All right, Luke chapter 5. Now as we’ve been following these stories about Jesus, as we go into Luke chapter 5, Jesus begins to have confrontations starting in Luke chapter 5 with a group of religious people called Pharisees. And it starts in Luke chapter 5 and it does not get any better for the rest of the book. I just want to tell you this that these confrontations with these religious legalistic people grow in intensity, but it starts here in Luke chapter 5.
So this morning the title of the talk is “Roof Rippers and Bag Phone Believers, Roof Rippers and Bag Phone Believers.” So I want you to look at the story now. In Luke chapter 5, Jesus has launched into His public ministry, launched right in. Let’s pick it up in verse 17. “One day as He was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law who had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem were sitting there.”
In other words just a huge collection. Pharisees, legalistic religious leaders from all over the country have gathered to hear this young prophet who they were—in fact they were a bit concerned about Jesus because Jesus is gathering these big crowds. And so they’re all there to listen to Him. “And the power of the Lord was present for Him to heal the sick. Some men carrying a paralytic on a mat and they tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. And when they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles in the middle of the crowd right in front of Jesus.”
Can you imagine how shocked people were to suddenly see this guy coming from the ceiling? They break open the roof; they lower this guy. Here this guy comes in a mat. And I don’t know how safe this was either. I mean this guy was already in bad shape. What if the rope had broken? What if the mat had given way? Here’s this guy being lowered down in front of Jesus; in front of all the crowd because they couldn’t get through the crowd to get to Jesus. So these friends, very innovative.
All right, let’s keep reading. And He says verse 20, “When Jesus saw their faith, He said, ‘Friend, your sins are forgiven.’” And a gasp went throughout the crowd. Jesus just said something that only God Himself could say. “He says, ‘Friend, your sins are forgiven.’ And the Pharisees and the teachers of the law began thinking to themselves, ‘Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?’”
And Jesus knew what they were thinking and he asked, ‘Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? Which is easier: to say, “Your sins are forgiven” or say, “Get up and walk”?’ But you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins. He said to the paralyzed man, ‘I tell you get up, take your mat and go home.’ Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he’d been lying on and went home praising God. And everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled…” Look at the word here, “They were filled with awe.”
Remember that’s one of the three words that God is returning back to our fellowship. Awe, the sense and awareness that God is among us; the miraculous nature of God is present among us even today. They were filled with awe, and He said—and I forgot where I am now. Okay, anyway I’m going to pick it up here. Oh, it says, “We have seen remarkable things today.” Verse 27: “After this, Jesus went out. He saw a tax collector by the name of Levi, sitting at his tax booth. ‘Follow Me,’ Jesus said to him. Levi got up, left everything and followed Him.”
“Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, ‘Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?’ Jesus answered them, ‘It’s not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.’”
“And they said to Him, ‘John’s disciples often fast and pray, why can’t You be more like them?’” This is what they were saying. Ever had somebody tell you that? “And he says, ‘And so do the disciples of the Pharisees but yours go on eating and drinking.’ And Jesus answered, ‘Can you make the guest of the bridegroom fast while he’s with them? But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them and in those days they will fast.’”
“He told them this parable: ‘No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does he will have torn the garment and the patch from the new garment will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says the old is better.’”
All right, that was a lot of scripture there but I wanted to read all of that at one time for you to see these interactions that Jesus was having with religious and legalistic people. Now I wish I could say that that spirit, that spirit of religion and that spirit of legalism was no longer present today, but I have sad news for all of us. That spirit is alive and well, and it happens to hang out a lot inside of church buildings, among church people. And I know this and I want to say this up front and I want all of us to be as honest.
Together all of us in this room are tempted to become legalistic. All of us have the capacity in our hearts to become religious, to become legalistic. To put something on people that God Himself is not even putting on people. To put rules and regulations and requirements upon people that God’s not even putting upon us. To add our own rules, our own traditions to those of the Bible.
So it started out with Ten Commandments. By the time Jesus arrived on the earth, there was about ten thousand rules that the Pharisees were having to follow. Seriously, they went from ten to ten thousand. The Pharisees were required to follow around ten thousand rules. What would happen if I say, “Okay you want to be a part of New Life? You want to be a part of this church? You want to be a part of the fellowship? Here are the rules: Whoom! Ten thousand of them.”
And we all had to memorize them. And if we ever broke the rule, we were all in big trouble. This is the environment that Jesus came into the world. This is the environment that is present in many, many churches and I want to expose it today. I want to bring it to the light so that in all of our hearts, we can be free from this legalism; this Pharisaical controlling legalism that tends to creep in over time. And the older the church becomes, the more traditions get put into the fabric of that church, and they’re called sacred cows.
Have you ever heard that phrase, sacred cows? All right, so I came here three and a half years ago and right away I discovered some sacred cows, things that were not sacred necessarily. In other words, it wasn’t the scriptures that were being violated and it wasn’t the sacraments, but there were things here that people put on that realm. I want to talk about some of those in just a minute because I’ve got some funny stories.
All right, so let me give you really quickly, three things that I believe are indicators of religious people. And I’m just saying to all of you, in fact one of the marks of a religious person is that they immediately dismiss anything that might be wrong with them. So if you’re sitting in the crowd today and you said, “Well I’m not a religious person.” Chances are….
All right, here’s the first thing, religious people use shame and guilt as weapons of choice. Notice the Pharisees, notice as soon as Jesus said to the man, listen, an amazing thing happened: this guy he is crippled and friends climb to the roof lower him down in front of Jesus and Jesus heals him but they are not—they’re not excited about it.
Listen to what it says. Go back with me in verse 21, “The Pharisees and the teachers of the law…” This is how it starts, “…they began thinking to themselves.” All religious activity starts with religious legalistic thoughts in our minds. Here’s some of the thoughts: “That’s not the right way to do it. Why can’t they be more like me? I know how to do it properly, and they need to do it the way I do it.” These are the thoughts that we begin to have and then out of those thoughts come words.
Now notice that the first encounter that Jesus has with the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, He recognizes their thoughts first. Now as we read the book of Luke in the next few months, you’re going to notice that their words get sharper and sharper and sharper. In fact, they start saying, “We need to kill this guy as a favor to God.”
So it starts with a thought and it ends up with them actually saying, “We need to kill Jesus and we’re doing God a favor if we do.” And shame and guilt come out of that. Now in fact in verse 33 we just read this too. Verse 33, what they said to Jesus was, “Hey, how come your disciples don’t fast the way John’s disciples fast?” Have you ever had a parent, a coach, a teacher, somebody in authority in your life say to you, “Why can’t you be more like…?” And then fill in the blank with the person’s name.
The parents—let me just say this; this is parenting one-oh-one to me. Shame will cause your children to stop behaving badly. You can shame your children into stop doing what they’re doing, but it will not last. It does not produce transformation in their hearts. And sometimes we get frustrated with our kids’ behavior and instead of disciplining them, coaching them, teaching them, we’re tired, we’re angry, we’re ready to go to bed. Maybe we’re hungry, maybe we’re all three and we say things that we don’t mean but what comes out of us is this shame and this guilt that we’re placing on our children.
And by the way, your kids will respond to shame and guilt but it will not produce long term transformation in their heart. In fact you’re doing damage to their soul when you use shame and guilt to correct anyone. You cannot bring change with shame. In fact, let me just tell you this as a pastor. I can fill this altar up every Sunday if I shame people by their sin. I can have hundreds of people crying every Sunday in this altar, because shame is a powerful motivator. It’s just a lousy transformational tool though. And I grew up in churches where pastors would shame me into repentance every Sunday because I had sinned that week. I had fallen short that week. Every Sunday I was just reminded of how awful I was. And I wanted to come down. I don’t want to be awful. I don’t want to be horrible. But that shame and that guilt, it’s a powerful motivating tool. It’s just not from God.
And religious people use shame and guilt to control. They use shame and guilt to get people to conform to their way of thinking and doing things. Number two: religious people are offended by sinners. I mean, offended by sinners. So here is Luke, you know talking about the story of Levi who just really decided to follow Jesus. But the problem was, Levi was not a church guy. Levi was a tax collector. And I’m not talking about the IRS. Tax collectors were different in the day of Jesus than they are now. Yet not so much.
In fact, I had a lady walk up to me. I said that one time and used that joke and she handed me her IRS card because she worked. And I was like, “I don’t want to make that joke again because tax season is coming; audit.” All right, but the problem with tax collectors was, they were in cahoots with the Roman government. So the people who were enslaving all of Israel, these tax collectors, worked for the Roman government. They were collecting taxes for the evil Caesar. And so they were looked down upon, and they were scam artists. They were extortionists. They were asking people to give more taxes then they owed. And they often extorted people. They were criminals in many cases.
In fact, the only people that would hang out with tax collectors were other tax collectors because nobody else would hang out with them. So notice at the party that Luke mentions, it’s Levi and other tax collectors because they had no other friends. And here Jesus is hanging out with them. I can just see Jesus lounging around with them, hanging out. And there are tax collectors; the awful sinners of the community are sitting there with Him, and He’s just having a great time. And people are looking in and going, “Jesus is enjoying being around sinners. I cannot believe that. Look how awful those men are in there, and Jesus is choosing by choice to hang out with them.”
Have you ever emphasized “them”? Here’s the deal, Jesus—and then Jesus, He rebukes them. “I didn’t come here for the righteous. I came here for the sinners.”
I wonder--I want you to answer this question. If you’ve been born again more than ten years, I mean really following Jesus with the best of your ability for at least ten years, ask yourself—I want to know and you all need to talk about this today at lunch. How many of you have some awful sinners as friends? I mean, honestly people that are just messy. Don’t raise your hand. I mean messy, awful. I mean how many of you have friends that smell like cigarettes, bourbon and beer? How many of you have friends who have been married so many times you’ve lost count, they’re in an awful relationship? I’m telling, those are the friends that we must have in our lives.
But what happens when you become a church person is, you become civilized. We begin to be respectable. We begin to dress better. We begin to hang around people that are not messy. We begin to insulate our lives. We begin to separate ourselves from the very people who are so desperate for what we have. It’s literally taking the cup of cold water that God gives us and refusing to give it to someone who has not drank water in a year.
We are salt. We are light. We have to have friends who are messy. And that’s why I love the story of Dale. On January second, we had Dale up on the stage. Dale had just given his life to the Lord, and a New Life family just randomly met him, found him. I’m not talking about—listen, I’m not advocating being unwise. And I know, I’ve said this before and I tell people, I’ve been called to the bar ministry. I’m just going to go down Friday nights and Saturday nights and hang out in the bars.
Listen, I’m not advocating you being unwise. I’m just saying, “Are you open to having a friend who’s not churchy, who is awful, who smells bad, and who is a sinner? I am. And listen the first few times you come down to the dream centers and hang out, and if you’re not open to that, you will run and hide. You will run, run, run, run, run because sinners are going to come to the dream center.
I want you to memorize this. This is a very important, okay? Deep theology, what I’m about to give you. “Dogs bark, cats meow, and sinners sin.” The reason they’re called sinners is because they are good at sinning. That’s why they need Jesus. And Jesus said, “Listen, I’m going to hang out with some sinners. I don’t even like church people. I want to hang out with some sinners because I think they were more fun than the Pharisees.”
I’m serious. Pam and I do not hang out with legalistic churchy people. I don’t want to offend you but if you’re legalistic and churchy, the chances of us hanging out with you are slim to none because I just—it’s just awful. You’re not nice. Churchy, legalistic people are mean. They’re aggravated all the time. They’re just mad all the time about something. It’s no fun to hang out with those people. I’d rather hang out with some awful sinners than that kind of group. Right?
Come on, somebody say Amen with me. Thank you very much. Number three: religious people believe there is only one way to do things. There’s only one way to do things. Can I tell you, the Pharisees had the same ambition as Jesus. You all the Pharisees wanted—you know what they wanted? They wanted the kingdom of heaven to come to the earth. They did. They sincerely wanted the kingdom of heaven to come to the earth. They were just convinced there was only one way to do it. There’s only one way to do this.
Now let me ask you a question. All right? Let’s just put this in New Life context. This is not a trick question; this is a simple yes or no answer. Okay? How many of you believe one of the duties that we have as Christ-followers is to pray for the nations; to pray for people groups all over the world to find Jesus as their Savior? How many of you believe that we’re called to pray for the gospel to go forth, for people to say “yes” to Jesus? Raise your hands if you believe that? Okay? Right? We believe that.
We have a world prayer center built for that. Right? All right so when I came here, three and a half years ago, I’ve never been in a world prayer center. I’d heard about it but never been in it. So I walk in, this is when I’m here to be interviewed, the secret interview meeting that I had here. I walked in and I loved the world prayer center. This is amazing. This is awesome. And then I walked into the chapel, and there in front of me was the ugliest world globe/golf ball, spinning thing that I’d ever seen in my life. This is going to offend some of you. If this is offensive to you, I’m sorry. It was ugly. It was blocking the view of Pikes Peak. There was Pikes Peak behind it. And then I heard stories of people saying, “We had a wedding there, and we put a big sheet over the globe because we didn’t want the globe to be in all our wedding pictures.” And then I said, “Hey, would you be okay with Pikes Peak being in the photo?” “Well, yes.” And it made a noise. Every time it got around to North America, it went, “EEEK, EEEK, EEEK”.
I had a little pad and paper, and I wrote down, “Number one: I’m going to roll that globe down I-25 toward Fort Carson.” Because I believe in praying for the world. There’s more than one way to do it though. So we put up very nice flags, beautiful new flags in the world prayer center, and then I chopped up that golf ball. I don’t know where it is today, but it will not come back. It is ugly. It makes noises.
If you’re mad, get glad. This is the point that Jesus was making. Listen, Jesus had the same motivation as the Pharisees, the kingdom of heaven coming to the earth. But the Pharisees, listen, the Pharisees were furious because Jesus did not require them to go to the temple for cleansing. He did not require them any longer to sacrifice animals for the forgiveness of their sins. He was not requiring that anymore. He was preaching repentance, repentance. Now just receive it. It’s a free gift now. You don’t have to earn it. The Pharisees were furious, and yet they were after the same thing.
Jesus just came with a new covenant though. Jesus said, “Listen, I’m about to make it really easy for the kingdom of heaven to come to the earth, I’m about to take away all the rules. I didn’t come to abolish the law. I came to fulfill the law so that you can now receive this free gift of salvation.” What a beautiful, beautiful moment that the Pharisee had missed out on because they weren’t doing it the way we had always done it.
The next time someone says that to you, I want you to look them in the eye, “That’s not the way we do it around here.” I want you to look them in the eye and say, “Listen, maybe there is a better way. Maybe the old way is not necessarily the best way.”
So how can we be careful not to become this religious person? I don’t think anybody in here wants to become a Pharisee. In fact, I’m shocked that anybody even volunteers. It’s a thorn to be one of them. They’re not liked. Do you know we have to put security around the Pharisees after the show because people take it so seriously? The Pharisees literally get mocked and verbally abused in the parking lots because people get so into the show they really think these men, these godly men who dress up as Pharisees, are Pharisees. Seriously; they’re that good at acting it out.
I think some of them were too good at it. I just—I don’t know. I’m joking. All right, so how can we be careful not to become this religious person, this legalistic Pharisee called religious person? Number one: remain sensitive to the Holy Spirit. This is one of the most shocking, one of the most glaring scriptures that just jumped off the page at me this week.
Look back at verse 17, the last part of it. Jesus is in this place, this house and it says, The Holy Spirit…. Listen, “The Holy Spirit was present; was available for people to be healed. Look at that. Put that scripture up there. Verse 17, “And the power of the Lord was present…” It was there. “… for people to be healed.” For Him to heal the sick. The power of the Lord was there, and the Pharisees could not recognize it.
Jesus is saying something—a miracle’s about to happen right now. The power of the Lord is here. In fact, the very thing the Pharisees had longed for, the kingdom of heaven come to the earth, Jesus was saying, “You’re about to see it; the thing that you’ve longed for. All of creation is longing for the kingdom of heaven to come to the earth. Now Pharisees it’s about to happen. Come and bring some sick people in front of Me. Let the kingdom of heaven come.” And yet they could not even recognize the work of the Holy Spirit because they were so consumed, they were looking like this at a set of rules. “You got to do it this way.”
This is my desire for us as a fellowship, as a family, is to be super sensitive to what God is saying and doing among us as a church. And for us not to miss one opportunity for the Holy Spirit; His power, the power of the Lord to be present. If He’s here to do something, let’s be open that God might want to do something different, powerful, unexpected, unpredictable maybe.
If you think God is predictable, if you think you can put God in one formula and say, “God, You got to do it this way, every time this way.” I’m just telling you, you’re going to be sorely disappointed in God because God will not be put in a box. You cannot reduce God down to a set of theological ideas. God is unpredictable by His very nature. God is omnipotent. He is omniscient. He is powerful. He will move as He wishes. He will come and go as He pleases. He will do on the earth what He wishes to do. His Will, will be done. And He will not be governed or reduced down to a set of theological ideas. Our ideology, our theology: it is going to be wrecked at times.
In fact, if you think you’ve got God figured out, you will begin worshipping your theology; you will begin worshipping your ideology more than the mysterious risky nature of God. And I do believe in learning about God. I do believe in learning about theology. I do believe we can figure some things out. I’m just telling you God is way too mysterious. He is way too risky. He is way too powerful for you to ever figure out completely. A billion years from now, in heaven, you will still be uncovering the marvelous nature of this person we call God.
Here’s the second thing if you do not want to become the religious person, this Pharisee: you got to remain friends with some messy sinners. I want to say something and this is going to—I mean it to the strength that I’m about to say it. I’ve thought about what I’m about to say. Sometimes I think about what I just said, I have thought about what I am going to say this time. And by the way, that’s a plague going throughout the church. We think about what we just said. Woah! I didn’t mean it that way. I shouldn’t have posted that. But I’m telling you this morning, I have thought about what I’m about to say and I mean it to the strength that I’m about to say it. All right?
The moment the thorn and the crown become a nice little production for sweet little Christians, I’m not going to do it again. The moment that production becomes just a sweet little gathering, for Christians, we’re going to find something else to do with our time. And we’re close to that right now. Let me tell you something, I mean this; we’re very close to it right now.
Last year very few people brought unsafe people to the thorn. And we had a thousand people give their lives to Christ. It should’ve been five thousand. It should’ve been six or seven thousand people born again last year. But we’ve got to invite them. I’m saying “we,” “we,” “you and I,” have to be friends with them, know who they are, pray for them, pay for their ticket, go pick them up, bring them with us, be nice and normal while you’re here, pray during the production that their hearts will be open to the gospel, that people can go from hell to heaven, dead to alive.
We have about two months to go before the thorn. So we got to get busy. If you don’t know any sinners--if you are one, that’s good. We’re glad you’re here right now. But if you need to go make some friends with people who don’t know Christ, we’ve got to be salt and light. Do not yell at the darkness if you’re not out in the darkness. We’re light, we’re salt, we must go, we must embrace, we must get messy. Our hands must get dirty. We cannot make people just like us. We got to find people that are not like us and welcome them into the family.
And I’m telling you, listen I’m telling you, I mean what I say. The moment it becomes just a sweet little gathering for Christians, I will be bored to tears. I will have no interest in it. I won’t even show up to watch it. But if it’s about the kingdom of heaven come to the earth, if it’s about presenting the gospel to a dying needy world out there, all of my passion, everything about me is engaged in that; everything.
All right, number three: remain sensitive to the Holy Spirit. Make sure you’re around messy sinful people that do not look like you. In fact, before I move to the next one, my favorite part of the prodigal son, the story about the prodigal son, we’re going to talk about that in Luke 15, is when the dad sees the son coming over the hill. The son that had been working at a pig farm, had been walking for many days. So you can imagine this young man, he didn’t smell like Ralph Lauren. He was awful. And the dad runs, pulls up the hem of his garment, runs toward him, grabs him before the son could even start offering all the excuses to him. The dad grabs him and embraces him and pulls him in like this. Messy, smelly, sinful--here’s the dad; my favorite part of the whole story.
Number three: remain open to change. This is a challenge for all of us. This is not to fall in love with something that is not sacred. Scriptures are sacred. The scriptures are very sacred. The sacraments are sacred. What we did today, remembering the Lord’s Supper, that’s sacred to me. But the list is pretty short after that; it really is pretty short after that. The scriptures, the sacraments, after that there’s not much that’s sacred. Everything else is open for discussion, debate, experiment, change. I was thinking, I remember back when cell phones first came out. This is 1991. I had one. I had a red sports car and a bag phone. I was the bees’ knees. Remember these? These are amazing.
I remember getting my first one. I remember the store where I was. I remember taking it out to my car, putting it down, thinking, “I have arrived.” And the battery, look at the battery on these things. That battery could start a car; look at this. This was the battery of the phone. Look at that. That’s the phone battery. That was like nine million volts today. And I remember that big old battery. You could call—you could get a signal anywhere because the battery is like, it’s an amazing technology.
So I’m thinking about going back to it. I didn’t mean to do that, really. I’m not staging this. This is really fascinating technology. Let me get this back in. So I’m thinking about going back to this because it’s just the best technology available, right? I’m going to zip that because it’s going to hit me on the leg any minute. Here we go.
Think about—this is how we look to the outside world many times right now as Christians. We’ve done like this for the past 20 years and this is the best technology available. And how dare you. You’re laughing at my phone, how dare you laugh at my phone. Do you know how sacred this is to me? Do you know how cutting edge this was one day? Surely they will never improve upon this. This was an AT&T phone, by the way. Surely they will never improve upon that, will they? Really. This one didn’t have a light saver app. That’s the only problem with it.
Let’s be open to a little change every once in a while. Technology is advancing right now in three to six months cycles. Every three to six months technology has changed. This is not even a 4G phone, this is a 3G. People think I’m old and archaic because I have not upgraded to the 4G. This is only 3G. What a loser I am.
Are we open to our methodology being—are you open to your methodology being challenged? Is it possible the reason we’re not reaching people and expanding and seeing signs, wonders, miracles, people being saved is because we’re being so camped-out on a tradition, on an ideology that we would die for? There are some hills that you’re willing to die on that are not worth dying on. You go over the hills one more time, that’s worth dying on.
The scriptures and sacraments, the way we do everything else should be debatable. We’re going to be an experimental church. We’re going to try things and fail miserably; I want to tell you that. We’re going to try things here and we’re going to fail miserably. We’re going to keep trying because we’re looking for the best idea, the best thing. And we’re going to hold tight to the sacred things that we should be holding on tight to. The sacred beliefs that we know to be true, we’re going to defend those. Those are hills that I’m willing to die on, but everything else can we just leave open that God might want to do something better, different, experimental among us.
There might be that the Holy Spirit is such an innovator, such a creator, such a marvelous gift of God to us that the Holy Spirit might lead us into paths of righteousness that we’ve never walked before. The moment you camp out on ideology or theology, that’s not sacred. You’ll become a Pharisee. You know, you’ll become a mean person. I don’t want you to become—I mean I mean this sincerely; I do not want you to become a mean person. I want us to leave open the idea that I’m for anything that God’s doing.
Whatever God is breathing, whatever God is saying, whatever God is whispering to us, the immediate answer is, “Yes, Lord.” Everything else, let’s debate it, let’s talk about. We’re not going to become this legalistic church. I will not let it happen. In my heart first, but if I spot it in you, I’m going to talk to you about it. Okay? If you spot it in people around you, let’s talk about it lovingly, lovingly let’s talk about it. All right?
Can we pray together this morning? I want you to ask yourself these questions: “Are you sensitive to the Holy Spirit?” In fact a great question a couple asked me right before this service, they said they were interested in—“What does it mean to be baptized with the Holy Spirit?” And so, I’m going to make it very, very simple for everyone, I said simply put, “Don’t listen to charismatic language. First of all it’ll confuse you. All it means is, I am welcoming the work of the Holy Spirit in my life every day, all the time.
You want more of the Holy Spirit? That doesn’t sound scary now, does it? Charismatics have made it sound scary and almost impossible, when every day if you’ll just wake up and say, “Father in heaven, I believe in the Trinity. I believe the Holy Spirit is God. God is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God. I am a child of God. I’ve accepted Christ into my heart. Would you—I welcome the work of the Holy Spirit in my life. Whatever today, I want to have ears to hear, I want to have eyes to see, I want to have a mind to understand the work of the Holy Spirit. Whatever you’re doing around me in my world, I want to cooperate with you today. I welcome the work, the power of the Holy Spirit in my life. Just pray like that every day. That’s all you got to do. And you’ll find over time that you’ll be aware of God’s voice more than ever before.
The same is, the same way Pam and I have been married 22 years and when she calls me on the phone, she does not have to say, “Hey Brady, this is Pam.” If she did there’d be a big problem in our marriage, right? If I said, “Who is this? Who?” It’s a good way to get a frying pan on the forehead when I get home; not that Pam would do that because she would.
So here’s the deal, you’ll know the voice of God because you’re having regular conversations with Him. You might not recognize it at first. It might be unfamiliar at first but over time, you’ll recognize His voice just like you recognize your spouse’s voice. And religious people have tuned out God and they’re worshipping their ideology; their theology. They’re not listening to God or they wouldn’t be religious.
So remain sensitive to the Holy Spirit. Secondly, I want you to find some messy people and start being friends with them. Buy them coffee, hang out, have them over to your house for dinner. Don’t be foolish, be wise. Be wise, not foolish. But hang out with some messy people. Sit with them. Do something with them: hang out, be normal, be nice, be fun. Don’t be religious. And just be open to change, any change that God wants us to make in our life. Okay? Not just in church-world.
There’s not a world of church and a world of—they’re all the same. There may be some radical changes that God’s already spoken to you this morning. You need to make some changes. Quit worshipping a set of rules. That’s moralism. Christianity is not moralism. Being a Christ follower’s about being adopted into a family and walking with the Shepherd of our souls. It’s not about moralism; living up to some set of rules. Maybe you need to review the rules that you’re enforcing around your house and maybe take out a few of them. Maybe add one or two, but don’t just worship some set of rules. That’s what religious people do.
So I want you to ask yourself those questions this morning: “Have you become a bit of a religious person?” I’m asking myself, listen no more—the person who is most convicted on Sunday morning is me because I’m going to have to live what I spoke this morning. I’m going to have to live what I spoke this morning, all right. I’m going to live it out because I just made a big fuss about it in front of you so now I got to live it out. I am very convicted, but I can become a religious person just like any of you in this room.
So let’s pray this morning. Would you just focus on the Lord for a minute and ask yourself these questions: “Am I sensitive to the Holy Spirit? Have I tuned out the voice of God in my life or am I sensitive and aware of what God is saying and doing? Am I a friend of sinners or do the only people I hang out with are the righteous? Are you open this morning to God, even the day—I believe today God could purposely bring in to your life without you doing much of anything except cooperating, that God could very well bring in to your life today or tomorrow, this week a person who is messy?”
They’re not going to look like you, they’re not going to talk like you, they’re not going to behave like you, they’re not going to smell like you, they’re not even going to even have the same thoughts as you do, but they are ripe for the kingdom of heaven. God is bringing them into your life to love them, to put your arms around them maybe.
Are you open to God changing anything in your life that’s not sacred? And have you made something sacred, that’s not sacred? Have you made something in your life that is sacred that is not sacred? Let’s pray that together this morning as a family, all right? Ask yourselves those questions.
“Father, we’re here today and Lord we welcome the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. I pray throughout this room that we will remain sensitive to the work of the Holy Spirit. Father, I pray that we will be a friend of sinners. Not just for the righteous Lord but we pray for righteous friends, we do Lord. We pray for friends who are not. Father, I pray that you would help us to cooperate with you, be willing to change anything that’s not sacred in our lives, in Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen. Amen.
All right, let’s stand this morning. If you have a bag phone, get rid of it. Get a newer phone. It doesn’t work anyway. Let’s all stand this morning and I want our altar team, those of you who prayed up front to come forward and pray and be ready to pray. We’re here to pray for anything at all, anything you need prayer for, we want to pray for you this morning. But I also want to invite you. If you have never said “yes” to Jesus, if you have believed up into this point that being a Christ-follower is about a set of rules, well I got good news for you this morning. It’s about adoption, and Jesus has already paid for your adoption. All you have to do is say “yes” to Jesus.
So if you’re here this morning, and the Holy Spirit spoke to you about being a Christ-follower, we’d love to pray for you this morning. If you’re sick, issues in your family, let us pray for you, okay? All right? Let’s pray one more time. If you need prayer, step out right now. You’re not bothering me by walking forward and getting prayer, okay?
“Father, thank you so much, fill us with Your spirit. Lead us today and tomorrow. Lord, lead us into paths of righteousness for Your name’s sake, in Jesus name. Amen. God bless. Have a great day. If you need prayer, come forward. Enjoy your trip. Enjoy your home.
