Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] You guys think very much about heaven. Like, what heaven is like, the older you get, the more you're thinking about it. Right, Red? Yeah, me too.
[00:00:13] I'll be honest.
[00:00:16] I think I've had more thought about what hell is than heaven in the sense of.
[00:00:24] I have more visceral sense of, like, hell, it's very bad, and I don't want to be there.
[00:00:31] Heaven is where you go when you don't want to be in hell. It's like heaven.
[00:00:37] You know, you can think about heaven in terms of, like, what heaven is.
[00:00:41] But just as often, you might think about heaven as, like, it's not hell. And that's what drives me to want to be a part of heaven.
[00:00:51] But what is heaven?
[00:00:53] What is heaven? Like, what happens in heaven?
[00:00:58] You know, growing up was like, oh, you're going to worship God all the time.
[00:01:03] When I was in elementary school, I thought, that's going to be so boring. Like, I just can't imagine singing the rest of my life. I am going to go nuts in heaven. But it's not hell, so I'll take that. You know, In the Bible, heaven is actually described as the kingdom of heaven about half the time. So in Matthew, Matthew refers to the kingdom of heaven. In the exact same stories, Mark, Luke and John refer to it as the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven are the same thing. When we talk about heaven, we are talking about the kingdom of God. They are synonymous.
[00:01:51] If you're gonna. If you're not gonna say the kingdom of. It makes sense to use heaven, because the kingdom of God. If you don't say the kingdom of God, you're just saying God. So what is that? So the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God, same thing. When we say heaven, we're talking about a kingdom, which is a very specific kind of thing. A kingdom is not a republic. We live in the United States and America. That is a republic of the United States of America. That means that the laws of the United States are governed by.
[00:02:19] We vote democratically to elect representatives. The representatives go and they vote on our behalf. All the states. Like, there's a governing system that applies that we live under.
[00:02:32] And it's a republic that's very different than a kingdom.
[00:02:37] In a kingdom, the governance is always the extent of the range of the king's effective will.
[00:02:48] A kingdom exists because there is a king. Like there being a king.
[00:02:55] That is a person who gets to say, this is the law of the land.
[00:03:00] This is what goes. This is what's going to happen here. That king that has the authority to decide what's going to happen determines that that's what makes a kingdom exist.
[00:03:11] And the scope of that king's kingdom is, however far his will extends, typically through force, through, like, if he has an army that's able to enforce his will on other people through coercive means, that if I disagree with the king, I have to do what the king says or else he'll kill me and my family or something like that. However that king asserts his authority, the kingdom is wherever his will extends to. The kingdom of heaven is different.
[00:03:46] The kingdom of heaven is voluntary.
[00:03:51] The king does not assert his authority through force or coercion.
[00:03:57] He has asserted his authority through a power based on his character and an invitation for anyone, everywhere through all time, to be a part of his kingdom.
[00:04:08] It's an invitation to be a part of his kingdom that you are free to not be a part of as you wish.
[00:04:16] Jesus says the kingdom of God is all around you. Like you can look around, and wherever you see the will of God being implemented, the God's will showing up, that is where his kingdom exists. When you see two people that are acting out of God's character towards each other, Jesus says, here, that's the kingdom right there. That is the kingdom of God. That's heaven.
[00:04:42] Heaven exists wherever the will of the king is taking place.
[00:04:48] That's what the kingdom of God is. That is what the kingdom of heaven is.
[00:04:53] That's heaven.
[00:04:56] We typically think of heaven as, like, later, some other time, maybe even spiritual. We ignore the fact that, you know, Jesus is resurrected, and he said that all of us will have resurrected bodies. And we imagine heaven to be some spiritual existence that's apart from the physical. But that's not the heaven of the Bible. The heaven of the Bible. The kingdom of God exists both spiritually and physically.
[00:05:19] And Jesus says it has always existed. Humans have not been able to keep it from existing. We are able to keep ourselves from being a part of it.
[00:05:30] Last week, we talked about the Holy Spirit and we talked about how the Holy Spirit showed up right at the beginning of Genesis, acting on the world to create order out of chaos. This happens in Genesis, chapter one. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
[00:05:44] Now, the earth was shapeless and empty and darkness was over the surface of the watery deep.
[00:05:50] But the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the water, shapeless and empty. It was dark, it was chaotic. There wasn't purpose, there wasn't meaning. There wasn't anything to latch onto. And The Spirit of God worked. You see it throughout the rest of Genesis chapter one. Forming in fillings. For instance, in day one, he forms. That is, he separates out day from night. In day four, he puts. He fills the day with the sun. He fills the night with the moon and the stars. He forms and he fills. He forms the sky from the water, the water from the land. He fills plants, he fills birds, he fills, you know, animals and people.
[00:06:35] He forms and fills.
[00:06:37] And an order begins to emerge out of the chaos because the Holy Spirit was working on creation, interacting with creation.
[00:06:48] We said last week that word spirit of God is actually a word that can be translated as wind or breath, but it's more like this.
[00:06:57] It's like that sensation you have when you breathe in and you feel a. More like maybe when you're tired, you take a deep breath and it's like you kind of have that vitality. It's like you have more energy as a result of breathing, which is a. It's an interesting thing when you think about it, like, just.
[00:07:16] Why does just like, inhaling more air do something that creates all this energy inside of me, you know? Okay, yeah, we got science now. But when you think about, like, just the. Just imagining what that's doing, there's something in there that's.
[00:07:32] That's mysterious, that's beautiful, that's happening where the breath itself is bringing vitality and energy into your life. And this is what the writers of the Bible were saying that the Spirit of God working on creation was bringing. The Spirit of God is what brings that vitality to all of creation, takes creation from something that is chaotic to something that is dynamic, vibrant and ordered, from chaotic and purposeless to something that is ordered and purposeful.
[00:08:06] That is the work of the Holy Spirit on creation.
[00:08:09] Literally the kingdom of God. That is the scope of God's effective will is worked out as God's creation is filled with the Holy spirit. From Genesis 1 onward.
[00:08:26] Heaven, that is the kingdom of God, where God's presence exists, God's Spirit exists. Where God's Spirit does not exist, the kingdom of heaven does not exist. They are synonymous. To say that you are to say anything about the kingdom of God is to say, here is where the Spirit of God exists, fills that creation.
[00:08:50] So today I want to talk about what it means to be formed by the Spirit. We talked about how the Holy Spirit forms and fills. Today I want to look specifically at filling. And next week I'll look at how the Holy Spirit forms us. But I want to just talk about today the process of being filled by the spirit and how unique and different that is from being motivated towards any other sort of.
[00:09:21] Like any other sort of motivation that we have in life, being filled with the spirit is an entirely different process for us than any other way we might.
[00:09:33] Well, let me put it this way.
[00:09:35] We hate disorder. We hate chaos.
[00:09:40] From the time you were a young kid, you figure out that you are trying to order your life. For instance, you're playing on the ground with some toys. Another kid shows up, he wants those toys. You have a few options. First option, you beat that kid, make that kid cry. Kid runs off, you have the toy win, right?
[00:10:02] I have seen very few kids that don't try that out.
[00:10:06] And they're little sociopaths because they do that. The other kid goes off crying and they're like, great, I got the toy.
[00:10:14] It's like that other kid off crying, like, oh, gosh, I hurt that kid's feelings. None of that. None of that. They got the toy order. They created order out of chaos because that other jerk was coming to take their toy.
[00:10:26] But now the world is working like it should. I have my toy.
[00:10:30] All I had to do was beat that kid and I got the toy.
[00:10:36] We call that might makes right. Whoever has the ability to get what they want, their authority is enacted.
[00:10:45] You can beat that other kid down. You can take that thing and order is restored in the universe. If you're God, if universe is decided by what you want, that works really well. The problem is we live in a world with a lot of people wanting different things.
[00:10:59] And as soon as you're asserting your will over somebody else, somebody else is asserting their will over you.
[00:11:04] And you're living in this frustrated state where you are constantly trying to be the one that has more power to get more of what you want.
[00:11:17] Always fighting against other people, getting what they want. It is, at the end of the day, only chaos. It just feels like order.
[00:11:26] Because that first little hit you got when you beat that kid and you got that toy felt like order.
[00:11:33] Might makes right. That's one way that we try to establish order in the world.
[00:11:38] The other way that we try to establish order in the world is maybe you get a little bit older, you know, and the parent says, no, no, you don't hit that kid. You share that toy, right? Share the toy. And you're like, this sounds terrible, because I'm only going to get that toy half the time. Unless you're the kid that got beat the first time and you're like, hey, I. I get the Toy half the time, right?
[00:12:03] So that authority forcing the strong kid to give up the toy half the time to the weak kid, working out really well for the weak kid. Turns out there's a lot of weak kids. So that bully that was always getting what he wants is put in his place. All the other kids get to share the toy. Fantastic. Order is restored because the law said you have to share.
[00:12:28] So instead of might makes right, it becomes, you might call it an eye for an eye. You only get what you give. Like, you only, you know, you only say, punish somebody to the degree that they hurt you. You don't, like, dominate them. You establish some sort of equality between each other.
[00:12:47] That's a different way to restore order.
[00:12:50] The problem with that is when you are.
[00:12:53] When you are managed by the law, you're in a position where there is balance.
[00:13:01] But you're not happy with it because after a while you're like, there's some game you played where you could have been the stronger kid and you could have gotten more than just what you should. You could have gotten what you wanted. And you didn't get what you want because you settled for what you should and should stinks compared to want. Like, if I could get what I want, or I do what I should over time.
[00:13:27] Want.
[00:13:28] Want is a once, once that thing, you know, I want to get what I want instead of doing what I ought to do. You know what I mean? And then in that case, the law that established that order begins to feel oppressive.
[00:13:42] The law that establishes order, that lack of chaos. When you're pushing chaos back by the law, it's a good law. It's establishing like, that we're sharing equally, but that other person isn't someone that you're actually sharing with. They're still an object in your way from getting what you want. You're only getting what you want half the time.
[00:14:02] Jesus comes along and he says, there's this other way to approach order.
[00:14:07] That kid wants your dump truck.
[00:14:10] Give them your Legos.
[00:14:12] Look at that kid and say, I want what they want. I want to give them.
[00:14:20] I want to not view them as my competitor.
[00:14:23] I want to view them. I want to love them like I love myself, the same way. I want the dump truck and the Legos.
[00:14:29] They want the dump truck and Legos. Let me try this. I'm going to give them the dump truck and the Legos. Instead of viewing them like a competitor for limited resources, I'm gonna treat them like they're a family member, like myself even. I'm gonna Treat them. I'm gonna love them like I love myself.
[00:14:47] And I'm gonna trust that the Heavenly Father has more resources than the dump truck and the Legos.
[00:14:54] And either through sharing, that happens because we love each other like we're brothers and sisters, like we love each other like we love ourselves, or because there's resources. I didn't things to play with that I didn't even know I could play with, that the Heavenly Father will give us. I will trust that I don't need to view you as my competitor. I can view you as somebody that I love, and I can start treating you like I treat myself. That's the third way.
[00:15:19] In that case, if I actually love you like I love myself, that means I want you to have what I want to have. I want for you what I want for myself.
[00:15:30] Then you getting that dump truck and Legos makes me happy.
[00:15:35] It doesn't make me happy if I don't love you like I love myself. It doesn't make me happy if I pretend to love you like I love myself.
[00:15:43] But if I really love you the way I love myself, then you getting that dump truck in Legos feels really good to me.
[00:15:50] It actually feels good to me.
[00:15:55] Good idea.
[00:15:57] Insane.
[00:15:59] Like, literally, I think about that. I'm like, okay, that's fantastic, right? Here's a solution. Jesus says, where I get what I want, I actually get what I want by giving away, by being.
[00:16:13] Through generosity, loving you and being generous towards you, I actually get what I want. If I love you like I love myself.
[00:16:23] That sounds like a fairy tale.
[00:16:26] That's not people.
[00:16:28] I know people. I am people. That's not people. You know, that's not.
[00:16:33] I might say, like, oh, that's good. I gave that away. And then I look around, I'm like, dang it, I don't have dump truck or Legos. What am I gonna do now? That jerk's got my dump truck in Legos.
[00:16:41] That's the real thing.
[00:16:44] This solution feels something I can't actually grasp.
[00:16:49] There's a gap between where I am to the order that's established, that Jesus says is established through the spirit of God that I can't get to. If the spirit of God shows up through loving my neighbor as myself, putting my faith in God, loving my neighbor, how do I get there?
[00:17:11] How am I formed in the spirit?
[00:17:17] The first stab at this, not the first stab, but, like, the first way that this shows up is in the Old Testament. God reveals his law. Now him revealing his law is literally revealing himself. Played out practically I think I brought this up last week. The law of God isn't like, God didn't just sit back and say, hey, I'm gonna make you do these things.
[00:17:43] This is like, these are things I'm going to make you do to, like, make things work out.
[00:17:49] The law of God is the revelation of God's character played out in the world.
[00:17:56] You don't want to think of the law of God as like, something he's making you do, but a revelation of his character itself, practically in the world.
[00:18:04] So you can look, say, for instance, at the New Testament, you can look at Jesus expressing something of the law in the.
[00:18:14] In the Sermon on the Mount. He's talking about, like, this is how we interact with each other in the kingdom of God. He's not saying, do this, don't do this. He's saying, this is what life looks like in the king. This is what it looks like in heaven. This is what a heavenly social dynamic looks like, where kingdom citizens are fit to the character of God. This is just.
[00:18:36] This is the law of the kingdom. This is the will of the king. This is the way it shows up among people who are in his kingdom.
[00:18:44] That's the law. It's not an arbitrary set of laws. It's a revelation of the character of the king.
[00:18:52] And when that's revealed to Moses, for instance, it's glorious.
[00:18:57] Moses is radiant with that law.
[00:19:01] The problem is, every law that's given to us externally ends up becoming something that feels like an imposition.
[00:19:11] If I look at that law and I say, okay, that reveals God's character, but that's not what I want, it will always feel oppressive to me.
[00:19:24] Paul acknowledges this. He looks at this in Galatians.
[00:19:28] He looks at this in Romans, chapter seven, Galatians, chapter five. But I'm going to really focus on Second Corinthians, chapter, chapter three. No, no, I'm going to focus in Romans seven. First, Paul says, when we were controlled by our own nature, our old nature, that is a nature that established what we wanted based on our.
[00:19:52] That original, like, might makes right. Like, I want. I want the truck and I want the Legos. That's like, when we were controlled by our old nature, those sinful desires were at work within us.
[00:20:06] And the law, that is the revelation of the character of the king, aroused evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds resulting in death.
[00:20:21] It's like I had this inability, for some reason, I wanted to. To want the character of God, but I couldn't actually want the character of God.
[00:20:34] I had these sinful desires. I had these desires to take more than my share.
[00:20:41] He says this results in death, chaos.
[00:20:45] But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power.
[00:20:53] He had just been talking about how when we died to ourselves, we literally died. We died to who we were.
[00:21:00] We submitted ourselves in death to Christ, and we were. We repented and we were baptized. That was, we identified with Christ submitting to the Father.
[00:21:11] We were changed. We were released from the law. We were released from the should, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power.
[00:21:20] Now we can serve God not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit right from the start. The spirit of God is what forms you into some forms, all of creation into something that is fit to God's kingdom, fit to heaven, when we die, to a malformation in. In sin, where we establish order by taking what we want.
[00:21:52] And we take on a spirit where we view our Father, we view God as our Father and you as my brother and sisters. You are no longer an obstacle to getting what I want.
[00:22:04] I see the world through that lens, and I see you that way. I am no longer captured by sin.
[00:22:13] And the law itself doesn't feel oppressive to me anymore.
[00:22:19] He says, am I suggesting that the law is sinful? No, no, of course not. In fact, it was the law that showed me my sin. I would never have known that coveting is wrong except the law, the law, if the law had not said, you must not covet.
[00:22:33] But sin used this command to arouse all kinds of covetous desires in me.
[00:22:41] I knew when my mom said, you have to share that.
[00:22:46] That kind of makes sense, but I don't want to share it. Matter of fact, I'm going to look for ways maybe to lie, maybe to, like, as soon as you turn your back, like, convince you, like, here, don't you want to play with this shiny penny? Especially if you've got a little brother and sister. You had all kinds of ways to work out, like, like getting what you want by making them because they were dumber than you, so you could, like, use your intelligence to, like, get what you wanted.
[00:23:12] They'd eventually go crying to mom and dad and you get spanked, whatever. But still, I'm revealing a little bit about myself.
[00:23:22] I knew that coveting that stuff was wrong.
[00:23:26] And I knew that there was an authority that was attempting to keep me from imposing my will on my brother.
[00:23:32] But man I wanted to find ways to work around that, to get what I wanted.
[00:23:39] That was who I was. It wasn't that my mom and my dad were wrong about sharing. I knew that the law that they established was good.
[00:23:49] It's just not what I wanted.
[00:23:53] This plays out in your household all the time.
[00:23:56] There's probably a point where in your household you've had problems with your mom and your dad.
[00:24:04] It was because they wanted something for you that you didn't want for yourself. They said, this is the way we do things in our household, or this is what you need to do.
[00:24:17] You've got to start doing this. And you're like, I don't want to do that. You know, you've got several options. You can, like, do it halfway.
[00:24:27] Well, the parents will hear this, too. So a really good trick is to just do it poorly. And then they get, like, frustrated and they'll do it themselves. They're like, wash the dishes. Sure, okay, I'll wash the dishes. But you do it wrong every time. And they're like, forget it. You can't wash the dishes. I'm like, I tried. Like, I guess I'm not washing dishes anymore.
[00:24:45] All the parents heard, that's not going to work. But that's one option. You can just lie. You have a lot of options to get around stuff.
[00:24:52] But no matter what, what you're doing is you are working against the law of your family.
[00:24:59] There's nothing.
[00:25:01] It's not that the law of your family is wrong.
[00:25:03] It's that you have wants that aren't fit to your family at that point, honestly, like, what does it mean to be a part of that family anymore?
[00:25:15] Like, at what point does your lying, working around your parents, kind of disobeying your parents because you have different values than your parents. At what point are you actually even a part of that household?
[00:25:33] What does it mean for you to be one family together if you have to lie and work around them to be a part of that family?
[00:25:45] Again, nothing wrong with the law. But I see in myself sin that takes root because my wants aren't God's wants.
[00:25:54] And he says, all kinds of covetous desires begin to emerge inside of me. Now, this is these covetous desires. Like, what are covetous desires? In Galatians, chapter 5, he expresses what these are.
[00:26:08] He says, when you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are clear over time, if not now.
[00:26:15] These are the kind of, you're not going to check off all these. You're not going to be like, well, I've only got three on this list and I don't have the others, so I'm okay. You're not like, that guy's got like the whole list. He's really bad. But I only got three on the list. I'm really great. No, no, this is of a type. So don't be like, don't be arrogant if you don't have this whole list. But here's the kind of stuff that emerges from. From your sinful desire to what? What God doesn't want. Sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. He's not trying to give an extensive list. Like, you're not looking this list saying, you know, oh, I don't do many of those things. Like, okay, fine, there are things like these.
[00:27:07] Like if you're just, you don't have to be honest with me. But like, in your head, things are ticking off in your head, and you're like, there are some sinful desires that emerge because what I want isn't what God wants.
[00:27:20] Maybe what I want isn't what my parents want. That kind of thing. There's division that takes place because the wants are different.
[00:27:29] Now this is where it gets really interesting, though. He says, but the Holy Spirit produces these kinds of fruit in our lives.
[00:27:38] Imagine being in a household where this next set of distinctives characteristics emerge.
[00:27:47] Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.
[00:27:57] What does a household look like where these are the distinctives that are normal?
[00:28:04] That first list can't even emerge from that second list.
[00:28:09] When the character of the individual, when the spirit of the person is marked by these things, that first set of list of things doesn't show up. You don't get to those practices if your character starts here. If my spirit is a different spirit than my human spirit, the normal human spirit, which says, I want these things and you won't let me get those things, so I'll try to work around, or I'll bide my time until I can get those things, maybe I'll even appear to be a great person. But honestly, at some point I'm going to get what I want. When I'm out from under your thumb, something like that, there's a sinful desire that either shows up. People still might think you're great, but you know that it's still there.
[00:28:52] And Paul is saying that there's an entirely different Character that can invade your body, invade your mind, other than that spirit. And he says it is the Holy Spirit. That is, it is the. It is the spirit of God which brings true order out of chaos.
[00:29:14] A truly ordered person is one who is of this type.
[00:29:20] One who loves, brotherly love.
[00:29:22] One who is joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle and self controlled. That is of the type of person who is controlled by the spirit, rather controlled by your earthly human spirit.
[00:29:45] In Genesis 1, it says that the spirit of God hovered over the chaos and breathed energy into that chaos.
[00:29:58] Like, like take a breath.
[00:30:02] It's like, it's like breathing out the chaos and breathing in the order.
[00:30:07] This is actually how it feels sometimes.
[00:30:11] Sometimes when I am frustrated by how things are going, it really is just a matter of taking a beat and just like breathing out the disorder and breathing in the order. Like, okay, let me look at this again.
[00:30:27] Where have I gone wrong? What does it mean to be filled with these attributes instead of those attributes?
[00:30:37] In second Corinthians, chapter three, Paul says, wherever the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
[00:30:46] A citizen of the kingdom of God is free, isn't bound to the law, isn't bound to the ought or should of the law, but is free to do what they want because their spirit is fit to the spirit of the King.
[00:31:03] You are in the kingdom of God, you are in heaven, existing as a citizen of heaven with the character of heaven that is free to do what you want, which is heavenly. And it couldn't be any other way.
[00:31:18] Imagine being a part like you die and you're like, I want to go to heaven, but I don't want to do what God wants. Heaven can't possibly be heavenly for you if you don't want to do what God wants. Because what God wants is what heaven is like. Like heaven is where God's will is done. If you don't want God's character, if you don't want God's spirit, if you don't want to be filled, formed, made into the image of God, heaven couldn't be possibly something you want anyway, because that's what heaven is.
[00:31:52] We just think like heaven is like, well, it's not hell, like, okay, great, I'll take that. No, no, like heaven is the actual thing. Hell is the. Not that heaven is very specific. It's not just like the absence of bad stuff. It is the existence of Godly stuff. It is the existence of the Spirit of God.
[00:32:11] It is the place where the citizens of God are formed and filled by the Spirit. Of God in the character of God, submissive to God who is king of his kingdom.
[00:32:23] And we belong there because we are fit to His Spirit.
[00:32:26] That's what makes us citizens.
[00:32:29] And if that's true, then being in heaven is freedom.
[00:32:35] Wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there's freedom.
[00:32:38] So all of us who have had that veil removed, the veil of the distance between like that, the law felt like a burden to us.
[00:32:49] All of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of God. And the Lord who is Spirit, makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.
[00:33:03] So far all I've said is that the Spirit of God for one, like we talked about a few weeks ago in Acts chapter two, for the one who has repented and identified with God that has been repent and be baptized for that person, you will be forgiven of your sins. You will receive the Holy Spirit.
[00:33:23] That Holy Spirit will reform you into someone who is in the likeness and image of the kingdom of God.
[00:33:30] So far I've just explained, this is what. This is what heaven is. This is what it means to be formed by the Spirit.
[00:33:37] Next week, I want to look at details about how you live your life in a way like literally the actual disciplines and practices, the rhythms of life that put you in a position to be submissive to God in a way that he is constantly reforming your spirit.
[00:33:55] We live in a world, the chaos around us, that is constantly deforming our spirit.
[00:34:03] It's not like you become a Christian and the chaos of the world has no effect on you.
[00:34:08] That's not how it works.
[00:34:10] There's a daily habit and practice of interacting with God in a way that he is constantly reforming a spirit that is constantly being shattered and deformed by the sin of the world that we're in.
[00:34:24] Living in the Spirit of God means living certain practices, certain living a certain kind of lifestyle that puts us in a submissive position to the Spirit so that we're constantly interacting with him in a way that he can have an effect on us. It's very similar to any relationship. Like, I could be your friend and then if I never spend time talking to you, catching up with you, getting to know what, like listening to you, like, what does that friendship mean anymore? I know somebody from the past has no effect on my life. Presently, being filled with the Spirit is a relationship that is ongoing.
[00:35:01] And we're going to look at some of those practices of an ongoing relationship with the Spirit that forms us into citizens of God, people who are free living in the spirit next week, some of the details those practices.
[00:35:16] All right, let's pray.
[00:35:20] Father God, as we pay attention to your work and constantly bringing all of your creation back under your kingdom, back into your world where order, true order, life giving order comes about because you are the source of all good and when we submit to your will, we get to be a part of that good.
[00:35:50] There's no other way to get there.
[00:35:53] So God, as we look at what it means to be first formed, our character formed in your spirit and then filled with your spirit, Lord, animated to do your good works, God, I pray that we have a contrite and simple heart where as we hear it we simply say yes Lord, we want to be a part of your kingdom, be a part of heaven where your will is done, Lord, not our will, but yours be done.
[00:36:22] Amen.
