Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to the Newman Church Podcast, wherever.
[00:00:03] Speaker B: You are in the world.
[00:00:04] Speaker A: We are so glad you've joined us. Our prayer is that this message will reveal more of who our Heavenly Father is as we grow deeper in intimacy with Jesus. Enjoy the message.
[00:00:17] Speaker B: So I want to just talk about revival here. We're going to look at it a little bit of a different perspective.
And if you were here in the previous sessions where we talked about this, most of this will not be new to you in the sense of you've heard it, at least from me, perhaps you already knew it or you heard other people preach it, or the Lord gave you this revelation personally. But it's going to be new for us today because Holy Spirit is going to make it fresh.
So it's not that we've never heard it before, but it's fresh.
Okay, so that's the meaning of the other word. So Starting in Ezekiel 37, starting at verse one, the hand of the Lord came upon me, brought me out, and the Spirit of the Lord set me down in the midst of the valley, and it was full of bones. Then he caused me to pass by them all around. And behold, there were very many in the open valley, and indeed they were very dry. He said to me, son of man, can these bones live? So I answered, o Lord God, you know, again, he said to me, prophesy to these bones and say to them, o dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones. Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you and cover you with skin and put breath in you, and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the Lord. Okay, we'll stop right there.
Now, just imagine this. Can you imagine if it was you? The hand of the Lord comes upon you, and you're transported by the spirit of the Lord into a valley that becomes the stage for one of scripture's most powerful demonstrations of supernatural restoration. A valley full of dead bones. It says, verse 2. There are very many, there are very dry. So the quantity and the quality, this is a.
It's really a situation that's quite dismal. There's really nothing hopeful about this at all. And then what happens is, after presenting Ezekiel with this scenery of death, the Lord poses a question. Son of man, can these bones live? We've already talked about this, but the idea here, of course, is God's inviting him into to firstly to. To recognize how serious the situation is, because you can. You can Walk through life. You can. You can drive your car through your city, your suburbs, see people, and actually be oblivious to a scene of death. That's the scene of death. People are lost, they're dying. They don't know Jesus. They're dead in their trespasses and sins. And then we just walk by them every day. Doesn't grip our hearts, does nothing. So he's inviting Ezekiel to look at the situation and to a degree, take some ownership. Like, do you realize how bad this is? Like, this is really concerning to me. And so the Lord invites us into a place where we take up his burden.
And there's a lot we could talk about with this. But anyone who walks with God and makes a difference in the world, truly with the heart of the Father, takes up the burden of the Lord.
There's no way around it. If we're in it for ourselves to build a ministry, to make a name, whatever, then we don't have the heart of the Father. And typically, there's no burden. There's no burden. We already referred to Romans 9 recently, verses 1 through 3. I'm speaking a lot of stuff is not in my notes. So it actually talks about how Paul said, when he looked at his kinsman Israel after the flesh, he had unceasing anguish, continual sorrow in his heart, and he wished that he himself were cursed from Christ.
Yeah, the old. For those of you guys remember, anybody remember the living Bible? There's. Now it's called the New Living Translation, which is the updated version. But the living Bible actually says that, Paul, I wish that I could go to hell if it would result in their salvation. Yeah, that's what it says. And that's the meaning of what he's saying, that I were cursed from Christ. Now he's using hyperbole. He's not literally saying, hey, send me to hell so they'll be saved. He knows that that wouldn't do anything. Only the blood of Jesus can save people.
But the point is, he's using this literary device as a means to exaggerate, to show a point. And so the idea here is that he is burdened and he has this burden. So God invites Ezekiel into that place of partnership, firstly, to have his heart.
Secondly, he actually says to him, son of man, can these bones live? In other words, it's bad. But do you have faith and do you believe that this situation can change?
And then, of course, he invites him to actually become a co laborer with him. You know, the Bible says that, right? We're co laborers with God in 1st Corinthians 3. So we. He invites him to be a co laborer. What does that mean? Sorry, Lindsay, I'm walking all over the place and he's on the camera, so I'm a walkie talkie. But the idea is this, that we come into a place where we collabor with him even as Adam and Eve in the beginning co labored with God. Okay? So whereas a partnership in the sense that God says, can these bones live? I'm inviting you into this process of actually bringing salvation and change and transformation.
And so what happens next is the prophets summoned to prophesy, to prophesy to the bones. And when he prophesies to the bones, we know what happens. The bones come together, bone to bone, and then eventually form a skeleton, sinews, flesh on the bones. And then the next thing that happens is the Lord commands Ezekiel a second time to prophesy, and this time he's to prophesy to the four winds, which is the ruach of God, the breath of God. And he does that as he's commanded. Verse seven. And what ends up happening, I'm sorry, verse number nine.
That from the four winds, o breath, breathe on these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied, as he commanded me, verse 10. And breath came into them, and they lived and stood upon their feet exceeding great army. Wow.
Now, obviously, when you look at this story, it wasn't referring to things literally, because if you continue to read down in the passage, he actually says very clearly in verse number 12, you shall know that I'm the Lord when I've opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up from your graves. And verse 13. Sorry. And this is, of course, the whole house of Israel. Verse number 11. They indeed say, our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off.
So don't you love the word of God? It's so nice to see people with their Bibles open. Amazing. If you have a device. That's awesome. You're following along. That's great. Awesome, awesome, awesome. Get the word into you. All right. Get in the Word and get the word into you. So this is. This is something so powerful that God invites him into partnership. And today it speaks to us.
There is a call for us to do something, and we are to, first of all, hear the voice of God. Ezekiel had to hear his voice, right? And how did he hear his voice? And why did he hear his voice? And why did it seem almost effortless for him to hear the voice of God? Because he was in the spirit.
He was in the spirit.
See, if we're in the flesh, if we're even living in our soul, we're not in the spirit. And those who are in the. Those who are in the flesh, Romans 8, verse 8, cannot please God.
So if we're in the flesh, we can't please God. And we can't hear the voice of God when we're not tuned in from our spirit. Because the Spirit, Holy Spirit, bears witness to our spirit, lowercase s. So there's that whole thing where he speaks to us, but he speaks to our spirit, Right? You can have ears and not hear, Jesus said. And so we have to recognize that the way God communicates to us is spirit to spirit. And when we step into that place where we're spiritual people, we hear the voice of God. Some people say, why is it that I never hear the voice of God? I remember I used to go to this Russian church and preach there all the time. And whenever I went there, because they were very prophetic in their sense. I would always just like, prophetic on steroids. You know, I'd be prophesying, be prophesying all these crazy things. I know people's names, I'd know people's jobs. I know what God had called them to do with their life. And I'd say things and they all go like, whoa, whoa, whoa. It was crazy. But I remember one woman was actually the pastor's wife.
She said to me, pastor Glenn, you never prophesy for me. Every time you come here, you prophesy over all the people, but you never prophesy over me.
And I said, I'm just trying to listen to him, the Father.
That's not my choice. That's not like, I don't like you. Or he said, I just didn't receive anything from the Lord, but I'll try to lean in more and be a little bit more attentive and tuned in Holy Spirit and see if he gives me something. And so I literally did that and started to pray for her. And the Lord gave me a beautiful word to share with her, which totally broke her. And she just fall on her face and began to worship God. It was a powerful thing. But there's sometimes, and this is my point with this story is we don't hear the voice of God because there's something obstructing our ability to hear.
Okay? And can I just say that if we were to generalize it, it really has to do with we're living and walking perhaps in the soul realm, but not in the spirit realm. Okay, now, we have a soul, we have a body, but we first and foremost are a spirit. It's very interesting that the New Testament actually says, like in 1st Thessalonians 5:23, May the God of peace sanctify you wholly or completely. May your entire spirit, soul and body be preserved, blameless at his coming. And it says spirit, soul and body in that order.
Now, when you look in the world and, you know, holistic medicine, naturopathy, New age, whatever, typically the focus is the other way around.
And you'll even see, many times, most instances, the reference is not to spirit first. Okay, so God has created us as spiritual beings. We have a soul. And I know that dichotomy is very difficult to make. Like, where is our soul, you know, start, and where does our spirit end? No, it doesn't. It's like God. But ultimately what happens is we recognize that we're called to live in the spirit.
Now, what I want to show us as we continue to follow this is that there's actually a place where our hearing God will not manifest anything unless we do what he tells us to do.
Now, let me break it down.
How many know what the fivefold ministry is? Sentient, gifts, apest, whatever you want to call it. Okay, the thing about the prophetic, none of these gifts were meant to operate in silo, but there's interdependence, right? So the thing about the prophetic, I'm not saying a prophet. I'm saying hearing the voice of God. Prophetically, you can hear the voice of God, you can receive a prophetic word.
Nothing will change in your life.
Often, not always.
I've seen prophetic words boom and then bang, things shifted. Okay? But there are. When you receive a prophetic word, you have to steward that.
You have to actually take that word and say, okay, God said.
And you have to fight your battles, Right? Talks about that in First Timothy 1:18. Fighting, waging a warfare according to the promises that went before you. So there's a place where we wage warfare with the prophetic words we have to obey. So the thing about God is, you know, obviously the five folder, the graces of God. But it's not like the apostolic isn't prophetic or the prophetic isn't apostolic. Do you know what I'm saying? Okay, so the point I'm trying to make is sometimes we try to cut it and make it, you know, just cut and dried. Oh, you're apostolic. You need me to hear God's voice for you because I'm a prophet. No, I don't.
You can speak to the church and you can prophesy to me, but I can prophesy to you because it's not about a gift.
I want to say that again. It's not about a gift. If you go back to the day of Pentecost in Acts, chapter two, it's about, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall what? Prophesy? Not just those who are prophets or those who have a gift. But he says, basically, I'm raising up a people who will dream dreams, who will. Who will have visions, who will receive from the spirit realm in whatever way, and they will actually prophesy. So it's about a people that are prophetic, a people that live in the realm of the spirit, in other words, and hear the voice of God.
So the spirit of prophecy, the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
That's what it says in Revelation. The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. So what is he saying?
What is he saying?
We can look at our situation like Mary and Martha and go, lazarus is dead.
Jesus. Nah, he's sleeping.
The spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus. It's hearing from him. So you can look at your situation, and if you do that according to your emotions, your intellect, you can panic. Oh, my gosh, what's going to happen? Oh, why is this happening? I'm so confused. Is God angry with me? Why does he have me doing this? I'm not happy. I don't like this. And. And then what happens is, why am I going through this? Why am I struggling in this space, whatever it may be? And God's like, why don't you just stop all that noise cancellation, shut it out, and then start listening to me?
Because I have something I want to communicate to you. I want you to hear my voice.
And when you look at this situation, it is a testimony of death and hopelessness in the natural. But God says, no, There is a word that I want you to hear. And that word is that, yes, these bones can live. Yes, this situation can change. Now, will you partner with me to actually begin to prophesy over your situation, to believe it, and to begin to live according to the outcome and the projected future of what God has promised us in his word, rather than what it looks like in the natural.
So when you look at this, we see clearly that God wants to bring life out of death, out of hopelessness.
But what takes place in many of our lives is we struggle with the same Things, sometimes for years.
Mindsets, fear, doubt, addiction, feelings of inferiority, whatever it may be. Insecurity. Because we're not hearing from the Father.
We're living according to what we hear others say or what we think about ourselves. But it's not the testimony of Jesus.
It's what we, for whatever reason, are believing. And so this is a very important thing. When the Bible talks about that you'll be transformed. Don't be conformed to the world. That word, conformed means externally conformed. Don't live. In other words, don't behave like the world. That's what it means in the Greek, but it says, but be transformed. And that word in Greek, metamorpho, literally. How's the idea of an internal transformation? You know, when Jesus went to the top of the. Of the Mount of Transfiguration and he started glowing like the glory of God, it's the same word.
He was inwardly transformed. Jesus. See, it wasn't. People think, oh, the glory. No, it was a release of the glory. It was what we are called to carry. And as the perfect son of God who never sinned, he stewarded the fullness of the glory of God like no one else ever would. So we're called to live in this place. And the enemy, the devil hates the glory. He hates the anointing. He hates the power of the Holy Spirit. He hates it.
You can be a good person. You can even pray prayers that are powerful in the natural. But the Bible says, remember this. Jesus said, if you speak a word to a mountain, you don't doubt in your heart. Guess what happens? It'll be cast into the sea, right? That's what he said. But remember, the seven sons of Sceva in Acts, chapter 19, they find this, they find these seven sons. They hear about, like Paul, what he's doing. Hey, Paul's going around casting out demons in the name of Jesus. Let's try it.
So they literally, what happens is they find this person who's demonized, or the seven sons, and what happens is they begin to command the demons to come out. And they're like, who are you?
Who are you? And then continues, paul, we know. And Jesus, we know. Who are you?
Now, what I want you to see there is they had the right confession, they spoke the right words, but nothing happened. In fact, they were defeated. Why?
Because they didn't have the glory. They didn't have the presence. They didn't have the power.
See, it's not about the words that we speak. You can speak things.
It's only intellectual it's coming from your soul, but not your spirit.
Nothing happens. Demons know that. Guys, they tremble like no threat. And someone else who walks in, the spirit who comes into that room, they freak out. They hate it.
They take cover. Literally.
Like, they literally try to hide in people. Shut up. Shut up. We don't want him to know we're actually in this person.
They play dead. Yeah. Anyway, that's for a deliverance class in the future. But the point is, what happens is when we step, when we're living in that place of the glory, we begin to speak. We don't have to be loud.
We can say in the name of Jesus, come out.
And the demons come out instantly, quickly, because of the authority. Right? So the hills melt like wax at the presence of the Lord. So the glory, the presence causes the mountains to melt like wax. So when you speak the words is the words. See, Jesus said in John 6:63, the words, I speak to you, they're spirit and life.
Okay? They're Pneuma and Zoe. They're spirit and life.
So those words, boom, they were creative words. Same words that created everything. When he spoke it, it brought transformation because the word he was full of the spirit. So as a result of that, we speak words of life. Now, here's what I want to just quickly look at here this morning when you see this story, we've already highlighted the fact that the bones actually were very dry. There were very many. And so when they came together, obviously there had to be a work of healing, a work of strengthening that took place because those bones in their brittle form would never support the weight of a body. Right. That makes sense. So it speaks of healing.
When God wants to bring and raise up an exceedingly great army, what does he do? He heals. He brings healing, restoration. He deals with our brokenness, with our. With our humanity and the areas that we've not allowed him to heal. And so those who are really powerfully used by God and go the distance in ministry and who finish well.
Do you know that about 80% of pastors do not finish well?
Those who finish well actually are the ones who've allowed God to deal with their humanity and their brokenness and. And allow him to do that on a regular basis.
And it requires that we get alone with God in the secret place. The Bible says, humble yourself in the sight of the Lord. That's a commandment in the New Testament, and it literally means humble yourself in the Greek before the face of the Lord.
Before the face of the Lord. I would rather have humbled myself before his face, allow him to speak to me, allow him to correct me, than be publicly rebuked. Because I'm not listening to him, right? Exposed because I'm not listening to him. That's what happens in many instances. Now, I know I'm not saying it's always that type of thing is not that severe, but sometimes we just become outdated and irrelevant.
We're useless. You know what it says in second Timothy about, in God's household, there's two kinds of vessels, vessels of honor. Vessels that literally are not of honor. Some are used for noble purposes, the vessels of honor. And the others are used for mundane, ordinary purposes, like literally taking out the rubbish. They're like a rubbish bin is the idea. You put it in the bin. So God's saying this. What are you, a gold platter or a rubbish bin?
And here's what he's saying, though we could say, well, the rubbish bins are important. Yes, they are. But the point is, in that story, he's saying that's not what you're called to be.
You're called to be. Listen to this. He says that you've been sanctified and you become useful for every good work. What's my point is that we're no longer useful to God.
We can become outdated and irrelevant. What we're doing is operating in a paradigm from years ago, living off of revelations and encounters we had with God 20 years ago. And we're not hearing from him today. We're not receiving fresh manna from heaven today.
And it would be like a doctor who is not staying abreast of all the new research and studies, right? You can have your degree, but if you're not staying current, you're really of no value. You're not useful. Do you understand what I'm saying? So how many of us have. We're not really useful to God, not at least to the degree that he wants us to be. Well, I remember when your testimony should be current. What did God do for you this week? What has he done in your life this week? Morning by morning, new mercies. I'm receiving revelation. I'm hearing his voice. He speaks to me. Isaiah, chapter 50. He says, Morning by morning, he awakens me. I have the ear of a disciple, and he speaks to me. And I was not disobedient.
I'm listening.
And we can get proud and we can say, I know what the Bible says about that. And then we think we're something. And again, it has nothing to do with that. We can live in A place of literally where we just say the right things, guys, but our hearts are far from him.
Jesus rebuked the Pharisees. Never once did he say their theology was erroneous.
He actually said In Matthew, chapter 23, he said, they sit in Moses seat, they teach, they command. And he said, do what they tell you to do, listen to what they're teaching you, okay? But don't live like they live.
In other words, they don't practice what they preach.
So the point is this, that you can have the right doctrine, you can know theology, you can know so much stuff. Because honestly, we have people that watch so many YouTube videos and Facebook videos, but they don't spend any time with God.
It's all regurgitated, secondhand stuff they're not receiving. Do you know what God said to Jeremiah in chapter 23, Woe to the prophets who steal my words from one another.
They're not getting it directly from the Father. They're like, hey, I've subscribed to, you know, to that preacher, and I receive his sermon notes every week, and I preach that.
But God wants to bring us back to the cross where we're dead, where we're seeking him. And we're saying, lord, speak to me, because unless you speak, these bones are not going to live.
I am preaching better than you're responding.
That's better.
So there's this place of brokenness. Secondly, we see the bones come together, right? Which speaks of connection, speaks of unity. We're not just a bunch of individual bones. We're called to come together, be connected, and form a body. So that place of unity, that place of connection and interdependence, there's a lot we could say about that. But we are what, just members of the body, right? Doesn't matter how gifted you are, doesn't matter how much, you know, you're just one part of the body. On our own, we're not the body of Christ. And then what do we have? We have those who are body parts, who are not part of the body.
And they know their gifts, they know their calling, but they're not connected to the body.
They're just doing their own thing.
And that's not healthy. And that, that will also. And when I say healthy, not only for them, but for the whole church. We need one another.
I need your grace. You need my grace, my contribution, and I need yours, each one of us. That's the way the body. So then the next thing we see is, we see this work where he actually starts prophesying as he's instructed, after the whole bones came together, the sinews, the flesh, etc. And this part I want to just focus on for a few moments this morning.
This is a powerful, powerful thing because he says there was no breath in them. Nothing.
In other words, there's no life.
Have you ever been there?
Bones, structure, no life Structure, no life.
Motion, but nothing.
So we sing the songs, we go through the motions, we do all the right things, but there's no life.
Wow.
So he says now prophesy to the breath, the ruach, which is the wind, right? The breath and spirit means all three, just like Pneuma does in Greek, prophesy. And there was a noise, the bones came together, but say to them, come from the four winds, O breath, breathe on these slain that they may live.
Listen, what's going to distinguish us?
And I don't mean just us as I look as a church, as a local body, but I mean also other churches, other people, other ministries, other leaders. What is going to distinguish us in these days is this right here.
The breath, the breath, the breath.
And when people come and they go, the presence of God is here, the word is going forth and it's literally releasing life.
And these people are full of his presence, full of his spirit, full of his life.
That's what's going to make all the difference.
So prophesying then, as he commanded, the breath came into them and they lived, they came to life, they stood up on their feet.
Amazing and exceedingly great army. Now, this is a prophetic picture of what God wants to do in every generation.
I believe we are in a season right now where the church is being challenged.
The thing that concerns. You know what?
Okay, can I just reveal something about myself?
Okay, it's really simple. What is the most needed thing and yet the most neglected thing in God's house today for ministers and the body of Christ as a whole.
People that really know how to connect with God through prayer and intercession.
We pray 15, 20 minutes and we think that's something, guys, if we're going to see the power of God come, we're going to have to go deeper. We're going to have to weep between the porch and the altar. We're going to have to get hungry for God once again and say, God, I can't live with seeing this scene of death all around me. And Lord, I want to be part of the solution, not the problem. I don't want to curse the darkness. I want to light a candle. And Lord, I pray that you Will use me. And I give myself to you. Still with me, Lord. Humble me, God. Fill me with your power and presence and do something in this generation and continue and continue and continue to continue to pray. Like Elijah. He prayed not only one time, two, three, four, five, six, but seven times.
And on the seventh time, he said, okay, that's it. I see a cloud the size of a man's hand.
See, Hosea said this. Chapter 10, verse 12. It is time to seek the Lord till he comes and reigns righteousness.
We're like, yep, I sought God, spent 20 minutes this morning. You can even spend an hour. But if your heart isn't going deep with God, if your heart isn't connecting with him in a deep place, if your spirit's not connected with him in a deep place, some of us, we go to God and all we do is tell him how messed up the world is, how difficult our life is, how many problems and how many challenges we have and how it is. And sometimes we're kind of even like. Like, Martha is like, don't you even care? I'm like, my sister's over there just, like, sitting at your feet, like, don't you care? Like, don't you like. And that's how we approach, like, God, are you oblivious? Don't you care what's going on in my life? And, guys, I'm telling you, there's no shortcuts. There's no shortcuts. You can complain. You can be unhappy all of your life if you choose to, because you refuse to surrender, to lay down, and to spend time in the presence of God seeking him. Prayer is not a piece of the armor. Contrary to popular teaching. It's the very air that we breathe. It's the stitching that holds the armor in place.
We have to be a people of prayer.
Many years ago, Martin Luther said this. He said, I have an exceptionally busy day. He already prayed three hours a day. He said, I have an exceptionally busy today. He said, I'm gonna have to pray an extra few hours today.
Why? Because it's hectic. I need grace. I need help. And I've modeled this throughout my life. And I've found. And I know what it's like to not do it.
I can, you know, just being honest, I'm not perfect. There have been times when I've got away from that in my journey with God. But I will say this, that I know what it's like to go there in God. And then all of a sudden, what normally would take days, weeks, he compresses it and it happens. Boom. Some things, honestly, will never come to pass. There'll be some breakthroughs that we'll never experience until we fast.
And not the religious fasting, but getting along with God, praying and fasting. You can fast without prayer. It's just a diet. It's just like, literally a weight loss thing might help you, but physically, what's nothing. Spiritually, there's a place of prayer. There's a place of seeking God.
I remember when I first got saved. Lynn will tell me I was crazy. I was so radical.
You know, some people said, man, zeal without knowledge.
Zeal without knowledge. But, you know, there's one thing worse than zeal without knowledge, knowledge without Z.
Because you can learn, you can grow. But if you don't have the fire, you don't have the fire.
But I remember just spending time, hours. See, the reason why I know the Word, guys, especially in the early days, is because I spent hours and hours and hours and hours every day in the Word, praying, seeking God.
Say you have a photographic memory. Maybe a little bit. But the fact is, it's because the Word I've sown the Word of God in my heart. I've hidden the Word in my heart. I put it in there and then just. That's what Jesus did, right? That's what he did. And I'm telling you, when you get into the Word, when you get into prayer, and when you begin to seek God, things change. Breakthrough comes, you change. Sometimes we want our circumstances to change. And God says, actually, it's you that needs to change.
Rejoice in all circumstances. I don't like this situation. I like this circumstance. Rejoice. Praise Him. Give him the glory. Thank him, whatever we're going to, whatever it is, begin to thank God for his goodness. And as we see those who walk in the Spirit, like Ezekiel, who began to speak the Word of God, boom. Things happen.
You shall speak a word, and it shall come to pass. Job said, you'll speak it, and it should come to pass. You'll speak it and it'll happen. God's speaking. He's speaking. He wants you to hear his voice. He wants you to know his joy. He wants you to experience his love. His love.
So it doesn't matter what people think about you. You don't care about the accolades of men. You're not concerned about those things. You just want to know, do I delight you, Father?
I know you love me unconditionally. But do I delight you? Do I please you? This is my beloved Son with whom I'm well pleased. Right? Jesus, the Bible says he grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men, in that order. Luke 2:52. He grew in favor. Guess what word that is? It's a Greek word.
Grace.
He grew in grace. He grew in grace. Favorite grace is favor. Did you know that? It's favor. It's favor. 2nd Peter 3:18 says, Grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. You can grow in grace.
Why would God say if grace is just unmerited. Favor.
Right. We can grow in more grace.
We can experience more grace.
See? Grace. There's so many scriptures that talk about grace. Grace isn't just God's unconditional love, his forgiveness, certainly it is that, but it's more. It's also him giving us divine, supernatural power to live a way that we could never live on our own.
So we walk in that place of power. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of grace. Did you know that there's two times in the Bible where he's referred to as the Spirit of grace?
And he's the Spirit of grace. Grace, grace, grace. Jesus blood, yes, approaches his throne of grace to obtain mercy and grace in our time of need. Right? But there's a place where we access the grace of the Holy Spirit for living, for ministry, for overcoming. I challenge you. Just read the New Testament, read Paul's writings. Grace by the grace of God. It's by the grace of God. He said, I received apostleship by the grace of God. That's what he said. It's all about that. So it's a power that comes, an enablement that comes to us. And I want to challenge us as we continue to go forward.
Can I just be honest?
Been in ministry, Lynn and I, for a long time.
Like, we actually don't have an agenda.
We want him, we want to see him. We want him to be known.
That's it.
People to encounter him, to know him, to be changed, and to make him known.
[00:43:20] Speaker A: Thank you for joining us. We hope that you enjoyed today's podcast. And we realize that not everyone has had the opportunity to respond to the good news of the gospel. And for this reason, in all of our services and platforms, we want to extend to you the opportunity to follow Jesus. The Bible teaches us that we have been created for a relationship with God. However, sin, which is essentially disobedience, independence and disbelief, or us simply missing the mark, entered the world and separated us from. From God. Romans 6:23 says that the wages of sin is death and a debt was owed and The Bible tells us that he demonstrated his love for us that while we were still sinners, he died for us. Jesus paid the penalty for our sin. John 3:16 says, For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. God so loved the world that he gave us Jesus that whoever believes in him will be saved. All that is required of anyone is that they believe in Jesus, the Son of God who came, lived, died and rose again so that we could be forgiven, made right and given the right to become children of God and to have life forevermore with Him.
Today you can begin a relationship with Jesus. To believe in him is to simply to respond with faith in our hearts and confess. Confess with our mouths that he is Lord. And we do that through a simple prayer.
Follow along with Me Dear Jesus, I believe that you are the Son of God. I thank you that you love me and came to forgive me of my sin. I repent from my old way of life and I turn to follow you. I receive the free gift of eternal life and I ask that you fill me with the Holy Spirit so that I can live a life following after you. I thank you that I am born again as a child of God and that I am a new creation in Christ Jesus. Amen. If you prayed this prayer for the first time, we would love to connect with you and connect you to your next step and the local church in your area. You can contact us on our website at NUMA Church. Thanks for listening.
