Well, let's get into the Word of God this morning. Father, in the name of Jesus, I thank you once again for this amazing thing called church. And I bless every person that's in this room, every person that's watching, that will watch or listen. Lord God, may our hearts be open, may our spirits be receptive to your Holy Spirit that we're learning about, that we're digging into your word to discover who is this Holy Spirit. How can I know him more? How can I be filled with him? How can I partner with his power to reach the world for Jesus so that you can be glorified in us, God? We just yield to you today and we ask you to bring your word to life because your word is spirit, it is truth, it is alive, it is quick, it is active, it is sharp, Lord God. So cut through whatever you need to cut through today. And Lord, speak to us through your word and by your spirit in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Well, you know, it's been interesting ever since we got back from El Salvador. Uh I don't know if it's just the trip catching up with us. It seems like, you know, waves of sickness and stuff. I uh, you know, I was doing great for uh most of the time we've been backed, and then all of a sudden, Tuesday evening, I found myself hugging the toilet. Uh never, never fun, right? The kids I think had never seen their father in that condition. My daughter did not pick up on my face. We were like getting ready bedtime, so everybody's in and out of the bathroom, you know, brushing teeth, doing different things, and I walk into the room. And if you had seen my face, you'd probably know what was coming. My daughter did not pick up, and I just put my hand on her out. I didn't even say anything, it's just out of the room, close the door, and then they're like, Mom, what's dad doing? Sounds are coming out of that room. Uh horrible, horrible feeling. So I I feel like I'm getting there finally. Uh you know, when we're weak, he's strong in us. Amen. I just believe in God that that strength is gonna be returned as sickness has to go in Jesus' name. Amen. Over my life, over your life, over this church. Uh, Lord, we're waiting for the spring, the sunshine, and no more flu season. Amen. Well, that aside, I've been torn a little bit because I really want to talk about Acts and what Acts has to say about being filled with the Holy Spirit. But I felt as I prepared for the sermon today that I was really just arrested. I was grabbed by the Spirit and I was taken to passage after passage, reminding me about my relationship with the Holy Spirit and about how we do relate as the body of Christ to the Holy Spirit. And so I wrestled with this because I'm like, oh Lord, I just want to get to the part where it's like, bam, Holy Spirit, come fill people's lives. Let's see the power. Because I don't know about you, we need more power in this church. I need more power in my life. I want to see more power in your life. And you know, we're talking about outreach, it's not just about sharing words with people. Every religion out there, every philosophy out there has words to share with people, but we believe a gospel that isn't just human words, but it's the power of God. So I want to get there. I'm desperate to get there. And then the Lord starts taking me to these passages. And so I'm like, Lord, do I deal with this? And you see me flipping back and forth like I'm still wrestling with it, right? I literally have two sermons in my notes this morning. I even warn them in projection. It's like flip to this page if you hear me going that direction. But obviously, a lot of us are filled with the Holy Spirit. We've been baptized in the Holy Spirit, we we speak in tongues, we've operated in these things. Some of us are about to receive it, amen. But if we don't understand how to relate to the Holy Spirit, then we can end up grieving, quenching, possibly even resisting the Holy Spirit that we have just received. And one of the dangers I would say that we as spirit-filled people in a spirit-filled movement can get into is that we're so focused on the power that we lose sight of the person that we are empowered by. Because the Holy Spirit is not your turbo boost to go about living your way, or about getting what you want to get, or about just going about business as usual. You are receiving a person, and that person is beautiful, that person is wonderful, that person is sensitive, you'll find out as you read the scriptures. You know, thank God that he reveals himself in all of these different ways. I think even back in the Old Testament, obviously, the the I was gonna say the apostle David, he wasn't an apostle, King David, and then I almost said the King David, and I'm like, go back to grammar school. King David, he had the spirit upon him, he had an anointing from God to be the king of Israel. How many of you know that? That was one of the things that we see in the Old Testament. God would empower men to be prophets, to be priests, to be kings, to be these figures that would act and speak on God's behalf. And David was such an amazing person, amazingly flawed person, and one of his biggest mistakes in his life, I am so grateful that the Bible puts it out front, black and white. It shows us how flawed he was, and we're familiar with the story of how he committed adultery with Bathsheba, right? Not only did he have an affair, but really he was abusing his power to get that woman to begin with, right? So it's more than just a, you know, I got involved with somebody at work or whatever, is as much as that's sin and wrong, but he is somebody in a place of power that's basically just saying, send me the woman, and everybody follows suit, because he's the king after all. And of course, we know it's even worse than that. He says, uh, what we see in scripture is that, you know, they have their affair, and you know, we don't know what that all looked like. How was it a one-night thing? Was it an ongoing relationship? But we do know that she ended up pregnant. And so David tries to cover up his sin. We know the story, and when his first attempt to cover up the story didn't work, you know, if I can just get her husband home, he'll assume it's his kid, and you know, we'll just pretend this never happened. How many of you know covering up your sin is never the route to go? The Bible calls us to repent, to confess our sins, and that's the only route to actually solving the problem. Not just sweeping it under the rug, not just trying to cover it up. And that didn't work, so David takes things a step further. What does he do? Everyone tell me. He has him killed. So at first glance, it looks like David's actually allowed his conscience to like he's silenced his conscience, he's getting on with life, you know, he's well, the husband's out of the way. I might as well have the woman now and all the rest until the prophet of God speaks up, Nathan. Thank God for Nathan, amen. Thank God for people that will not just go along with, you know, well, it's not my place, it's, you know, he's the man, whatever. No, he speaks the word of God to David. He pierces through the facade, the lies, the cover-up, and he says, David, you know exactly what you've done, and it was wrong. And my point isn't to preach to you about David today, but I love this passage and I come back to it again and again for whatever reason. David records his repentance in Psalm chapter 51. And he doesn't just ask for forgiveness, but he recognizes that what he had done with Bathsheba had caused an estrangement, a distancing between him and the spirit of God that had rested upon him to be the king of Israel, to be the warrior, to be the man of God. It says in Psalm 51, verses 10 and 11 create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Again, I thank God that we live in different times and we have a different covenant, right? The Holy Spirit, when we receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior, when we're born again, the Holy Spirit comes and he takes up residence in us. But one of the things we've been learning in the last few weeks is not only does the Holy Spirit come and dwell in us, make us his holy dwelling, his holy temple, the Bible says, on the earth, but we also can have something more, which is what we're excited about. We can be filled, we can be baptized, we can be clothed, we can be empowered. And that's what David was. He wasn't born again the way you and I are. As much as we love the story of David, he was not born again. Jesus hadn't yet come and died, that wasn't yet available, but he did have the Spirit of God resting upon him, anointing him to be a man of God, to be a king, to be a warrior on behalf of God. And but something happened when he allowed his flesh, when he allowed his sinful desires to get the better of him, that anointing, that covering, that empowering with the Holy Spirit, David recognized not only is my heart unclean, not only do I need your forgiveness, God, not only do I need to draw near to you because I know that I've created a distance. Our sin separates us, Scripture says, from God. But he recognized that the Holy Spirit, the presence of the Holy Spirit, the empowering of the Holy Spirit that he once enjoyed was in jeopardy of abandoning him. Lord, let not my flesh, my desires get the better of me. Lord, may I be so jealous of the Holy Spirit that lives in me and rests on me that I wouldn't let anything in this world come in between me and your Holy Spirit. Amen. But but you know, sometimes we just grow callous, we grow hard, and we don't even notice that we have hurt the Holy Spirit, right? We just grow deaf, we grow dull, we grow apathetic, and we just go on our way. But then, you know, it's kind of again like our relationships, those of us who are married, you know, it's it's easy to just kind of go through day-to-day life, the other person's there, but you're kind of deaf to them. I was expecting all the ladies in the room to go, amen. Heal his ears, right? You know, like we kind of grow like colder, a little distant, a little insensitive to the other person. We're in the same room, but we're not really relating to one another. But then there are like write-out fights, right? Oh, nobody's saying amen to that one. If you've been married for any length of time and you haven't fought, please come and see me. Honestly, I don't know if that tells me that you know something I don't know, and you need to pray for me, minister to all of us the secrets of grace that you have found. Or if you're just living in such a bubble that I need to pop and like you're not living in reality. You know, it fighting's okay, right? Shows us where we're really at sometimes. But I say that to illustrate our relationship with the Holy Spirit. I think a lot of the time our biggest problem with the Holy Spirit is apathy, is indifference, is growing cold, it's growing callous, growing deaf to the Spirit of God that's supposed to be leading us, drawing us towards God, directing us, speaking to us, right? Reminding us of everything that Jesus has taught us. We we grow cold and indifferent to that, but I can remember this one time, some of you have heard this, where I was a young man in Guatemala serving on the mission field, and uh I I hadn't met Pastor Sessi yet. I should put that disclaimer in here. Um, but I I had noticed this one young lady, and you know, feelings start to arise and all of the rest. And I remember being in prayer in my room one day, and and for whatever reason, I felt like the Holy Spirit was saying to me, this relationship is not for you. And you all obviously know why, right? Amen. As she walks back to the room and sits down, so I gotta make sure I do this right. But I remember because my feelings and you know desires were already starting to rise. It's like I can remember basically turning like we do as spouses sometimes, and we're like, you can't tell me what to do. Nobody's ever said that, right? You're not the boss of me. How many of you know the Holy Spirit is supposed to be the boss of you? Supposed to be able to tell you what to do. But I remember saying, you know, like in my eyes, right? And that the Bible uses that phrase a lot of times, doesn't it? Things that are right in our own eyes. How many of you know that your perspective is limited? And there's a reason that that phrase is in the Bible again and again, because you need higher perspective than just what you are able to see. Because everything can look good in your eyes, but you don't see the whole picture, and your desires can distort what you're seeing. And so I remember saying basically to the Holy Spirit, it's like, well, you what if I don't want to listen to you? There's nothing wrong with that, you know, we're not sinning, there's nothing going on here, then I'm gonna pursue this relationship. Well, what I felt in that moment is like, well, what if I want to anyway? Again, this wasn't just turning a deaf ear to God. This was like kind of defiantly saying, I hear what you're saying, but I don't like what you're saying, and I'm gonna do what I want to do anyway. The only way I can describe it, and I imagine this is what David was experiencing and feeling when Nathan comes and pulls the rug out from under his feet and puts them back. You know, in reality, David, this is what you have done. I felt like in that moment somebody had sucked the air out of that room. You ever felt that? I I don't know. Maybe I'm the only one. I it's like I was alone in that room, but I wasn't alone in that room until that moment. Because there was a sense of God's presence. There was a sense of, you know, I'm here with you, I'm I'm I'm fellowshipping with you. And the Holy Spirit, basically, by point of illustration, I think, was saying, if you want to do what you want to do in direct disobedience to how I'm leading you, then you can do it alone. God help the church, God help me, God help all of us that we would not just get on with Christian life because it looks good, it looks right, but we might be in direct defiance with the leading of the Holy Spirit, and we could be doing it alone, and we have no power beyond ourselves, no ability beyond ourselves. Come on. You know, I thought about how ironic this is that you know, I I can get very theological sometimes. I enjoy theology, and I could get into the person of the Holy Spirit and the Trinity. We talked, we touched on it just a little bit last week. Uh, but when I stopped and thought about it, the passages that we go to to show clearly in scripture that the Holy Spirit indeed is a person and is not just some energy or force, as we've been saying, the places that I find those passages again and again, I realize that the Holy Spirit is a person because these are passages that show me that that person can be grieved, that that person can be, as the King James said, vexed, you know, that that person can be lied to, that that person can be treated improperly. So today, more than anything, I want us to look at some of these passages about what are the ways that we can sin against the Holy Spirit? I I hear some people thinking out there when I say that. When's the last time we thought, you know, not about like breaking the big commandments, you know, in that sense of thou shalt not lie, kill, commit adultery, but simply how do we sin in our relating improperly to the Holy Spirit? Now, some of these will apply to only a few cases and probably to no one in this room, especially the first one I'm gonna mention. But some of these are things that we are all going to have to wrestle with to keep our hearts and our motives and all that we are in our inner man right to not fall into these traps. So, in my study of this, I found a handful of ways that people sin against the Holy Spirit. And I'll just throw them out there for you quickly. And if we get to them all, we get to them all. If not, you're Bible students, right? You can go study it out. Amen. I mean, we have so many tools at our disposal, people. We have no excuses for not getting in the word of God, for not studying this stuff. I find actually that my biggest challenge is the wealth of information that's at my fingertips. Because I can type in a phrase. I mean, now with AI, and I don't do this, but I know I could. My wife and I were talking about this on the way in. Like, I could just type in a sentence and I could have a sermon prepared, but that's not sermon preparation. That's notes. That's what some program can put together. What we need to do, it's great to have the information at our fingertips, but then we're supposed to meditate on it, chew on it, pray about it, seek the Lord about these things. So, like I can, I have so much at my disposal, I have to say, God, yes, but what are you saying to me, and what do you want to say to them? So, like I said, we can quickly look at what these different sins are to the Holy Spirit. And the number one, big one, and it's a tough thing to look at, because Jesus says it's actually the only thing that cannot be forgiven. Let that sink in for a moment. How grave, how important, how serious our relationship with the Holy Spirit is, that the only sort of sin that Jesus says can't be forgiven is a sin against the Holy Spirit. Like, I could just sit here and meditate on that all morning. Like, Lord. Because again, we think about sins against one another. We think sins against the big, you know, the Ten Commandments type issues or whatever, but sinning against the Holy Spirit is the only thing that Jesus says cannot be forgiven. Now, not any sort of sinning against the Holy Spirit. Amen. You might be like, Am I saved? Can I be forgiven? I put everybody in, you know, anxiety this morning. Am I right before God? What is he talking about? Well, what am I talking about? The blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. If we have time, we'll look a little bit there at Matthew chapter 12, where we find that. We also find that it is possible to resist the Holy Spirit. And that's certainly something that unbelievers do. And as I studied this, those two sins kind of got lumped into a category. Again, like if I just listened to other people's notes or what I searched on this, I could just quite comfortably put those two sins, blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, resisting the Holy Spirit. Oh, that's talking about unbelievers, so it doesn't have to do with me. Uh, that's convenient. I like that. But I think it is definitely possible, at least on some levels, for believers to also resist the Holy Spirit. Would you agree with me? Like I say, the blasphemy issue, well, that's a little bit more delicate one. And these certainly, well, another one that I find is kind of in the middle there. Well, how do you deal, for example, uh, and we're not gonna have time to get into all of this, with Ananias and Sapphira. Do I put them in the believing or the unbelieving camp? Because they sinned, a very grave sin, lied to the Holy Spirit. Right? And don't I find that story's fascinating, and I hope we can look at it because that story shows us how interconnected it is. They lied to the spirit ultimately, but it also says they lied to God. Of course, we don't struggle with that because you and I understand and know that the spirit is God. Amen. That's a classic passage to prove that point. But also their lying was in putting on false appearances to the church. Oh my goodness. Well, that puts that in very dangerous territory, in my opinion. Because, you know, I don't try and make a habit. I'm certain nobody in this room makes a habit of lying to God. You don't go into your prayer closet and lie, do you? You know, but God equates how Ananias and Sapphira dealt their situation and were putting on false appearances to the church as lying to him. Hmm. And honestly, when you start to look at this, I know when we start talking about the spirit, he is a person, and we want to relate to him the best that we can, but you need to recognize that you cannot separate how you relate to the Holy Spirit with how you relate to your brothers and spirit and sisters who have the Spirit of God inside of them. Let me say that again. You cannot separate how you relate with God. Me and God are good. You know, I pray, I study my Bible, I do my thing. It's people I don't get along with. It's people I don't like, it's people who have a hard time with. Well, if those are your brothers and sisters and they have the Spirit of God in them, you're gonna see a lot of passages where it's talking about how we relate to the Holy Spirit is very closely connected to how we relate to the church, how we relate to our brothers and sisters. In other words, we can resist God through resisting what God is trying to do through his body. We can grieve God by treating our brothers and sisters in Christ incorrectly. It's not just like the example I gave you, where I'm in a time of self-will and wrestling, you know, with a question of direction in my individual life when we don't treat our brothers and sisters made in the image of God, especially those who have the Spirit of God in them, that can be grieving the Spirit of God too. Blasphemy, resisting, and lying to the Holy Spirit, as I've already mentioned many times, you can grieve the Holy Spirit. Grief. You know, we've had a few deaths recently as a church. Grief is a natural response to loss, to pain, right? And there's a place for grief and mourning. The Bible talks about that, right? There's a healthy way to grieve, to mourn. But we can grieve the Holy Spirit. It's the same word, by the way. It's not some other relational word or spiritual word, it's the same word as when you lose somebody and your heart is hurting because they're gone. You can grieve the Holy Spirit, and I think that connection of pain and loss really helps us to illustrate what it is that we do to the Holy Spirit. Because there's something in our relationship that is causing him pain. There's something in what we have done that has caused loss, a separation to happen that was never supposed to happen. Again, bring it back to the illustration of husband and wife. You might still be married, you might still be committed to the relationship, but you've had an all-out fight. You said things you shouldn't say, you've, you know, decided that I don't care what you think about this, I'm doing this anyway. You have caused pain, you've caused separation, you've caused grief in the family, in the relationship. We can grieve the Holy Spirit. And finally, the scriptures say that we can quench the Holy Spirit. I'm giving these all to you because we won't have time to look at all of them in depth. We'll look at a couple of them. Quench literally is talking about the fire going out. Amen. I mean, grief is pain and sorrow and separation. Quenching is there is supposed to be a fire in you. There's supposed to be something active, alive, energetic that's bursting forth and creating light and energy and power in you, but you can allow that to die. And we certainly, as spirit-filled Christians, can allow this to happen again and again and again. This is why, and some people get after us. It's like, well, if it was really the Holy Spirit, then you wouldn't have to, you know, work it all up like that. Then why does the Bible say we're supposed to fan to flame the gift of God that is on the inside of us? If it's just a one-time, lay hands on me, one time I receive, and I don't have to do anything because that's works. No, the Bible says we are the guardians of that flame, that gift, that passion, that anointing that we have received. And if we're not careful, we can allow it to be quenched. Throw a bucket of cold water on it. Uh, you guys know I love to camp and canoe and hike and all that outdoor stuff. I will never forget, it's just like some people think on a different level, and that's not always a good thing. Right? Uh sometimes it's you just have to wonder where people are at. We were camping as a group of young guys, teenagers back in the bush. Always a recipe for disaster and lots of fun. Um, and you know, one big bonfire for all of us, and back then we didn't have a bunch of camping gear, camp stoves, and all of this. We hiked our stuff back and we cooked everything on the fire. And so everybody depends on that fire to make their food. And so everybody's doing their thing, and then one of the guys gets this idea to dump water on the fire. And you can imagine the rest of the guys are looking at him like, what gifts? Why did you like this? Is our fire, man? Like, we're trying to cook dinner, like, what are you doing? And he looks at us and he's like, but it was hot water. It's like, what? It's like if it was hot enough water to not put out the fire, it would be called vapor. Like some people. Some people need to go back to physics or something. It was hot water. And I can kind of imagine some Christians like that. They think they got life all figured out, and they're trying to help out some of their brothers and sisters in the Lord, and they're dumping, you know, on them, and just it's just like, but it's hot water. Yeah, it's hot water, but you're putting the fire out. You're not allowing others to burn, you're not adding to their fire. Are we beginning to see how important it is how we relate to the Holy Spirit? And like I said, I was wrestling with this. Do I just jump to the power? But maybe God arrested me and took me to these passages, to these ideas, so that we can so clearly see that when we do receive that, whether it's the first time for you, that empowering of the Holy Spirit, or whether it's fanning the flame, the spirit that you've already received and allowing the gifts to burst forth again, that we do not run so easily the danger of extinguishing what God is trying to start, of grieving what God is trying to do. Because we can get everybody in this room filled with the Holy Spirit today and be a carnal disaster by next Sunday. Hello? Do you know what I'm saying? Just read Corinthians, do yourself a favor, you can see that being spirit-filled does not exempt you but from being stupid. And even my wife's laughing, and in Spanish, you don't say that word. For those of you who don't know, stupid is a very strong word in Spanish. Okay, let's look at a couple of these passages to make sure we all get this very clear. Number one, we said that it is possible to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. And really, that shows us, again, that the Holy Spirit is a person. You don't blaspheme a random object, you don't blaspheme, you know, your blasphemy is something that you it's a sin of our mouth, comes from the heart, and it's against God. So the Holy Spirit is a person and he is God. Matthew chapter 12, and I'll just jump right to verses 31 and 32, but I'll give you the context. Some of you already know this. Jesus had just performed an amazing miracle, and he had set free somebody who was oppressed by a demon in a way that should have blown everyone in the audience away. I say audience, everyone who was around him. This was a verifiable miracle that they could not deny something supernatural had just taken place in their midst. But instead of recognizing that this is the hand of God, and we should recognize Jesus for who he is, to defend their religious position and what they had already set their heart against Jesus and against his message and against his claim to be Messiah. They started to say, Oh, yeah, that that the demon left, but he only left because Jesus has demons that are stronger or they're in cahoots. Jesus is working with the devil, that's why the devil listens to him. That is messed up. God help your church to not when God is moving, it can sometimes raise questions. Read your Bible. There's some stuff that happened in the Bible that it happened, even if it happened in our spirit-filled church, we would be like, was that God? That's like that doesn't fit in all my nice little boxes and categories. I didn't expect that. Like the whole Ananias and Sapphira thing. I pray that that never happens, okay? Like I don't know how to like unpack that one fully. I don't know about you, but the day the preacher gets up and you know you have lied to God, somebody drops dead in service, I would be like Lord. Like, what do you do with that? But here, Jesus, he's giving freedom to somebody, and that's the sad thing here, right? Somebody who was oppressed by the devil, who couldn't function, who was bound up, and nobody could do anything good for him, was just gloriously set free. Instead of saying, Hallelujah, Jesus, tell us more. Hallelujah, Jesus, can we be your disciples? They say, It's gotta be a devil. So Jesus says to that sort of spirit, that sort of attitude in Matthew 12, 31 and 32, therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven, people, but the blasphemy against the spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, neither in this age or in the age to come. Now, I I have many times, and I did it again as I looked at this passage, I certainly don't want to start labeling people I know that are from maybe more of a conservative background or what I would call non-spirit-filled type churches, and start to say you're blaspheming against the Holy Spirit, because I'm not speaking eternal judgment against anybody. That is not my place. But it does put that that sensitivity and that that guard up in me that Lord help me to recognize when it's you at work and help me to guard my mouth from speaking against things I don't necessarily understand that you're doing. And many people will say again again and again that if if you're concerned, have I committed the unforgivable sin, then I would say the Holy Spirit is still at work in your heart, drawing you to repentance, drawing you to a right relationship with God, that would tell me that you have not for committed this sin. Does that make sense? But again, I think it does bear saying that the only unforgivable sin that we're aware of is against the spirit. Wow. In Acts chapter 7, this is where Stephen is before the religious crowd. Uh, you know, I don't know if it was really a formal gathering of the Sanhedrin, like we see sometimes in the book of Acts, uh, because obviously protocols weren't followed here, but he's been brought before the authorities and he delivers this amazing message about how God has moved through the ages, how he moved through the patriarchs, how he moved through Moses, and he goes through all God has done through the ages. And as he's wrapping up his message, God bless him, you know, he begins to rebuke them and to show them what they're doing. In Acts chapter 7 and verse 30 51, it says, You stiff-necked people. Great way to get everyone on your side, right? Come on, that's supposed to be funny, people. We're used to soft preaching in North America, you know that, right? Good little Christian, nice little Christian. God loves you. God wants to bless you. God also calls us to correct, to rebuke, to instruct. Like, that's all in the Bible. That's well, obviously, he's not speaking to the church here. He's speaking to those who are actively going against the gospel. And he says, you stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart, that's gotta hit the Jewish leadership really close, right? It's like, well, who are you calling uncircumcised? It's like the very people that are like circumcision, that's us. We're God's people, his covenant people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you who always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Lord, may any religious heritage that we have been born into, been brought up in, that causes us to resist the Holy Spirit be broken off in the name of Jesus. Come on. Because again, I I thank God that everyone in this room, I think everybody in this room knows Jesus, has received Jesus, but there are things that Jesus wants to take us into. There are things that the Holy Spirit wants us to move into, but you might be just digging your heels in and like, Lord, this isn't what I was taught growing up. Lord, that doesn't sound right, Lord, that doesn't look right, Lord, I don't like the people that that's happening in. Those aren't my people. You ever see, like, I just get the picture of like, you know, trying to get a donkey to go somewhere, it doesn't want to go. You ever seen that? Just planted down, heavy, stubborn creature doesn't want to go. Lord, help us not resist the Holy Spirit. And when you really look at his his sermon there, you can see the things that are being resisted, the things that are going on. And again, the people there, they could have repented. They could have recognized, you know what, we did get it wrong. Like Stephen gets finished, and he's speaking very sharp, pointed, direct words, but then it literally says, everybody's looking. Looking at him, he's looking up to heaven, his face is like the face of an angel. I don't know about you. But when the guy I don't particularly like, who preaches in a way that I don't like, who ministers in a way that I don't necessarily agree with, if he looks up to heaven and the glory of God is shining around him, I might just be like, now it's time to learn something. But instead, look at how the heart and how hard the enemy works against what the spirit was trying to do there. It says, when you read it there, it says they stop up their ears and they grind their teeth. They stop up their ears, they grind their teeth, they cry out. Instead of opening their eyes, opening their ears, like, and really, shouldn't that just give you such a good picture of what when God is trying to draw us into something? If you get that clenching, like, I don't know, you know, if your jaw starts stiffening up, maybe that's an indication that God's trying to loosen you up and trying to take you the direction that he's going. The crowd's reaction was rage, grinding teeth, loud cries, stopping their ears, running at him, and stoning him to death. Because when you can't win against the grace and the words and the spirit of God, the only resort is the flesh, right? Use the power of the flesh to try and stop it. But greater is he who's in us, amen, than he that is in the world. Amen. Doesn't matter what people do. And when you go and study this, I say, when you go and study this. Man of faith that I am, when you go and study this. You could read John chapter 16 and verses 7 through 11. You see there the activities of the Holy Spirit that Jesus shows that you're gonna go forth as my witnesses, as my disciples, and you are going to preach my gospel. You're gonna take this message out there. And this is what the Holy Spirit is gonna do in people. He's gonna convince them of their sin and judgment and all of these things. So you can just look at it and know that if you are doing the will of God, speaking the word of God, filled with the Spirit of God, you know that the Spirit is doing those things to the people around you. Amen. We don't even have time to talk about Simon and his sin, but I will say that when you look at Acts chapter 8, and we'll maybe get there next week, you cannot buy what God wants to do through the Holy Spirit. And really, I don't think any of us would walk up like Simon did and say to the apostles, give me this power, you know, I'll pay you. There you go. But there's something wrong in his heart that God really wanted us to know about. That's why it's in the Bible. Acts chapter 8, you can read that. Again, this is not just about you getting power to secure your position, to keep you in the eyes of people. And if you are hoping to get filled with the Holy Spirit so that you can now get a ministry or get a promotion or so that people can recognize you, wrong motive. Come on. Yes, we want to be used of God, but not because of who we are, because of who he is, because what he wants to do in the world. Quickly, let's look at a few of these verses to finish up in Ephesians chapter four. Ephesians chapter four. This is where we see that passage that says, We are not to grieve the Holy Spirit. And I want to flip there because my notes, I just have the one little verse, but really there's so much in here. Ephesians chapter 4. And the verse itself is verse 30. It says, Help if I'm in the right chapter. Ephesians chapter 4, verse 30. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Now, again, look at this passage. The Apostle Paul is writing to the church, and he's saying, You can grieve the Spirit, and it's right in the middle of this exhortation saying there's a new life to live, but there's an old life that wants to still be lived out through you, and you have to decide which life you're going to embody day to day. Amen. Again, like we wish that this stuff was just like black and white. I'm born again, so all my desires are right. I'm never gonna want to go back. And again, our critics will point at us and say, Well, did you really get saved? Was there really something supernatural that happened to you? Or else, why do people fail? Why do they waver back and forth? Well, obviously, we were still going to deal with these things, or the apostle Paul wouldn't write this to the church. He says, To believers, to born-again people, to people with the Spirit of God in them. He says, put off the old man, put off the selfish ways that you've lived up until now, and put on the new man, the new creation, the one that reflects who Jesus is. And right in the middle of that exhortation is this warning that you could grieve the Spirit of God if you're living the old way and not the new way. If you live like the world, that seal of the Holy Spirit might still be on the inside of you, and your eternity might be still be guaranteed because God's a good God, and you know what I'm saying, but you're not walking in relationship with the Spirit as He yearns to walk with you. He says to put off, and I just listed these things out, and you can read the passage later. We are to put off the futility of our mind. We need to get worldly thinking dealt with. We are supposed to be renewed in the thinking, you know, in the spirit of our mind, the scriptures say. We're supposed to put off hardness of heart. We should be the soft, most soft-hearted people in the world. But life and even your relationships with people, even your relationships in church, even little bumps along the way will come and try and harden you. You're supposed to put off hardness of heart. It's not from God. We're not supposed to get harder as we get older in Christ. That's not Christian maturity. Some people think they're mature because they can just take it all, they don't care anymore. No, you've just grown hard. Christian maturity is your love is still as tender and pure as it was the day that you had your sins forgiven and you first fell in love with God and with the church, but you know pain is still gonna come, but you're still gonna open your heart to people because God is a giving God, an arms open, open-hearted God. Put off the old way, not hard-hearted, not callous. We're supposed to put off sensuality. In other words, every desire that rises up, every itch I gotta scratch it. Everything that my eyes like, that my flesh likes, that looks good to the eyes. No, we're supposed to put off greed. Why am I telling you these things, church? Because if you live in the old way, you will grieve the spirit of God. You're supposed to put off impurity, put off deceitful desires, put off falsehood. He's the spirit of truth, and he's not just the spirit of truth so you can have your theology right, he's the spirit of truth so that what comes out of our mouth is right. So that how we speak to one another, let your yes be yes and your no be no. You know, that doesn't. Some people read what Jesus said, and it's like, okay, we're not supposed to make oaths or swear anymore. Well, kind of. But actually, as a Christian, every word you speak is supposed to be as good as an oath. It's supposed to stand up. We're not wishy-washy, we're not saying one thing and meaning another, and you know, turning around, and it's a different story with other people. Deceitful desires, falsehood, anger, wrath, clamor, theft, corrupt talk. You can grieve the Holy Spirit by having corrupt talk in your mouth. And I have felt that grieving in my heart, if I'm being honest, where I've let things come out of my house, my mouth, and it's just that sick. Oh my goodness, why did I just say that? Why, that wasn't right, that wasn't edifying. That scripture says that what comes out of our mouth is supposed to be edifying to the people around us. No corrupt talk, no bitterness, no slander, no malice. And he says, put on. In other words, this is the life you live if you want to be in communion with the Holy Spirit, not grieve his heart, not quench him, renew and have a spiritual mind. Live a righteous life, a holy life. Yes, 21st century Canadians, holiness is for us. Holiness is not some bygone thing for grandmas and bonnets. Holiness is for the people of God. It's not a dusty, old, stale thing. Holiness is the most beautiful, powerful. Uh, like if you could really understand, it means being completely God's. No wonder you won't grieve the Holy Spirit. You're giving yourself again and again and again to God. Again and again, just again. Uh husbands and wives, you didn't just make vows and then get on with living. You give yourselves to one another again and again and again. This is relationship, this is intimacy, this is beautiful, this is powerful. It's not, oh well, I just have to honor her because I said some words 30 years ago. No, you look into their eyes again, you pursue again, you get to know each other again, you enjoy one another again. That's holiness. Amen. There's no more in there. You already know that, right? We as creatures, we feel the necessity to kill you. I had more to say. You already know that, right? This morning, I just want to be obedient to what I felt from God. That we would restore the beauty of this relationship, the beauty of what it means to know the Holy Spirit, that we would put on the table all of these things that can hinder, defile, grieve, quench our relationship with God and with his Holy Spirit. And again, for some of us, that means you already have experienced the Holy Spirit, and you've maybe experienced some of these bumps along the way, and it's time to confess, to repent, to be cleansed again. Give me clean hands, give me a pure heart. And for some of us, it's so that you know as you're getting into this, that there's a walk involved, that there's a relationship involved with this beautiful person that is the Holy Spirit. So let's pray. And let's take some time to seek together. Prepare our hearts. We love you, we honor you. God, forgive us. Forgive us with the words of our mouth, with the intentions of our hearts, with our actions towards you, towards your church, towards those who are around me. God, have not reflected the truth and the beauty and the love and the goodness that you've called me to live and walk in. I ask you to forgive me, Holy Spirit. Cleanse me. Holy Spirit, I know that there have been times that I have grieved you, I've resisted what you want to do, and I put my will before your will. I ask you, Lord God, help me to yield today. Not just today, not just in this moment, but as I walk out the doors, as I walk, Lord, into my home, as I walk into my workplace, as I walk and I talk and I interact. Help me to yield to you, to not resist you, to not quench, Lord, those things that you placed in me, that fire, that desire, that power. Jesus, we stand before you today and ask you to forgive your church. Yes, us first and foremost, for we many times have have sinned against you, God. Forgive me, yes. Forgive our church, but God, we stand in the gap for the Church of Canada, and we say to you, Lord God, forgive your church, all of those who bear your name, Lord God, and those who have resisted you, who have grieved you, who have quenched, Lord God, where once there was a fire, and people maybe they thought they had the right intentions, and they just came and put it all out. Lord God, we cry out for forgiveness for your church across our land, across our great nation, Lord God, because we're only great if you are with us, Holy Spirit of God. Come, come to my life, come to this church, my brothers and sisters, and come all across our land and cleanse us, revive us, purify us, Lord God. Draw us into that place of intimacy again, and in that place of intimacy, may we find you and be empowered by you.