Discover the Jesus pattern and how to apply it to your life part 3

Welcome to episode 132, In the Beginning Was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the Word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.

Welcome to episode 132. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to continue to unlock the Jesus pattern, and I don't know if any of you are even thinking about this or wondering about it, but it was something that I saw a while back and I thought, you know, I, I want to teach on this one day. And I guess today is that day. I'm still kind of digging out the first step. If you remember, was found in Luke 2:49 where Jesus told his parents after they him after 4 days of being separated from him. And Jesus was sitting in the temple just discussing the word of God, and the parents were in a panic and found him, and they were excited, and they were like, "How could you do this to us?" And Jesus said, "Why did you seek me? Did you not know I must be about my Father's business?" And I didn't really emphasize the "must," but I think if we would emphasize the "must," I think our life— that would be step 1 We must be about building Father God's kingdom. And I have struggled, and I talked about it, I'm not going to rehash that, but I've struggled with getting out in front of God and trying to— and so now I am waiting on God. And we all know, if you've listened to this podcast for a while, you know I'm not the best waiter and the most patient person in the world. And I understand that that's a fruit of the Spirit, and I know that I need to work on it. Today I wanna talk about step 2, and step 2, I wanna introduce you to my absolute best friend, and I hope he's your best friend as well. This is the Holy Spirit. A lot of Christians don't really, I don't know if they get the whole idea of the Holy Spirit, but he is a real person. He is a spirit, but he has feelings. You can grieve him, you can upset him, you can make him happy. There's all kinds of things that you can do with your best friend, He will never leave you nor forsake you. He is with you always, even when you mess up. This is a perfect friend. He is always there. He's a gentleman, the Holy Spirit. If you know the fruits of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. That is the Holy Spirit all wrapped up in one verse, or maybe two verses. But all of those fruits that he helps us to grow, he already has. And so he can show us truths in the Word of God. He can show us or tell us or teach us things that Jesus said, remind us if we just ask him. But the problem I think with most of the church is they don't even acknowledge he's there. And it's amazing, and I know I don't do a great job of this, but I'm telling people, I tell people all the time that when I'm driving down the road, if I'm by myself I kind of picture the Holy Spirit riding with me. I have him sitting in the passenger seat and we're just visiting. I'll visit with him and I'll try to listen to what he said. I don't do a great job of it, but I treat the Holy Spirit as a person. And I don't do a wonderful job. In fact, I probably do a horrible job. But I've told you multiple times, I make a horrible Holy Spirit. The only person that can do the Holy Spirit justice is the Holy Spirit. You have to acknowledge by faith that the Holy Spirit is there, and you also have to acknowledge, I believe, by faith that he is a real person. And we are not gonna— this is not gonna be a study on the Holy Spirit. We may do that in the future, but I just wanted— this is step 2, and I want to look at the Jesus pattern, and I want us to go back and look because it's a— we're imitating Christ. We are not ever going to be perfect but we can look back into the gospels and we can take a look and see why was Jesus so successful besides being God. Because he— God has put all of the same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead on the inside of us. So we don't have an excuse. I mean, I think when we get to heaven, they're going to be wiping tears away, you know, there'll be no more tears, but there's going to be some tears in heaven. And I personally believe that part of it is going to be that we're going to get up there and God's going to show us what we could have done and some of the people that we could have talked to and some of the people maybe that ended up in hell. And I know this is kind of heavy, but this is the whole reason why we're, we're here, I believe, is we are to help God's kingdom advance. And in order to do that, we have to preach the gospel. And we're going to get into the Jesus pattern But the second step, I believe, is acknowledging that the Holy Spirit is real and it is here with us. Let's go to scripture. This is after Jesus was baptized. We're still talking about the Jesus pattern, and we're gonna pick it up in Luke 4:1. Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. I want you to understand that Jesus was baptized He was then filled with the Holy Spirit, and then he was led out into the wilderness. And this is where he fasted for 40 days and 40 nights, and where he came against— say, or Satan tried to come against him, and he gave him the word of God. I want you to see how important the Holy Spirit is, and we're going to go to John 14:26. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. I want you to notice a couple of things in there: that the Father is going to send him and that he will teach you all things. Jesus would— Jesus never lied. So if Jesus said that it or that the Spirit would, you know, hover or whatever, he put a personal pronoun, he. So the Holy Spirit is male and he is a person. Next thing I want to remind you is John 16:7. It's one of the most powerful scriptures, and one of the ones when I read it, I had to reread it, and I just had to sit and think. And again, it's called meditation for those of you just joining us. I was just letting that just roll around in my head for a minute. When he— if you read this, John 16:7, nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I depart, I will send him to you. Again, it's a— I will send him. Jesus never— he said, I tell you the truth. Jesus is not going to lie. Jesus is going to send you the Holy Spirit, but Jesus has to depart. And he's talking to his disciples before he knows he's about to be crucified, but he's telling them it's to your advantage. And I think that is fascinating. That is amazing that Jesus would tell his disciples Hey, look, this is gonna be best for you. I'm telling you, you've spent 3.5 years with me, but I'm telling you, this is gonna change your world. Again, one of our favorite scriptures is Proverbs 25:2. It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but it's the glory of kings to search out a matter. And I'm gonna be jumping back and forth, and it's okay, because I'm trying to make this point. I'm trying to keep all this in context because we are talking about the Holy Spirit. And I know there's a lot of teaching out there, and I know there's probably some stuff that maybe you've been dumped on you that is not true. I don't believe it is true about the Holy Spirit. I think it's easier for God to fill up an empty cup than to refill a cup that's already been full with something. And here's what I'm saying: when I got saved 29 years, I've always said, God, why did you let me go all this? You know, like I'm blaming God, it was all my fault. But I, you know, why did I do all this? Why did I not just accept you at 8 or 10 or any of that? And I know if any of you have thought about it, I, you know, it's, it's just, it is what it is. I mean, we can't go back a day, much less 29 years. But I, I had nothing. I mean, when I come to Christ, I didn't know anything about anything. I tell people I didn't know God from a billy goat. I thought I knew something. But I didn't know anything. So I was an empty vessel that was saved, and I had a new spirit, still didn't understand all of that. But when I got— I was told to find a church that taught the Bible and where you felt comfortable and stay there and dig in and get planted in that church. And so that's what I did. I searched for churches, and I'm not going to rehash my story, but I found an Assembly of God church. Had no idea what that even meant. But they had a band and they were playing. They had guitars. This was back in '93. They had guitars, they had drums, they had horns. I mean, it was awesome. And I was like, wow, this is cool. And so I felt, you know, when they worship, they worship, they could worship. But I just got to tell you, there it was a little bit strange. Sometimes people are just strange, and, and I just can't put a finger on it, but some people are different. And you know those people, and I probably am one of them. But you know, just because they're a little bit different or weird or act weird, that does not mean the Holy Spirit is weird. That just means the person is a little bit strange. And so I'm in this service and there's a few strange people. They're all loving, they didn't act like I would act. So all of that said, I was going into this service and I'm listening and I'm, I'm enjoying it. I'm get— eating all this up. I had no idea about anything. And then when they started talking about the baptism the Holy Spirit. I had no idea what that was. I'm just being completely honest. I didn't know. But I didn't know anything about anything. They talked about sanctification. They talked about— there was all kinds of terminology. And I don't know if you know it as a Christian, or if you're in a group of other people, you start talking, you start using words that outsiders don't really understand. And that, you know, when, when I say a fanatic— and so I don't say it all the time— but when I call you a fanatic, if you're a frequent flyer here, it's kind of one of those terms. If the outsider hears it, they're like, oh, Yeah, but if you've listened and you know the definition of a fanatic, you go, oh yeah, I know what that is. But someone just coming into this episode, if this is your first time, you're not going to have any idea. You've got an idea what you think a fanatic is, but if you haven't heard my definition of the Jesus fanatic, you don't exactly know what I'm talking about. So I had no idea about the Holy Spirit, and I had no idea about any of this. I want to finish this episode up in Luke 4 14, then Jesus returned in power of the Spirit to Galilee, and the news of him went out through all the surrounding region, and he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all. Now I want you to go back to Luke 4:1, then Jesus being filled with the Holy Spirit returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. So he was led into the wilderness by the Spirit And then when he got through with the temptation, he returned in the power of the Spirit. So there is a power and there is a leading of the Holy Spirit, and I believe the leading comes first and then the power. And so I want to take this, wrap this all up in a bow. I know it's going a little bit longer, but it's okay. This is his instructions to his disciples, and we're going to start in Luke 24:45. And he opened their understanding that they may comprehend the scriptures. Then he said to them, Thus it was written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things. Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry in the city of Jerusalem, until ye are endued with power from on high. And that word tarry there, I believe, just means wait. Hey, just wait in Jerusalem until you're endued with power. We'll go to Acts, but we're not going to go— we're going to cut this lesson off. I'm going to tell you my testimony because Revelation 12:11 is my absolute favorite scripture, and it's, they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. So I'm going to give you my quick little testimony on what happened with me and how I was, quote, "endued with power," and how it all happened. It did not happen overnight. I'm sad to say it took years for me to get the gift of the Holy Spirit. But anyway, I wanna stop here. God, I thank you so much for everything you've done in my life. God, I wanna thank you for your word, but mostly, Lord, you were correct. If you can imagine, Jesus, it is to my advantage that you sent your Holy Spirit. And I thank you so much for sending your Spirit and to guide us and to teach us. And God, I pray in Jesus' name that your Holy Spirit would help the person listening to this episode. Lord, help quicken in their spirit anything that they need from you, Lord, and it's all in your word. And Lord, we thank you for sending the word. We thank you for sending your Spirit. Father God, thank you for sending Jesus. And we thank you and we love you and we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you in the next episode.

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