's let's read, let's read one Corinthians two. I don't know what versions of the Bible you like here. I realized I've made a bit of a mistake this morning that in all the quotes in my notes are from the Navy, and then the Bible I brought is an ESV, so I'm going to read it one way and then talk about it another way.

But you you probably have a variety of scriptures anyway. And I'm also going to throw in a couple of a couple of random quotes from some more obscure translations as well. I always like to always like to do that. Anyway, one Corinthians two, Paul says, When I came to your brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming sorry.

When I came to you, brothers and sisters did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom, for I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling of my speech and my message were not implausible words of wisdom, but a demonstration of the spirit and of power so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

You are among the mature. We do impart wisdom, although it is not the wisdom of this age or the rulers of this age who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory.

But as it is written. What? No, I has seen or heard, nor the heart of man imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him. These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit search is everything, even the depths of God, for who knows a person's thoughts, accepts the spirit of that person, which is in him.

So also, no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God that we might understand the things freely given us by God, and we impart this in words not taught with human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God for their folly to Him, and he is not able to understand them because they're spiritually discerned. But the spiritual person judges all things but is himself to be judged by no one who is understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct Him. But we have the mind of Christ.

And that last phrase there, but we have the mind of Christ is really where where Paul is going with this argument. He's he's talking to them. And this is one of those big battles, isn't it, through the Book of Corinthians, A people who in many in many ways appear to be spiritual but truly are not very spiritual, they're truly very carnal, they're very fleshly, because and that's evidenced in their attitudes and their behaviors.

And Paul is again and again kind of coming back to what does it truly mean to be spiritual. And this passage, this chapter here is is is talking to them about about what it truly means to be a person of the spirit. And the goal of that at the end here is that we have the mind of Christ, but we can think how God thinks that we can we can we can fulfill his purpose in putting us in the world.

And I've been challenged about the nature of faith by reading one of these verses here. I don't know if you spotted it, but here in verse four and five, my message and preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but a demonstration of the Spirit's power so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God's power.

How many of us were expecting God's Word that our faith doesn't rest on human wisdom, but on the Word of God? Well, that would be true, wouldn't it? But. But Paul doesn't use the word the word of God. He says the power of God, the power of God. You see, the Holy Spirit always brings power with him. What is what is Jesus say to the disciples in Acts one eight?

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and a group of people, or any individual person who claims to be a man or a woman or a people of the spirit. But there is no evidence of the power of God are not truly people of the Holy Spirit. If there is no power, you can have as many gifts as you like.

But when the Holy Spirit is present, the power of God is present. And Paul is saying to the Corinthians, Look, you believe it because you saw the Spirit's power at work. The words by themselves were or not, were not enough. You said, I didn't use these clever words. I didn't try and persuade you with arguments, but I demonstrated the Spirit's power and being witnesses to Christ means we don't just talk about Jesus, but we demonstrate the power of His resurrection.

That's what the Book of Acts is all about. The Apostles. The message they had was not just that Jesus died and he's risen. It was Jesus died and he's risen. And here is the evidence of the power of the resurrection. And that's why it says again and again that God worked many signs of wonders and miracles through the Apostles.

Why? Because He wanted to value date the truth of their words with a demonstration of his power. That's the gospel that you were saved into, and that's the gospel that the Holy Spirit wants to continually make a reality in your life. But we live in the power of God, but we see the evidence of resurrection power at work in our lives.

God wants to work through us, but He also wants to work in us. Poor praise doesn't need efficiency. I want you to know the immeasurably great power for us who believe we don't live a powerless life. It's not the life that Jesus has for you. You see the Holy Spirit. He is. One of the things I'm learning more and more is that is that the Holy Spirit is very near us and He's very near us.

He's in us exactly what Jesus says to the disciples. He says, You know him because he's been with you, but he's going to be in you. And the realm of the spirit is not somewhere distant and far off and is not somewhere that we can just kind of occasionally make some kind of contact with. It's where we're designed as men and women of the Holy Spirit, where we designed to live every day.

Knowing his power at work, the Holy Spirit brings the power. But I believe we can't expect to move and live in that power and to move and live in in the wisdom that comes from God without embracing holiness, you will receive power. When the remember His first name, Holy Spirit, comes upon you. And one of the things about the Holiness of God is that it can be imparted, it can be shared, but it can also be consuming.

Our God is a consuming fire and God doesn't want to kill us. And so I think sometimes well, I know this is I know this is true. Sometimes when we feel distant from God, it's actually the grace of God towards us. Because if we were truly embracing his presence, there would be there would be things in us that wouldn't withstand his presence.

You see, if we want to live a continually holy life, we've got to remember that that repentance is not just something you did many, many years ago when you first put your faith in Jesus Christ. But it's something that we continually do, You see. You see holiness does mean God's perfection. It does mean his purity. But holiness also means it means that which is set aside explicitly for one purpose alone.

And I wonder sometimes in our own lives, I don't wonder about my own life. I know it's true of my own life. But there are times when when if I'm honest, I'm saying that how I'm living my life and what I'm putting my time to, what I'm putting my attention and my energy to is not exclusively for God and for his purposes.

I'm not living a holy life, not because I'm of seeing how many sins I can commit, but because I've forgotten that holiness means a separation. A separation to the things of God. And I have to repent and I have to come and I have to I have to reorder my life and remember that if I want to know the power of the Holy Spirit, if I want to walk in that way of intimacy, if I want him to be on first name terms with me like he was with Samuel, Samuel, Samuel, then I need to be on a first name terms with him.

And remember, the one who lives in me is holy. And so this vessel, such as it is, seldom has the description jar of clay been more appropriate than the vessel that stands before you this morning. Rustic. But this has got to be holy as well. That means it's got to be given for the purposes of holiness. It's got to be given for the things of God.

And I think most of us are probably mature enough in Christ that if there was some horrendous, some forgiven, said in our lives, that would be kind of like alarm bells going and flashing lights. But we can live in such a way that we that we we, we find that more and more of our attention and our time is being given to things that really serve nothing in the purposes of God that we're not offering ourselves to a holy God to do holy things.

You know, Ephesians two talks about the good works that he's planned in advance for us to do. I don't believe that they are kind of it's not like hide and seek. It's not like there's just a few of these and you've got to put all your effort into it. I believe there are. I believe there are loads. I believe there's a surplus, a huge surplus of good things that he's prepared in advance for us to do that we could walk in.

If we walk by the Spirit, we'll find that they're there all the time and every day. And, you know, the way that we walk in those things, the way we walk into those things is to have a mindset and a determination. Remember, repentance means to change your mind, think differently about things, to say, What's my life all about?

What's my day all about? Today is my number one priority to walk in the good works that God, in all his eternal wisdom, has prepared in advance for me to do, because He wants someone to come and bring the presence of God, to bring the power of God, to bring a demonstration of who He is into the world that I live in.

Do you know that's the only reason you're really alive? You've got a wonderful baptistery here. I love. I love this baptistery. I was here on a Sunday when you took an offering for it, and I know it was one of the. It's one of the greatest things I've ever learned from the from the wonderful Jeff Grace. And I don't remember whether you said it.

Maybe he says this all the time, but I remember he stood up and he said, So we're taking the offering for the baptistery, but I've got great news. We've already got all the money we need. And you all shared some of you were here, you remember, you all shared. And then as you as the cheering died down, we said, the only problem is the money still in your pockets.

So for me, that's a top tip. I'm taking an offering. That's fantastic. And the next time I came, the baptistery was there, so it must have work. But do you know there is only one reason? Well, actually, there's probably two reasons. One, The second reason is we could end up in prison. But there's really only one reason spiritually why when we put people down into the water, we bring them up again.

There's only one reason. It's because God wants you in this world. There's a living demonstration of the power of the resurrection. He wants you walking this world hand-in-hand with the Holy Spirit, doing what He sent, first of all, his son into the world to do. And then Jesus said, and greater things that these you will do, because I go to be with the father and I'm going to send you the spirit.

That's why you come up out of the water. So if you've been baptized, the fact that you were brought up again is a sign that you have been commissioned to walk every day with the Holy Spirit in the good works, but he has prepared in advance for you to do. And when you bring the spirit, when you and actually just even waking up and reminding yourselves, that is a step into holiness, because it's saying I've been set apart for a purpose, I have been set apart for something that others cannot even hope to attain to outside of Christ.

I've been set apart to be someone just like Paul, who said, I'm not going to come with all the clever words. I just want to show you the power of the Holy Spirit, because that's what people's faith will rest upon. That's what's going to make a difference in this world. So the first thing I want to ask you this morning is do you need to repent?

Do you need to repent? Because we can we can talk about all kinds of wonderful things. But actually, if we're not prepared to go, actually, Lord, I've got this wrong. I've I realize I've kind of I've got off track. Maybe there's even some kind of sin you've been habitually walking in that you need to repent of. But whether or not that's the case, I think all of us repentance is not just something you do once, and it's not even just something you do.

When you said it's something you do that that readjusts the direction of your of the direction of your life. You know, Hebrews six, it talks about the foundations of the faith, and it says that we it talks about repentance from works that leads to death and faith towards God. That's a 180 degree repentance. Yeah, a 180 degree turn.

We're going away from the works that lead to death. And we're now on a path that's faith to God. But, you know, sometimes when we're walking, certainly when I'm walking, I find it quite hard to walk in a straight line. My wife will testify to that. But when you're walking along, when you when you go, you can you can veer off course, can't you?

And you've not gone a long way off. But if you keep going off just by one or two degrees for quite a while, you're going to end up lost somewhere. You're going to end up off the path. That's the kind of daily repentance I think we need to be doing. It's that it's not one or two degree adjustment.

I'm not sure this works in the original Greek, but it certainly works in English. But we are being we are being transformed from one degree of glory to another. It's a different kind of degree, I think is. But but it works. It works in English, so let's go with it. We will speak English so that actually the work, as we behold Christ, as we look to Him, as we make him our central focus, we find those little adjustments that keep us saying, I'm set apart just for God.

I'm walking the path of holiness. And when I'm walking the way of holiness, and when I'm talking with the Holy Spirit and when I'm hearing his voice, I know that his power can't be too far away because he doesn't do anything without bringing the power of God's. You've probably heard it said, and it's probably an oversimplification, but I find it very helpful around how God works as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

But the Father thought it, and the Son said it in the Spirit did it. Yeah, you heard that. But the Spirit of God in the Old Testament, whenever God's spirit is mentioned, it's to do with power. It's to do with something happening, even in creation. In the beginning, God made the heavens and the earth and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters and God said, The word comes in, the Spirit does.

The Spirit always comes in power? He always comes in power. And power always means change, always means transformation, which is why we're being transformed into his image from one degree of glory to another. And when we yield to the power of the Holy Spirit, change happens. We've heard some of those testimonies this morning. Sometimes change happens over a long period of time.

Sometimes you're still in the middle and you can identify. It's not arrived yet and sometimes it happens just in the moment. But there is always a power of transformation when the spirit is at work. The next thing we find as we read through here, I've got a lot of things to say from this passage, and I'm certainly not going to get to say all of them this morning.

But we're back together this evening, so that's good. The next passage in verses 6 to 10, it says We do pause. He talks about we're not speaking wisdom, but he says we do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature but not the wisdom of this age or the rulers of this age who are coming to nothing.

I'm just going to stop there. One of one of the keys in understanding how the Holy Spirit was just wants to bring us into the realm of God's wisdom of think. We said with the ultimate goal of this passage is that we have the mind of Christ, but to think the way God thinks and to perceive things, the way that God perceives things.

And it's really important. I find this is a key for us to understand that the rulers of this age are coming to nothing, but the ways of this age are coming to nothing. Now, I appreciate there's a few of you here this morning who are of more mature years and when I was one of one of the things that I've realized is that is that my my youthful disappointment in the world getting to be a better and better place.

Yes. So one of the early kind of formative you know, I remember my first kind of a consciousness of what was going on in the world was the was the three minute warning, you know, of of of mutually assured nuclear destruction. And then the Berlin Wall came down when I was 19 years old. And suddenly the whole world is getting a better and better place.

And you realize, oh, it's wonderful. The progress of democracy and peace. And it's all it's all, you know, and then you have kind of prosperity in itself is wonderful. The world is getting better and better and better. And then and then I also lived through the last 15 years and and my youthful, if you like, hopefulness on the ways of the world was entirely dashed.

And I found that really helpful because it showed me that even the even the strongest, even what seem to be the most certain things in the progress of of time and this kind of thing, it's all coming to nothing. And whether it happens sooner or later is kind of irrelevant. It's all coming to nothing. The ways of this world have already lost their power and they're destined to pass away, and that applies at every level.

I remember I remember Gordon Brown. You remember Gordon Brown? I remember him making a declaration. We have put an end to boom and bust through all of that. And I remember thinking at the time, But wasn't there a dream that a pharaoh had like three and a half thousand years ago that was interpreted by a man who had the spirit of God that basically was telling us that's always the way of the world.

And it's those kind of things that begin to kind of, you know, nibble away at your confidence in the in the way this world works. But it's a wonderful liberation because we realize that there is no answer in the wisdom of this world. There is no hope in the wisdom of this world. I don't want to be hugely pessimistic.

It's fine to be in the world and use the things of the world. Paul says that in one Corinthians seven, he says, Just don't let it possess you. Don't let it have a hold on you. There's nothing wrong with using it. There's nothing wrong with taking to your advantage the things of this world when they are to your advantage.

No problem with that. But don't put your hope in it. Don't frame your world in it. But to realize that you who have the Holy Spirit have a completely different way of conceiving this world. We think about things in a completely different way. And that's what Paul says. We speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or the rulers of this age.

You are coming to nothing. No, we declare God's wisdom a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. Here's the thing. This way of thinking, God's way of thinking, Thinking like God does. Before time began. Before time began, God had already thought and planned that there would be a way for believers to live that would bring them not what's what's happening to the world.

It's coming to nothing. That's one option. So you can go with the way that the ultimately ends with coming to nothing, or you can go with the way that ends. With what? Glory, perfection, beauty, maturity, fullness, wholeness, all that God intends. Now, which way do you want to think about? Life? The way that ends with everything coming to nothing, or the way that ends with the glory that God intended for you to share?

You know what it says in Romans? All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. It is true that that means all have sinned and fallen short of God's perfect standard, which is how some translations put it. But I also think it means this that we've all said that sin, what sin ultimately causes you to do is to fail to attain what God originally intended for you to share in His glory, in His perfection.

That's what sin does. And when we're liberated from sin, as we have been, because we've put our faith in Jesus Christ, it now means that it's not only that we can attain all right now I can now I can meet the standard. It means that now we have a new destiny. We're destined to share in the glory of God.

This says none of the rulers of this age understood it. For if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. The Lord of glory. If you call him Lord, you get to share in His glory. If He's your Lord, His inheritance becomes your inheritance. His status becomes your status. His throne becomes your throne. His mission becomes your mission.

Here's the thing Who enjoyed singing Away Maker this morning? Yeah, I think most of us are still on the way up with that song. I give it six months before they start singing. They worship and you go, Oh, can we leave that one a few weeks? I think we're still on the way up. All songs have that trajectory.

Some come back again. That one probably will. In the chorus. There are four things that we sing about. God is the well, I've just get some critique over His way maker, Miracle worker promise keeper light in the darkness. They're all true about God. Do you know what the Bible says? They're all true about you. Yeah. Do you? Can you give me a reference for each way maker?

How about that one? Isaiah said, Well, yes, we're people of the way. Yeah, absolutely. Isaiah in the wilderness. Make way Make a way for the king to come. Our whole prophetic calling is that we're here to make a way for the king. We make it with a miracle worker. You give me a verse on that. Yes. These things you will do.

And even more. Or the commission in Mark, you know, they'll lay their hands on the sick and recover. They'll pick up snakes. Not so keen on that when they drink deadly poison. I've been there once or twice, but disguised as food. Yeah, miracles. So we make a miracle worker promise keeper. God, yes. Let your space and you know we know.

Yeah. And actually, again, in the book of Isaiah, it talks about us in terms of that and and what about Jeremiah and the New covenant are right the law on their hearts light in the darkness That's an easy one. You are the light of the world. Isn't that interesting that everything we were singing about him, he then speaks over us.

See, that's what the Holy Spirit does for us. That's what calling the Lord of Glory, Lord does. It brings you into a share of who He who He is, and that passage carries on. However it's written. What no one is seen. What? No here is heard. What no human mind has conceived. The things God has prepared for those who love Him.

These things God has revealed to us by His Spirit. These things God has revealed to us by His Spirit. You see the message of the Gospel and the gospel. And, you know, Jesus loves to continually speak the gospel over us. That's one of the things He's doing in heaven. Revelation one. Yeah, that vision that John has of Jesus is Jesus in His present Heavenly ministry.

And the first thing John sees, in fact he hears it before he sees it is the loud voice, like a trumpet. The trumpet is the gospel. Yeah, that's the Gospel Declaration, the Jubilee Declaration. Jesus in the heavens is blowing a trumpet over you today. He doesn't think the work of the gospel has been completed in your life. Yeah, because.

Because you kind of. Because you prayed the prayer and got baptized. Receive the Holy Spirit. He doesn't go. Okay, but that's the work of the Gospel. Let's move on to something else. He goes, No, I want to keep blowing the gospel into your life like a loud trumpet. And I want you. I want you to understand more and more by revelation, not by reason, by hearing what he says by by what he shows us of himself, the fullness of what he's got for us.

The message of the gospel, Paul says, rests on power, not on persuasion. That's one of the reasons that God continually wants you to experience and to live in his power at work in your life. And Baxter said this How many of you remember him back to how many of you heard Baxter preach? Just a few of us. It's difficult to remember because I've listened to so many of his tapes, but I did remember.

I did hear him speak once in Leicester in 1989, but this is one of the things he says. He said shall believe this is a UK elders conference in 1992. That's what the notes I had said. I wasn't an elder then, I was barely an adult, but I got a hold of the notes. He said The Satan's main objective is to get you away from a relationship with the Holy Spirit, to give us an intellectual conceptual view of things without getting personally involved with the Holy Spirit.

That was a man speaking right at the end of a very long life in ministry, said, If Satan can get you away from the Holy Spirit, he's pretty much done his job. If our faith just becomes intellectual and conceptual and I love that side of things, I have to say I love that side of things. I love the nerdy side.

I'm a bit of a theology nerd. Okay? And it's not that that's wrong, but if that's all you've got, and even if that's the center of who you are as a believer and to form of godliness that lacks the power, God wants us to live every day in the power of the Holy Spirit. What Paul is telling us here is he said if they'd have understood it, they wouldn't have crucified the Lord of Glory.

One of the things He's telling us here is that wisdom, the wisdom of God, begins with the crucifixion. It begins with the crucifixion. And if you want to see the world the way God sees the world, look at the cross and say that was a great idea. Not that that was a sad, yet necessary thing for Christ to go through.

No, but that was the wisdom of God. But God himself being the only one who could possibly overcome the power of sin and death, didn't just somehow kind of just about overcome it, didn't do just what was needed. But actually God himself came and took into himself, all said and all death and then rise again from the dead to show that sin and death no longer had any power.

The crucifixion, the death of Christ is the beginning of wisdom, and the resurrection is always the answer to every question. Jesus was right. This There would be no church in the world today if it weren't for the power and the truth of the message of resurrection. That's that's the message that spread around the world. That's the message that the apostles preached and has been preached all down through the generations.

And that because Jesus raised from the dead and Paul tells us in Rome and say the spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, he says this, He will bring life to your mortal body. Now, I do believe that talks about healing, and I do believe that talks about my ultimate resurrection body. But I believe also talks about how he wants us to live every day in resurrection life.

Here's another question. You can hear some questions. You can ask the Holy Spirit every morning. One is, how do you want to show the power of the resurrection? Through my life today? Where's the power? Where's the power going to come out? What what what are we going to do together, Holy Spirit today that shows that Jesus is risen from the dead, that shows that the Gospel is true?

Here's another one. You may have heard me say this before because I say it lots of times in lots of places, but I find lots of young people always looking and asking, what's my call and what's my purpose in life? And it's great to ask that and it's great to discover that, but never let that be something that puts off understanding that the fact that you're baptized in the Holy Spirit means that you have a daily invitation to be part of God's eternal purpose.

And so here's another question to ask the Holy Spirit every day What are we going to do together that makes an impact on eternity? You see, being people of a Holy Spirit, I believe, means the people of resurrection means that every day you can be part of something that has an eternal consequence. In fact, that's God's intention because you've been set apart for His purposes, and anything that is merely natural may have some temporary benefit, but ultimately will come to nothing.

So don't put too much effort into things that ultimately are going to come to nothing. Jesus tells the parable This is the if of the wealthy farmer, but the wealthy but foolish farmer who his whole life was about gaining more and more stuff and building more and more bonds to save it up. And he's met one night by God and he says, You foolish man, because today your life is required of you and everything he'd given his life to, he left behind.

Whereas I believe that God intends that everything we give our lives to, we find is there in eternity. And we enjoy the fruits of it. Holy Spirit, what are we going to do together today that has an impact on eternity that lasts into eternity? I'm going to say one more thing and then we'll probably leave the rest of this for the evening.

Living in the spirit or living in the flesh, I'm discovering more and more is a binary. I can't live in the flesh and have a little bit of the spirit you can try. In fact, Jesus tells a story about this just in that He talks about He says No. One, we're all familiar with the the what he says about the wine skins.

You want an old white skin. So let's have a look. It's Mark to and there's a little bit just before that, just before he talks about the wine skins, where he talks about patching an old garment. So mark to 21. No one sows an unsure cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old and the worse and a worse tear is made and no one puts new one in a wine skins.

If he does, the new one will burst the skins. The wine is destroyed and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wine skins. And in this picture, we're supposed to be. We're supposed to see ourselves as the wine skins for the new wine of the Holy Spirit. That so? And then if you take that back into the previous thing he says about an old garment, I'm putting new putting, putting new bits of cloth on it.

And we presume he's talking about the same thing. We're left with this image. Jesus comes along and says, I'm giving you a brand new set of clothes, and we've enclosed in the righteousness of God in Christ, we've been put on Christ, Paul says. And instead of taking it and taking off our old clothes and putting on the new clothes, we go, Oh, that's really nice.

I can cut that up and put some patches on my old clothes and we can look at the way of living with Jesus. We can look at the new life that we have in Christ is saying, Isn't this wonderful new life he's given us? We can take a few bits from this and stick it on the old life.

We can cover up some of those. I've been bothered about that whole. Now I can now I can cover that up. And it's foolish at two levels. One, because why would you do that with new clothes when you can put on the new? But Jesus says, even if even if you thought even if you didn't think it was a terrible idea, it's not going to work anyway, because there isn't there isn't the life in the old garment.

It's going to it's going to make it worse. What's he saying? He's saying Christians don't live a patchy life. Don't try and take a few bits of of what you have in Christ and stick it over the holes in the old life. It doesn't work. It's destined to fail. It will be a frustration to you. I believe that the reason that so many Christians live a powerless life is that they only occasionally allow themselves to be led by the spirit.

Whereas if you want to really pursue a life led by the Spirit, there needs to be a determination that we do it every day and that we do it every moment of every day. But one of the things that we've got, we've we've we've we've we've been running reason I've been running a a midweek group helping people that want to develop in prophetic gifts.

But one of the things that we've we've discovered is even just as people begin to turn their attention to hearing from God, they find that hearing from God all the time. And then we had we had a we had a meeting this week. We were we were just asking people, you know, what is God done with the words that he spoke to us last time we were together?

How is that developed and what's come from that? And a number of them are kind of fed into a Sunday morning meeting we'd had and his his how close the Holy Spirit is. And when we determine that we want to engage with what he's doing. The consequence of that from a Sunday now two Sundays ago is just because of what the Holy Spirit was, was doing and saying in our gathering.

I said to I said, if I just feel that I want to pray for anyone who is asking God for an opportunity to share their faith this week, and if you'd like, if you, you know, and so nearly everybody stood up and we just prayed very simple prayer. And then we were together nine days later. And so some people were kind of telling testimonies of how they said this had happened and they'd had opportunities to share their faith.

And there was there was one young man that he said, I've been in the job. I'm in for two and a half years. And I mostly work remotely and I've been getting really frustrated. I've not had a single opportunity to share my faith since I've been in this job, he said. And in the last week I've had four opportunities.

And then he said, and I completely forgot. And we prayed that the other Sunday. So here's his. And I was even more blessed that he'd forgotten because here's the thing. It was the Holy Spirit. Yeah. It wasn't his mental kind of like, Oh, now we freed this. I've got to look for the opportunities. Now something happens when there's a simple response, when we pray, when we agree with the leading and the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

So yes, Lord, I'm up for that. It doesn't even matter sometimes if our brains forget because we're walking with the spirit. So I want to encourage you to ask the Holy Spirit also actually be and be honest with Him. Maybe start your day, said Lord, I'd really I'd love to. Would you please give me an opportunity to share my faith today or give me an opportunity to pray for someone that's sick today?

Well, Lord, give me some words of life. Here's a prayer I often pray, Lord, you know what the disciples said to Jesus said, Where can we go? You have the words of eternal life. I often pray when I go going to meet someone or if I'm going to, such as they look at me. Words of eternal life. Give me words of life to speak.

And often I don't know that I've done it, but they do because they've received something. The Holy Spirit is very close to the realm of the Spirit is very close. I'm going to read you one of the verses here from I Not. I've got down that it's verse D there isn't a verse to use this whatever. It's where Paul says, you know, it resolve to know nothing among you but Christ.

Here's what the Moffatt translation says. He says this I determined among you to be ignorant of everything except Jesus Christ, to be ignorant of everything except Jesus Christ. And if you're anything like me, you like to you like to work things out, you like to think things through and you like to have an answer and you like to be prepared and and but actually, what happens if I determine that the only thing that's going to be on my mind is Jesus?

So that's what the Holy Spirit wants. That's the kind of life He wants us to it wants to lead us, said that the only thing that's on our mind is Jesus Christ. So I determined among you to be ignorant of everything except Jesus Christ. It's abandoning the wisdom of the world and the way of the world, not because it's of no value, not because it never works, but because it's not eternal, because it's inferior.

You have a superior reality that comes by walking with the spirit. You have a superior reality that comes by determining to be determining, to be ignorant of everything except Jesus. You have a superior reality when you believe the words of Jesus, when he says greater things than these will you do. Because I go to be with my father, that the coming of the Holy Spirit means that you live in the days of the greater things.

You have a superior reality. When you realize that I am a you make a miracle worker promise, keep a light in the darkness because God says I am. You have a superior reality When you realize the reason you came out of the waters of baptism is that he's got good works, that he wants you to walk in. You have a superior reality when you realize that every day you can do something that will last for eternity and that the same words that when Jesus spoke them, brought life are the words that He wants to put on your lips.

Let me just read you one more verse on that Romans ten, verse 6 to 8. So not that you normally read in Romans ten.