Pastor Plek's Podcast
Pastor Plek's Podcast
How the Spirit Outshines the Law
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357: What if your greatest struggle isn't with God, but with trusting the Holy Spirit working in others? In this revealing conversation, Pastor Plec and Nicole explore the often-misunderstood role of the Holy Spirit in transforming believers and healing church relationships. At the heart of the episode is a powerful insight: many church conflicts stem from our tendency to trust our own judgment rather than recognizing the Holy Spirit at work in other believers. "You don't have to trust me or the elders," Pastor Plec explains. "You've got to trust the Holy Spirit working in and through the leadership of the church." This perspective shift offers healing for those carrying church hurt and disappointment. Whether you're wrestling with church trust issues, feeling stuck in performance-based Christianity, or simply want to understand the Holy Spirit's role better, this conversation offers fresh perspective and practical wisdom.
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and welcome back to pastor plex podcast. I'm your host, pastor plec, and join me in studios. None other than miss super trooper nicole troop. Uh, so glad you joined us thank you so much.
Speaker 1:I'm glad to be here yeah, so, uh, this week we talked about the holy spirit and not something I don't. It's not like we're like the super church that finally talked about the holy spirit, but it's not one of those subjects that comes up a ton, but it definitely comes up and it needs to come up because I think there's a part of us that don't really wrap our heads around correctly about the Holy Spirit. Now, nicole, for you, growing up, did you have any experience with the Holy Spirit in terms of church background? No, all right, so was that because you didn't go to church at all?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't know what the Holy Spirit really was until I became a Christian when I was in high school.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I never really even heard of it?
Speaker 1:What kind of church did you go to in high school?
Speaker 2:So non-denominational. That was secretly Baptist. Okay, yeah, you can probably call yeah A lot of us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay. So when I hit 22, I got saved at a non-denominational church, or really, you know, it's kind of, if you, when did I actually get saved? I think sometimes it's at eight, but I really dedicated my life to the Lord at 22. And, um, it was in Louisville, kentucky, at Southeast Christian church, and then I immediately left that church because I was in the army and I ended up in North Carolina, in Fayetteville, which was an army town, and I started trying out all these different churches. I went to a Methodist church, I went to a charismatic church, I went to a Baptist church, I went to any kind of, and I didn't know one church from another. I was like this is a new experience.
Speaker 1:And, um, I went to all sorts and one at one church, you know, it was, uh, an experience where, like, people started falling all over themselves. I mean, it looked like they were having a seizure and they were shaking and somebody brought a blanket over them and then they said they had gold dust in their hands and I was like what is happening? It was a wild experience. That was a wild experience. And then I went to other churches where it looked like there was no spirit. I wasn't sure if everybody was alive in the church, and so it really brought up.
Speaker 1:you know, for me something I had to learn or figure out is, you know, a lot of people have different understandings of the Holy Spirit, his power and all of that, and so that was one of the things that over the past 20 plus years of being a Christian or being dedicated to Jesus, I've been really sort of wrestling with like what does it mean to who is the Holy Spirit, what does it mean to engage him and seek him, and all that? And we talked about that in this letter to Corinth that Paul goes to the reference of the Holy Spirit over and over again.
Speaker 1:And what I loved about this is he gives up this rhetorical question, which I always think is funny. I love Paul's rhetorical questions. They're so ridiculous. But at the same time, if he's having to ask it with the definite, like you know what the answer is because it's a rhetorical question, with the definite, like you know what the answer is because it's a rhetorical question, I thought it was funny. So the rhetorical question he asks is do we need letters from you or to you, letters of recommendation from you or to you, which I know this sounds wild, but you got to think about how wild this was, Because it wasn't like people didn't know Paul's story, Like I'm sure at some point he shared with them his testimony that he would go around killing off Christians, rounding them up, sentencing them to their death At some point he had to share that right.
Speaker 2:I don't think he was shy about that. It comes up several times in many of these letters.
Speaker 1:It's like all the time and so okay, so he shared that. But the thing is wild is like Jesus meets him personally and says you know why are you persecuting? He's like who are you Lord? So I know who I'm persecuting. He's like I'm Jesus of Nazareth and he's like, oh, oops. And then he's blinded, and then he's taken to a house and you've got to imagine, the dudes that were with Paul were pretty freaked out.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like he had some sort of vision and now he's blind, all right. But then this random dude from Paul's perspective, this has got to be wild. He stays at this house, he's fasting, praying, god, reveal yourself to me. And Ananias shows up. And Ananias had been, and you know Ananias had been, had been, visited by Jesus in a dream. He doesn't know that, but Jesus told Ananias like hey, go to Saul. He's on straight street and open his eyes. And he's like that guy's like persecuting your people. He's like I know and I'll show him how much he has to suffer for my name. It's wild, like that's all in there, okay.
Speaker 1:Then ananias goes and then lays hands on him and then he uh, threw the laying on his hands, the scales fall off and then he's given the gift of the holy spirit yeah now, I don't know what it was like for the corinthian church to receive the holy spirit, but you have to imagine that it was pretty intense or something, but it wasn't as intense as that.
Speaker 2:No, well, and I think that's kind of the like. Everyone's faith experience is different right. And like how you come to faith is different, like some people are like on death's doorstep and coming to faith, you know. Some people are living in white suburban America and coming to faith, you know. Or some of us are teenagers who don't know anything about life and coming to faith, you know. And so it's just like. I think it's different and you often say, like everybody comes to Christ in a crisis, right, whatever, the whatever the crisis is you know, and it doesn't have to be my life is falling apart kind of crisis.
Speaker 2:It could be an identity crisis, you know, and I think and I think that's true here Like the way that we experience the Holy spirit is different, the gifts that we receive from God are different, and like, even even like Pentecost, like when the, the apostles, the 12, receive Right. And they describe what that's like. Like Paul's experience is vastly different from that. It's still pretty intense, but like the experience is very different, right, you know?
Speaker 1:But what I think about is if the corinthians, like whoever kind of like, they were saved at one point, or they were saved, they're saved, and then all of a sudden they start to distrust paul, for whatever reason.
Speaker 1:I think if they had in their I don't know front of mind his story, there would be less likelihood of distrust because you're like God operated in his life in this way at that time and you'd say I may not trust Paul, but I do trust the God who saved him. And I think that the reason why we struggle with relationships in the Christian church is we forget that God has a calling and a specific mission for people, independent of our relationship with one another. But what happens is we've, since we forget that, we then put distrust between us and that other person because you person, because they say things, they do things, whatever the thing, like with Paul's case, he said he was coming, but he didn't come and they're like oh, we can't trust you, your word is no longer good around here. And he's like what? How can my word be no longer good?
Speaker 2:Do you think that the enemy is at all involved in people's forgetting? Oh, absolutely, I feel like the enemy is at all involved in people's forgetting.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely, I feel like the enemy is always trying remember. If in chapter two it said do not let satan outwit you, yeah, because we are not ignorant of his schemes. Which means satan has a actual plan which involves taking down the bride of Christ and that has to deal with forgiveness and he'll use whatever it is.
Speaker 2:he can get Right. So, whatever weakness of thought is in your mind, he can use that against you, to turn you against the people in your church community.
Speaker 1:Because if he could remember, if Jesus said I pray that they'd be one as you, father, and I are one, I in them, church community, right, because if he could remember, if Jesus said I pray that they'd be one as you, father and I are one, I and them, they and me, we're all one, perfect unity. Like that sort of mindset. When they can get, or when Satan can get in between believers and make us fight ourselves, then the battle is no longer for souls that are lost, it's about the integrity of a local church. And that's exactly what was going on in Corinth and Paul is saying listen, the Holy Spirit has commended my ministry and you are proof of that.
Speaker 1:I recently had a conversation with a guy. I actually led to Christ and he left the church for whatever reason, and he's trying to. He's talking about coming back and he's having. He's having a hard time, you know, wrapping his head around events that led to his walking away. And I said it all comes down to the thing of trust. You don't trust necessarily me or the elders of the church. You've got to trust the Holy Spirit working in and through the leadership of the church, and this is where all church hurt stems from. Is people go those people and you look at the bad things or whatever, and you don't say I trust the Holy Spirit working in them because God will not let them go beyond what his will is. Now, to be fair, there are people at our church that have come from churches that are gay, affirming At one point they were, that's bad that have come from, like churches that are gay affirming.
Speaker 2:Like they are. They at one point they were. That's bad theology, that's like a different.
Speaker 1:I don't think the Holy spirit is present, yeah, and so I get. I get the like where do you draw the line on what you think is the thing? And that's a difficult, uh question. But some question, but something like something that's clearly sin and like it's unrepentant, and engaging in something that's like a questionable leadership call.
Speaker 1:That's where you're like ah man, check yourself before you wreck yourself, because you never know, if God didn't direct that certain decision that you thought, in the moment, shouldn't go that way and then, hindsight being 2020, like, oh, actually it did work out whatever. So, anyway, I think that's a struggle that people have in ministry is that they tend to trust their own gut over the Holy Spirit that is guiding the person in leadership in this specific case.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes, yes. So on Sunday you were saying I'm trying to remember exactly what you said, so forgive me if I don't get it right. But you.
Speaker 1:You were listening, which gives you a lot of credit.
Speaker 2:I was listening but so so you were saying something about like, uh, you like trusting the person, but also like trusting the holy spirit that lives in that, in that believer. And that really struck me, because I I've been on staff here for a little while now. And we've had our fair share of conflict.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And there was one time, forever ago, I was mad at you about something. Of course, I don't even remember what it was, to be honest, but I was angry and I was at a women's group talking about it. And we're in Claudia Z a chair, as a paid his house yeah. Claudia's a paid his house and she looks at me and she's like Nicole.
Speaker 2:Do not give the devil a foothold nice and I'm just like oh, my god that's wild and like she was right, like my anger was a foothold for Satan to work against me in the relationship that I have with you, not only as my lead pastor but, at the time, my boss too, and so that's something that clearly has stuck with me for several years now.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, In fact, adrienne. Well, our little community group I wish Adrienne was up here, but I'll talk about her because I think she's somewhere backstage. We were watching this video and it was on this exact thing and the whole premise was don't give the enemy a seat at the table. You know, and like there is, the enemy is getting in to your heart and your head through an unforgiveness or whatever conflict in the past. And then Adrian just started bawling. It was wild and she's like cause.
Speaker 1:That happens right within marriage, within relationships with children, with just across the board, um, and ultimately, what I've had to learn to do and Adrian's had to learn to do with me is is she would say stuff like like um, I may not trust you, but I trust the Holy spirit that's talking to you and that has been encouraging for me on a marriage standpoint. And ultimately she knows I'm submitted to the Holy Spirit, I'm submitted to Jesus, which is allowing her to follow me because she knows that I'm spending time with God. And so in her moments of friction or whatever, she doesn't necessarily have to trust me. She has to trust the Holy Spirit working within. I think this would save so many relationships If people just had front of mind someone's salvation experience, when the Spirit of God wrecked a person and they were transformed, or the last time that they saw that person in worship, that person connecting with God in whatever way, because you know that the Lord is working in and through that.
Speaker 1:So, I appreciate you sharing that story Because I do feel like we all go there. We all can go to a dark spot when we don't trust the Holy Spirit. We trust our ability to discern motives of somebody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's trusting in our own wisdom. Right, it's the classic Proverbs 3 line of like don't rely on your own understanding. Yeah, you know, lean on God's wisdom, that's right, and he'll make your path straight.
Speaker 1:Yeah, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean on your own understanding.
Speaker 2:Proverbs 3.5. He will direct your paths.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so then we talked about how the Holy Spirit's ministry outglories the law and I think this is where. And tell me if this, I don't know, if this, I don't know, if it frustrates you at all. Sometimes I think people you may have heard people say you need to unhitch from the Old Testament, or like don't worry about the Old Testament, and I'd say, no, the Old Testament reveal is a New Testament concealed and you have to look for how Jesus is being revealed in it over and, over and over again.
Speaker 1:There's always glimpses of the gospel all throughout the Old Testament. However, the brightness of Jesus in the New Testament is so glorious and so great that it exceeds the glory of the Old Testament that had a fade to it. Here's what the fade that Paul brings up. The fade one was that it would be ultimately fulfilled. The Old Testament law, specifically the ceremonial law, would be fulfilled when Jesus fulfilled the law law specifically, a ceremonial law would be fulfilled.
Speaker 1:When Jesus fulfilled the law, but then also whenever Moses would have meetings with God. His face would glow like Shekinah. Glory all over him.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But that would fade Mm-hmm. And he wore a veil not to protect the Israelites from seeing the shine, although that's what he wore it for originally. He then wore it so that they would not notice when it totally faded away, which is sort of wild.
Speaker 2:Interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is true. Right. But think about this If I went into the Holy of Holies and I came out with my face glowing, you'd be kind of concerned if you saw me without my face glowing. Like oh, it's been a while since he met with God. Can I really trust him?
Speaker 1:I think that's probably what Moses was dealing with Like. It's been a while, so the only way I could properly illustrate this on Sunday was like that the New Testament is like the sun, whereas the old Testament, uh, and the law, is like the moon. Like the moon, it gave a little bit of revelation of who God is, and it was really helpful, especially for a world groping in darkness. But ultimately, the sun that provides heat, and it's so much brighter it I don't say it puts it to shame, but it out glories the moon by a million fold. Yeah, this one piece, though, and I would love to hear what you thought about this, cause I kind of talk about the way that Jesus fulfilled the different parts of the law yes, ceremonial law, moral law, civil law, did you, did you catch that? I did catch that, okay, did. Was that something that you'd heard before?
Speaker 2:I mean you've talked about the different laws before.
Speaker 1:Okay, so the ceremonial law. Jesus fulfilled the ceremonial law Right.
Speaker 2:In other words, remember when Jesus which is the high priest?
Speaker 1:that stuff, yeah yeah, it's like don't wear polyester, don't eat pigs, men get circumcised, you know, like that kind of law that's purely. The purpose of the ceremonial law was to make Israel distinct from the rest of the nations to keep it ceremonially pure.
Speaker 1:Well, jesus said I didn't come to abolish the law but to fulfill the law. So he doesn't abolish the Old Testament ceremonial law, he fulfills that. But then there are some laws that exist beyond the Old Testament, like don't murder, still a thing. But what Jesus did is he did something that's sort of wild. He elevated the hatred you could have in your heart to that of murder.
Speaker 1:He elevated the lust you could have in your heart to that of murder. He elevated the lust you could have in your heart to adultery. And so when Jesus goes to the cross, every person finds themselves dead in their sin. But the Sermon on the Mount is not a nice way to live. It's a nice way for everybody else to live, but there's no way that you can do it. It's great when everybody else does that.
Speaker 1:They love their enemies. They pray for those who persecute them. They offer them the other cheek. They don't commit lust in their hearts. They don't commit murder in their hearts. They're just loving all the time and you feel the weight of that on you. It'll break you.
Speaker 2:Oh, for sure.
Speaker 1:Like I'm an adulterer, I'm screwed, I'm a murderer. What?
Speaker 2:point is there, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm just going to quit right now.
Speaker 1:I have no hope. In fact, Jesus said unless your righteousness exceeds the scribes and the Pharisees, you too cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. And then he says be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect. Right there you should be just like. I give up, and that's sort of the point. You can't satisfy it because you can't do it, and that's the whole point of the law was to say that you deserve death. That's the whole point of it. It's a ministry of condemnation, it's a ministry of death, and it's actually it is a ministry to which everyone's like. What do you mean? It's a ministry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was the part that kind of got me that you were describing it as the Holy Spirit's ministry. I was like that's an interesting way.
Speaker 1:So the law has a ministry and its purpose is to show you you can't keep it.
Speaker 1:Then the Holy Spirit says I can do it for you. You have no ability to do it, I can do it. And so Jesus, when he dies to satisfy the moral law, so the requirements of law, for the wages of sin is death. So someone had to die on your behalf, jesus. So he dies for the sins that deserve death.
Speaker 1:But then, when he rose to reign and he sent us the Holy Spirit to live under and shape civil law while expanding his kingdom, in the Old Testament the civil law was like you know, if an ox gores your neighbor, you owe them 20 shekels. Or if, like, you have to cover up a well, and if somebody else's ox falls into a well that wasn't covered, then you have to pay for the. You know, it's that kind of civil liability issue. Well, why are we even mentioning that? Because that was part of the Old Testament law.
Speaker 1:But God has a civil law that we live under now, but not, I mean, granted, we live under the civil law of the state of Texas and the United States. We have to obey those laws. There's certain speed limits you have to obey and you're like just can't, I just can't do it because it's too slow. Well, the holy spirit gives you the ability to do that, uh, and then. But also we have the ability to shape law here, as. So what happens here in austin can be done as it would be in heaven, so that there's a reality there that we are trying to inform. Shape, uh, law here, because we want to see people ultimately come to understand the love of God and his laws are best. His ultimate laws are best. Now I think there's some things open to interpretation, like how much somebody should be held liable for whenever your longhorn gores somebody but, that's all part of it.
Speaker 1:So Jesus lived to fulfill the ceremonial law. He died to satisfy the moral law. He rose to reign and send the Holy spirit to empower us to live under and shape civil law while expanding his kingdom. Yep. Any other thoughts on that Cause? I know that's a lot of it is.
Speaker 2:it is a lot, but I think I I think it kind of goes back to what you were saying earlier about how we shouldn't ignore the Old Testament, because it does point us to Jesus and in order to really understand the full weight and glory of what Jesus did on the cross, we need to understand what the Old Testament requirements were. I'm really thankful that I don't have to go to the temple a gajillion times a day to sacrifice all these animals for all the sins that I'm sinning.
Speaker 1:You know yeah.
Speaker 2:Because Jesus did that for me on the cross and his blood covers my sins yesterday, tomorrow and forever. So I think, personally I'm a big fan of the Old Testament and I think more people should read it, especially Leviticus. I feel like there's lots of Jesus language in Leviticus.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow. Yeah, but you know, look at you, leviticus reader. You get full credit for that. Thank you.
Speaker 1:All right. So this last point is getting into the whole. We look when we read the word, we see it with unveiled face, going back to whenever Israel looked at moses the glory was covered, yeah, but when? Now, when we look at god's word, the glory is unveiled for us and we're able to see the glory of god in the text of the bible. And so we, uh all with unveiled face, behold the glory of the lord are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, and I think when people hear this they're like what does that even mean? When you look at God's word, we know that Jesus is the incarnate word. So in the beginning was the word and the word was with God, and the word was God and the word was with God and the word was God, and so because we know that we behold Jesus by looking at the word of God and then we don't be like James.
Speaker 1:In James it says do not be hearers only, but be doers of the word, so don't just like, and what I thought about this is like the Holy Spirit is what transforms christians to be like christ. Yeah, and if I'm honest, I don't know if this is something that you struggle with at all, but I've several, uh, ladies recently I've had I don't say it's like happens all the time, but a couple I've talked to recently and they've said that they, you know there's, they were saved once and they believe all the things. They doctrinally they're there, but they still didn't feel like god loved them or god cared for them, and and this sort of surprised me, and so I in. My only solution then it was to lead them through the sinner's prayer, where they then, at the end of the sinner's prayer, I asked people to invite the Holy Spirit to come into their life and make them the person they want them to be, and I don't listen like a prayer is just a prayer.
Speaker 1:You're asking God to. You know the prayer goes like this Father, god in heaven, I know I'm a sinner. Jesus, you died on the cross for my sins. You rose from the dead. Holy Spirit, come into my life, make me the person you want me to be. That's what you should pray when you get saved, but that's also what you should pray every single day.
Speaker 1:And the reason why that becomes important is because you need Holy Spirit power every day. I think some people get saved and then they feel like they now must be a doer of good things as opposed to live by the spirit. Well, the spirit of God is what gives you freedom. Why do you? This goes to Galatians 5, do not be yoked again to a bondage of slavery. Yeah, meaning like there's this part where you can be. It is for freedom that you've been set free. So why are you white knuckling your life? Why are you living with deep anxiety about all the things that you couldn't control before you're a christian and now you definitely can't control after you're a christian? And god is always trying to break our hands off from the control factor? Yeah, so so here's, here's, uh, here's something I you know. This is one of of the things that I've been contemplating a lot lately. I have people read Luke 11.
Speaker 1:And it's essentially the Lord's Prayer. And it goes like this hey, jesus, teach us to pray, and he's like you know. Father, your name is holy, your kingdom come, give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses.
Speaker 1:We forgive those trespasses against us, at least not temptation it's a short version super sweet done yeah and then jesus says uh, he shares like a couple parables, like you know, when you pray, when praying is like this there was a man who, uh, had a traveler come and visit him and he had no bread to set before him and so he went to his neighbor's house, said, friend, open the door. And the guy said, no, I'm in bed with my kids and everyone's tucked in, I'm not going to get up. And he won't stop knocking. He said he won't get up for him because he's a friend, but because of his impudence, because of his boldness, he'll give him whatever he wants. It kind Sometimes with my children I'm like whatever you want, just leave me alone, okay.
Speaker 1:And so he'll give them whatever they want, because he won't stop asking them. And then he goes how much more? Or then he says that's how it is when you pray to God, but how much more? Your father in heaven answer you and then he goes which one of you who was evil? But you know how to give good gifts to your children? If your son asks you for an egg, he's not going to give you a scorpion. If your son asks you for bread, he's not going to give you a rock or you're not giving him a rock. He said you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more? And this is the part that just struck me he probably could have said how much more will your father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him, but he doesn't say that. Luke 11, 13 says how much more will he give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?
Speaker 1:And then, as I thought about it, I went back to the kids asking for food. Do you know how many times a day my kids ask me for food? Like all the time. They know where it is, they can go get their own food, but for some reason. They still ask me and of course I always point them to food, which then kind of hit me, it hit me. You don't just ask for an egg once yeah. You don't ask for a piece of bread once yeah, and you're not just like thrilled that God didn't give you a scorpion. I still think that people are afraid that God's going to give them a scorpion, like God's going to give them a scorpion, like he gave me the bread yesterday, but today it's a scorpion.
Speaker 1:He gave me the egg yesterday, but today it's going to be a rock. And so there's two parts to that. One is we need to come back to God and ask for the greater thing the Holy Spirit and trust. He's not going to give us a scorpion. I think what happens for a lot of Christians. They got saved, however, long ago and then they live like it's all up to them, like somehow God got them on the team and now God needs to be carried by all the people on the team who got saved by grace and now by their sheer willpower, the church is going to be lifted up and I think God's saying come back to me for more sustenance. I promise I didn't give you a scorpion yesterday. I'm not going to give you a scorpion yesterday. I'm not going to give you a scorpion today. Keep coming.
Speaker 2:You know what's really funny about this? Please tell me so. Julie Medford has been mentoring, discipling me for a while now and it's been great, and at one point I confessed to her that I did not believe that God would give me good things.
Speaker 1:Oh really.
Speaker 2:Yes, this was a while ago.
Speaker 1:So, you're exactly the person I'm talking about. I am, I am.
Speaker 2:And it's not like God has given me the bread before.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, like God has done good things for me, great things, unimaginable things for me in the past and for some reason I just like here comes a scorpion. Yeah, I just doubt. Like you know, I like God's just going to keep me in my misery and I think part of it is because that I still think that that's what I deserve.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's like it's. It's another one of those like oh well, jesus's death on the cross wasn't enough.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:You know, like I'm.
Speaker 1:I needed more punishment, yeah.
Speaker 2:I need more punishment. I deserve to suffer more. I don't deserve all of the goodness that God can give me and I honestly, like I'm going through a rough time right now, which I know that you know. I'm going through a rough time right now, which I know that you know, and but, like a part of me believes that, like not a part of me, most of me believes that I brought this on myself that. I and that I deserve it and that I deserve to stay here.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:And this is, yeah so like clearly a mindset that I continue to struggle with but, like this is exactly this, is exactly what it is, and I find myself even in, even in prayers, being like well, I did this to myself, Lord, so I like don't even deserve to ask you for something better. You know, it's just like. So like the asking isn't even there, because I don't think that I even deserve to ask for the good things.
Speaker 1:Can I lead you in a prayer where you ask the Holy Spirit?
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 1:All you have to do is repeat after me Father, god in heaven.
Speaker 2:Father God in heaven.
Speaker 1:I confess that I'm a sinner.
Speaker 2:I confess that I'm a sinner.
Speaker 1:Jesus, you died on the cross for my sin.
Speaker 2:Jesus, you died on the cross for my sin.
Speaker 1:You rose from the dead.
Speaker 2:You rose from the dead.
Speaker 1:Holy Spirit, please come into my life.
Speaker 2:Holy Spirit, please come into my life.
Speaker 1:And make me the person you want me to be, and make me the person you want me to be In Jesus' name amen.
Speaker 2:In.
Speaker 1:Jesus' name, amen. So I think, I think that if the daily asking, so remember, there's two. The Spirit fills us in two ways. The one way is like when you become a Christian, you are indwelt with the Spirit. The spirit fills us in two ways. The one way is like when you become a Christian, you were in dwelt with the spirit. You become a mobile temple or a mobile tabernacle. Yeah, okay, the other way, remember in. Uh, it's where Ephesians, I think, do not be filled with wine, do?
Speaker 1:not be drunk with wine but be filled with the Holy spirit. There is a sense that you can be influenced by wine. Okay, you have to take part of filling yourself, but in the same way, ask to be filled with the Holy Spirit. How much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask? And so I do think it's an indwelling that's permanent, but it is the filling which is the constant. Like I need this today, I need the Holy Spirit today, like I need an egg today, like I need the bread today, and he's not going to give me a scorpion when I'm asking for a Holy Spirit. He's going to give me himself, which is what all I need, and that's part of the reason.
Speaker 1:You know, whenever we do the Lord's Supper, I take the bread and I break it. I said Jesus was betrayed. He took bread, broke it, and I said Jesus was betrayed. He took bread, broke it and said this is my body given for you. Do this remembrance for me, and what the whole point of that is to remember that your soul feeds on Jesus like your body feeds on bread. You cannot go a moment without him, and the Holy Spirit is the way that you get to experience the body of Christ and the filling that of you up, and so I think there's a real powerful moment within the communion experience but, also a powerful moment on the daily filling up of God's word, engaging in spirit and then living out amongst his people.
Speaker 2:Well, and he even says throughout the gospels like I am the bread of life, I am everlasting life, I am the way, the truth of the life.
Speaker 1:Um, he says to the woman at the well, like I am the everlasting water, you know, like you will never need to drink again yeah, so I've been listening to like, um, kind of like it's a podcast that kind of goes over the history of the church and it's looking. It's looking at the modern history of the church.
Speaker 2:And it's looking.
Speaker 1:it's looking at the modern history of the church. So back from the seventies there was, like the, the, the Jesus movement. It was more of a charismatic movement which created the worship wars. Uh, like the worship war, oh yeah, you don't even know about that.
Speaker 1:So the worship wars came in the seventies and eighties and it was about as back in the 70s everyone had an organ and then all of a sudden it moved to. People brought started bringing guitars to church in the 80s and it was we had. They had gone to hell in a handbasket and the worship wars began like who the real christians were. All right then, but then everyone was influenced by the charismatic movement everyone had an influence of like you know. Know, if you see anyone like we're a Bible church, we would not say we're charismatic by. We're not really that charismatic. But if you'll see people at our church raise their hands, close their eyes, people pray here without written prayers. That's all influenced from the charismatic movement.
Speaker 2:I didn't know that.
Speaker 1:Then you have the seeker-sensitive movement, which we are all influenced by that. The way we do our welcome experience, like the tent outside good, positive signage, explaining where the children's ministry is the children's ministry and making it awesome, is a byproduct of the seeker sensitive movement, and I'm not thumbs down seeker-sensitive movement. What they did is they wanted to help you, experience felt needs and how God could help you. But what happened on the negative side of the seeker-sensitive movement? It gave you like five steps to a better marriage. If you do these five things, your marriage will be better. And, honestly, if you read Proverbs, there's like five. If you do these things, in principle, these things would be better.
Speaker 1:But what happens yeah, when you can't do it, it becomes back to the law is what's ruling your life? And if we were to go to business, if we were going to go to an entrepreneur class, they say if you don't starting skills, if you don't have sustaining skills and you don't have self-awareness, do not be an entrepreneur. You are going to be a failure. Yeah, and so here's your KPI index. Here's your. You know all the different things that you. Here's the metrics you need to meet and hit. And that's how the secret sensitive movement was. It was all about metrics and growth and bump and bump, and if you weren't growing, something was wrong with you, something was wrong with the church.
Speaker 1:Healthy things grow and that is true, healthy things do grow. But what ended up happening in from a congregant standpoint is that the old way was like you, you're a sinner, you stink, you're not good, you're going to hell. To. The new way is like, if you're not seeing success, there's something wrong with you.
Speaker 1:So then, ultimately, the gospel-centered movement of young, restless and reformed came about, and that's where you really saw this Christ-centered influence, where everything came about the gospel, and so you'll notice the influence there is at the end of a message, even if it's from the song of Solomon, I say this all is about Jesus, um, and like we're looking at second Corinthians and it's about the Holy spirit, and we say, like you cannot forgive people, you cannot love people apart from receiving the love of Jesus. It is impossible. And so if you haven't done that, if you have, if you do nothing, then you do experience first Christ, and so text Christ, you know, text Jesus to receive Christ. And so that's sort of the influence of like always putting the gospel into everything. And then, probably the latest movement is this post-Christian world where we live in an upside down very liberal, you know, gender is fluid.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:LGBTQ is being pushed and forced and if you're not for that, there must be something wrong with you to then sort of like speaking to men and say, men, it's time for you to lead and I think that's what's going to happen. So there's a lot of there's. Probably eventually you'll have, like you know, you become ultra, ultra conservative and that pushes you back to the workspace, stuff of like I got to earn my salvation, because it's always this kindness that leads us to repentance. So, as I watched the church go, sort of like if the seeker sensitive movement was sort of liberalizing, the conservative movement is sort of like super conservatizing, and so you're always looking to sort of balance that, because you just want to be biblical, be biblical, and although media can change the principles and the gospel never does, and so you're always looking how can I present the gospel in a in in a way that connects with people where they don't feel this deep thing like they're a failure because they didn't live up to the whatever standard. They don't feel a Matthew five through seven complete fail because nobody's going to live that out unless you have complete reliance upon the Holy Spirit of God. And now you were able to live it out.
Speaker 1:So just sort of watching the different influences of the church and how discipleship has been viewed in that, that makes us kind of lean into Jesus, especially when you're looking at this letter to a church that was so dysfunctional and yet was experiencing all this growth, experiencing all this joy and all this, um, the gifts of the spirit being very active in this church. It was sort of wild to see that even they had issues with apostle the apostle Paul, the guy that planted them they had issues with. So, uh, anyway, that was sort of encouraging in some ways and then sort of frustrating that we we'll probably never, ever get beyond that. Anyway, any other thoughts on that? That's a lot.
Speaker 2:I mean it's always a lot, chris, but I mean, like that's going to be true, this side of heaven, with anything you know, like there's this constant swing, even on an individual level, of like trying to find the middle ground, trying to walk the road that jesus walked, and sometimes you swing too far right and sometimes you swing too far left, and it's just the nature. It's the nature of being human, it's the nature of the church being, you know, made up of human beings who are sinful and broken and living in a broken world. Yeah, and so the more that we can face that reality and accept the truth of it, the more we can be open to walking in the light of Christ and being open to things like receiving the Holy spirit and allowing the Holy spirit to lead us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know what else I think is, I think if we could wrap our head around just the idea that when we're frustrated with somebody, knowing that that frustration is for God's glory and our good, which you're just like, how's that All things work for his glory, for those who are called according to his purpose and ultimately our good. And so I think that's the part all things work for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. And so I think what happens is, when we see friction, we don't see. That's probably a check on my own heart. God's wanting to develop me as well as do the thing at work, do the thing in my family, do the thing whatever. He wants to grow me. He's not going to bypass me to get to the thing that he wanted to have happen. He's going to use me, just like with Moses. He worked with Moses his whole way to show his glory but ultimately developed Moses into the man of God he was ultimately supposed to be.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I think that's how he's working on me, and I think that's how he's working on you, and if we can remember that God's always doing that in and through us, we can have a lot more grace for people, knowing that God's got it. He's going to work on the people that we are in life with, all right. Well, hey, if you've got any questions, you'd love to chime in on this podcast, go to PastorPleckcom or text us at 737-231-0605. From our house to yours, have an awesome week of worship.