WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.360 Okay, we're going to continue in our theme. We've got a little bit of time before the 00:00:05.360 --> 00:00:10.720 end of this series on the Holy Spirit, and we've looked at the person of the Holy Spirit 00:00:10.720 --> 00:00:15.359 and the work of the Holy Spirit in different ways and our responses to the Holy Spirit 00:00:15.359 --> 00:00:19.039 and their need to walk and step with the Spirit. So this evening for a little while we're going 00:00:19.039 --> 00:00:26.240 to look at the other side of that, the maybe not so pleasant side of the reality, but the 00:00:26.239 --> 00:00:30.479 great challenge and the great encouragement for us. And I'm going to do something I don't 00:00:30.479 --> 00:00:35.119 normally, I haven't done for a long time, is just really pick a couple of words to look at, 00:00:35.839 --> 00:00:42.239 but in the theme of the Holy Spirit and how we relate to Him as believers. 00:00:43.759 --> 00:00:52.480 So we find these words, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 19, and this list of final 00:00:52.479 --> 00:00:58.879 encouragements, challenges to the church in Thessalonica and verse 19, it says, 00:00:58.879 --> 00:01:05.759 do not quench the spirit. That's all it says, do not quench the spirit. And it's surrounded by 00:01:05.759 --> 00:01:11.359 different encouragements and different challenges that we are to recognize and know, both the 00:01:11.359 --> 00:01:16.640 church in Thessalonica and the church throughout the New Testament and the church in all ages. 00:01:16.640 --> 00:01:23.359 And I think it's important for us to remember on a Sunday evening or a Sunday morning or whenever 00:01:23.359 --> 00:01:28.719 we come together that every time we open the word, whether it is in a church context or 00:01:28.719 --> 00:01:33.680 whether it's in a private context when we read the word ourselves, that we are coming face to face 00:01:34.240 --> 00:01:39.280 with the living God. We come face to face with the living God every time that we come 00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:45.920 to His word. And it's easy for us to forget that. It's easy to forget that when we read Scripture 00:01:45.920 --> 00:01:53.599 that we are listening to God speaking. And especially as He works in our hearts as believers, 00:01:53.599 --> 00:02:00.480 He speaks to us through the Holy Spirit, because the Spirit is in us as believers. He knows us, 00:02:01.040 --> 00:02:05.760 and He is committed to us. He's committed to our lives, and He's committed to our 00:02:06.960 --> 00:02:15.280 growth as believers. He loves you, and He loves me as believers, and He is therefore 00:02:15.280 --> 00:02:22.400 God in our hearts and in our lives. And so when the word is read or the word is preached and 00:02:22.400 --> 00:02:27.840 preaching is a significant part of that, even a very simple sermon like this evening is going to be. 00:02:29.199 --> 00:02:35.120 It's important for us to just recognize that, well, God knows our hearts this evening. God knows 00:02:35.120 --> 00:02:41.280 our needs. God knows who we are. And as believers, we're His children, and He loves us. And He wants 00:02:41.280 --> 00:02:47.120 us to hear and learn from His word for our situation this evening, whatever that might be. 00:02:48.560 --> 00:02:54.000 Because as a Christian, if you're a Christian this evening, you're committed to a relationship with 00:02:54.000 --> 00:02:58.800 God. You've entrusted your heart and your life to God. It might have been a long time ago. It 00:02:58.800 --> 00:03:04.479 might have been recently. But you're committed to being in relationship with the living God. 00:03:04.479 --> 00:03:11.599 And Christ has been the doorway to that relationship. You came through trusting in Jesus Christ, 00:03:11.599 --> 00:03:18.239 and you were born in you. You might not remember when that was, but you were born in you in the 00:03:18.239 --> 00:03:24.639 presence, into the presence and into the company of God. And you've done that, and I've done that by 00:03:24.639 --> 00:03:30.560 faith and not by sight. And so we have, through the Spirit in who dwells as new Christians, 00:03:30.560 --> 00:03:38.879 or as Christians, new or old, we're indwelt by God, God our Creator and our Lord. And we remember 00:03:38.879 --> 00:03:49.039 that He's never wrong. He's never unfair. He doesn't cheat on us. He always tells us the truth 00:03:50.400 --> 00:03:58.719 in this spiritual relationship. And it's important then to build on that relationship and recognize 00:03:58.719 --> 00:04:07.520 who He is and what He does. John the Baptist, when he was preaching about the coming of Jesus, 00:04:08.319 --> 00:04:16.000 said that he baptized, Jesus, John baptized with water, but Jesus would come and he would baptize 00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:25.279 with the Holy Spirit and with fire. And fire actually is used quite a lot in the Bible to 00:04:25.279 --> 00:04:33.519 describe God or to help us understand about the character of God. And when we think of God as fire, 00:04:34.559 --> 00:04:41.119 we can think about Him as fire and then how that, how we relate to Him as believers. 00:04:42.719 --> 00:04:48.959 Because Paul, he, they speak into the church in Thessalonica, and he has this image of fire in 00:04:48.959 --> 00:04:54.799 mind when he's speaking about the Holy Spirit in the lives of, in their lives and in their hearts. 00:04:54.800 --> 00:05:01.600 And he said, he says, do not quench the spirit. You could easily translate that. Do not put out 00:05:01.600 --> 00:05:09.199 the spirit's fire. And that's a challenge for every Christian. It's a challenge that comes to us this 00:05:09.199 --> 00:05:15.759 evening. And we have that responsibility. You, so you have that responsibility. I have that 00:05:15.759 --> 00:05:22.720 responsibility. It's not someone else's responsibility. It's ours. That we have an ongoing responsibility 00:05:22.720 --> 00:05:31.600 not to put out the fire of the spirit, the life of the spirit in our hearts. So that's both our 00:05:31.600 --> 00:05:37.120 duty, but also our privilege. And as we think about who the spirit is for a few moments, 00:05:37.840 --> 00:05:47.520 and with this description of fire, then we'll think, secondly, a little bit about how we can 00:05:47.519 --> 00:05:52.879 quench that in our lives, how we can spoil that relationship, how we can do things which 00:05:54.399 --> 00:06:01.359 put out a spirit's fire. Now, I said that the Bible often uses the Holy, this picture of God, 00:06:01.359 --> 00:06:07.439 or maybe particularly the Holy Spirit as fire. You'll remember some of the Old Testament pictures 00:06:07.439 --> 00:06:15.839 of the burning bush would be a characterization of God as fire. There's the pillar of fire, 00:06:15.839 --> 00:06:22.959 of course, coming out of Egypt. There's Mount Carmel where there was fire sent down by God and 00:06:22.959 --> 00:06:28.799 showed his living power. There's the vision of God in Ezekiel. There's the fire that was using the 00:06:28.799 --> 00:06:35.439 sacrifice at the temple. And then we come to the New Testament and we have the great event of the 00:06:35.439 --> 00:06:42.879 New Testament, the giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost came with tongues of fire. And that great 00:06:42.879 --> 00:06:50.319 description of the character of the Holy Spirit in this way with tongues of fire. Now, I just want to 00:06:52.480 --> 00:06:58.399 think of three ways in which the Holy Spirit is fire, or is described as fire, what that means 00:06:59.120 --> 00:07:06.480 for his character and for his person. And I think the first would be that fire, using him as an image 00:07:06.480 --> 00:07:11.920 of fire, is because of his living presence. Jesus, when he speaks about the coming of the Spirit in 00:07:11.920 --> 00:07:17.680 John 14.6 says, I will ask of the Father, He will give you another advocate. We've looked at this 00:07:17.680 --> 00:07:22.400 before, the Spirit of truth, the world can't accept him because it neither knows him or sees him, 00:07:22.400 --> 00:07:28.720 but you know him for he lives in you and will be with you. And there's this sense of living presence. 00:07:28.720 --> 00:07:35.920 And you know, fires like that, isn't it? We talk about it, you get adverts on the television for 00:07:35.920 --> 00:07:43.920 living fires. There's something kind of a life about them. You know, an open fire in an empty room 00:07:44.800 --> 00:07:52.240 is like, there's a presence about it. It's companionship, even when you're alone. An empty 00:07:52.240 --> 00:07:59.680 fireplace is a kind of cold and miserable thing. But when you set coal in it and wood in it and 00:07:59.680 --> 00:08:06.639 set it alight, a real company there, a real fellowship, fellowship of the fire. It's another, 00:08:06.639 --> 00:08:12.639 it's the next one of the Lord of the Rings. You just can't ignore a fire. It's something living, 00:08:12.639 --> 00:08:21.439 something to be enjoyed and respected and attended to in a fire. There's presence there. 00:08:22.960 --> 00:08:29.600 And God through the Holy Spirit is always present in our hearts. You know, in 1 Corinthians 3 00:08:29.600 --> 00:08:35.680 16, we're called the temple of the Holy Spirit. That means His presence is with us 00:08:36.639 --> 00:08:46.000 in all the time. So in the spirit of God, we can know whoever we are, wherever we are as believers, 00:08:46.000 --> 00:08:55.360 He is with us. He is present with us. He's never of duty. God never leaves us. He's the living God 00:08:55.360 --> 00:09:04.240 who's chosen to make His home in our hearts and in our minds. So whatever this evening or in your 00:09:04.240 --> 00:09:13.919 life you choose to let your minds drift, whatever you choose to say or do or how to spend your time 00:09:13.919 --> 00:09:22.879 or where you go, God is a believer. God in you is always in you and with you as a believer. 00:09:22.879 --> 00:09:33.039 He's an ever present in our lives. He is with us, Jesus reminds us, until the end of the age. 00:09:33.600 --> 00:09:40.799 And He's there to bless us. God is there in your life and my life to do as good, to bless 00:09:40.799 --> 00:09:46.960 whoever the temptations, whoever the opposition or the circumstances we find ourselves in. 00:09:46.960 --> 00:09:55.440 And so you this evening and I are indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God, we have His presence 00:09:55.440 --> 00:10:03.759 in our lives and we're called to remember that and to be challenged by that. And even in preparing 00:10:03.759 --> 00:10:10.800 the sermon, it just made me think having done so. It just reminded me of whatever I was doing, 00:10:10.799 --> 00:10:19.839 I was doing post-preparation that God was with me, you know, and it challenges my thoughts, 00:10:20.559 --> 00:10:27.839 my decisions, my choices in knowing that God is with me in my heart. So that's one thing that Fire 00:10:28.559 --> 00:10:34.719 is illustrative of. I think the second thing that Fire is illustrative of is power and passion. We 00:10:34.720 --> 00:10:42.800 know that in the Pentecost story that we're told that you will receive power when the Holy Spirit 00:10:42.800 --> 00:10:48.639 comes on you, you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria to the ends of the earth. And Fire 00:10:48.639 --> 00:11:00.720 is a hugely awesome power in life. There's great energy that comes from Fire. Tremendous warmth 00:11:00.720 --> 00:11:08.000 comes from a fire and a cold night outside will huddle around a fire, feeding its energy and its 00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:15.200 warmth. And it has also unbelievable destructive power. We see that that very little can stand in 00:11:15.200 --> 00:11:23.759 the way of a raging forest fire as it moves through the land. Unbelievably powerful and awesome 00:11:23.759 --> 00:11:33.200 energy in fire. And I'm sure that is part of the picture and the illustration of that Fire is used 00:11:33.200 --> 00:11:41.519 to describe God. And it helps us understand a little bit of the intention and of the work of the 00:11:41.519 --> 00:11:50.159 Holy Spirit in our hearts. He is there to empower us and to impassion us, made up word, just so that 00:11:50.159 --> 00:11:59.679 we know and understand God better in our lives. He encourages us into a warmer and intimate relationship 00:12:00.399 --> 00:12:09.120 with the living God, close yet worshipful. And He provides us in an ongoing way with the energy 00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:18.799 and the power to do the impossible. To love your neighbor, to love your God. The things we just 00:12:18.799 --> 00:12:29.679 can't do in the way that He would love us to do it. But He empowers us so to do. He empowers us to 00:12:29.679 --> 00:12:38.959 follow Him and serve Him and love Him. He's the fire that ignites our heart as a living sacrifice. 00:12:38.959 --> 00:12:44.319 You know Romans 12 talks about us being living sacrifices. Well, He's the kind of fire behind 00:12:44.320 --> 00:12:50.800 that sacrificial spirit, that ability to witness to Him, the power that's spoken of in Pentecost. 00:12:51.600 --> 00:12:58.720 And that's important. Is that me? That's the power. Let's go in. It's the power of the Spirit 00:12:58.720 --> 00:13:06.480 just working with this electricity. But you know for us when we're struggling, I'm sure you're 00:13:06.480 --> 00:13:10.800 probably struggling, maybe you're struggling to stay awake, struggling with a sense of weakness, 00:13:10.799 --> 00:13:19.120 overwhelmed, isolated, anything but passion in your spiritual life. 00:13:22.879 --> 00:13:30.399 I can't take my jack off because it's pinned to it. Sorry. Anyway, you're now awake. Okay. 00:13:30.399 --> 00:13:41.919 Any of these things, we are to channel it and channel our weaknesses through the power of 00:13:41.919 --> 00:13:52.480 the Spirit at work in our lives. Power and passion is a reflection of this picture of fire. And of 00:13:52.480 --> 00:13:59.279 course the third and maybe the most obvious biblical application of God as fire or the Holy Spirit as 00:13:59.279 --> 00:14:06.720 fire is purity. 1 Peter 1 says, obedient children do not conform to the evil desires you had when 00:14:06.720 --> 00:14:12.720 you lived in Ignanus, but just as He who called you as holy, so be holy in all you do, for it's 00:14:12.720 --> 00:14:21.600 written be holy because I am holy. And fire is so often used in the Bible to describe the whole, 00:14:21.600 --> 00:14:31.600 to help us understand the holiness of God and maybe even more so the judgment of God against 00:14:31.600 --> 00:14:37.600 darkness and against evil. Hell is often spoken of as a place of unquenchable fire 00:14:38.639 --> 00:14:49.200 where His judgment is meted out eternally. We see Him working to refine us as believers, 00:14:49.200 --> 00:14:57.759 purifying us. You know, Malachi 3 speaks about the refiner's fire or the launderer's soap, 00:14:57.759 --> 00:15:05.759 the fuller's soap. And we see and know that picture of God as in our lives as Christians, 00:15:06.320 --> 00:15:17.920 the Holy Spirit as fire is purifying us, is dealing with that sin which separates us 00:15:17.919 --> 00:15:25.199 from understanding and knowing and experiencing and enjoying His love. So that this pure picture, 00:15:25.199 --> 00:15:32.240 this picture of purity, reminds us of His own hatred of evil and darkness because He sees 00:15:32.240 --> 00:15:43.599 its destructiveness, He sees its damaging effects in the world. We undoubtedly underestimate the 00:15:43.600 --> 00:15:53.840 seriousness of sin and His character in being light seeking to fend off the darkness. 00:15:55.279 --> 00:16:06.560 We underestimate the cost of the cross and underestimate the light that was extinguished 00:16:06.559 --> 00:16:16.159 on the cross in order to set us free from our sins. So His work is a purifying work in an 00:16:16.159 --> 00:16:22.399 ongoing way in our lives as Christians. And I think now, this may not be theologically correct, 00:16:22.399 --> 00:16:26.879 and there's some theologians here who might want to correct me on this, because we know that the 00:16:26.879 --> 00:16:34.079 burning bush in the Old Testament speaks of the character and the nature of God. I think it also 00:16:34.080 --> 00:16:43.040 alludes at least to the fact that the Holy Spirit in Christians enables us to know His burning energy 00:16:43.840 --> 00:16:51.840 without being consumed. And so in a sense, the bush may represent the people of God because 00:16:53.200 --> 00:16:58.720 in every way, the holiness and the justice and the judgment of God should consume and 00:16:58.720 --> 00:17:06.160 should destroy us. But because of Christ, we have this impossible miracle happening that His 00:17:07.440 --> 00:17:13.839 holiness and His perfection and His beauty in our hearts and our lives doesn't just consume us 00:17:13.839 --> 00:17:19.440 because of the work of Jesus Christ. He's already dealt with sin and judged sin in our hearts. 00:17:19.440 --> 00:17:28.640 And now He simply disciplines us because He recognizes the remaining sin in us is damaging 00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:35.279 to our love and to our relationships with Him and with others. It cheapens the value 00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:42.320 of His work in our hearts, and it deadens our effectiveness as Christians because His work 00:17:42.319 --> 00:17:52.399 is to make us like Christ and our sinful choices separate us from Him. So briefly, having thought 00:17:52.399 --> 00:17:58.079 just for a minute about some of the ways in which fire is representative of the Holy Spirit, 00:17:58.079 --> 00:18:06.240 we're told here, don't quench the Holy Spirit in our lives. Don't resist the Spirit for you 00:18:06.240 --> 00:18:14.000 and for me. Don't put a massive dampener on the spiritual life that He has given you 00:18:15.039 --> 00:18:22.640 by the way you live and by misunderstanding Him and by treating sin lightly and insignificantly. 00:18:23.839 --> 00:18:27.920 Now what it's not saying, it's not saying that God can be extinguished in your heart 00:18:28.480 --> 00:18:33.920 as a believer. It's not saying that we can lose our salvation. What it's saying is, 00:18:33.920 --> 00:18:41.600 we have a responsibility for knowing Him and enjoying Him and not turning our backs on Him. 00:18:41.600 --> 00:18:49.200 Because when we do, when we do that, it's damaging and destructive to us, and we lose the blessings 00:18:49.759 --> 00:18:56.480 that He wants to give us, and we are miserable Christians. There's a deep, 00:18:57.120 --> 00:19:03.039 a deep dark atheist is better than a miserable Christian because a miserable Christian just 00:19:03.039 --> 00:19:09.599 hasn't lost sight of the privileges and the joys and the glory of belonging to Jesus. 00:19:10.960 --> 00:19:20.319 So how do we quench the Spirit? Well, let's just recap the three areas. We quench the Spirit 00:19:20.319 --> 00:19:28.240 and His presence by our absence. Okay, by our absence. And so when as Christians we ignore God, 00:19:28.240 --> 00:19:36.960 when we deny His presence, when we close the Bible, when we don't pray at all, when we're only 00:19:36.960 --> 00:19:42.319 self-conscious and not God-conscious, when we're careless about church and the means of grace 00:19:42.319 --> 00:19:48.640 that He gives us, about worship, about prayer, about the sacraments, when we have no time for His 00:19:48.640 --> 00:19:57.920 people as if He's not there. If there's no go areas in our lives, we convince ourselves that 00:19:57.920 --> 00:20:06.160 He's absent. Oh, God's far away. He's abandoned me. He's moved away. He's left home. But it's our 00:20:06.160 --> 00:20:16.080 absence. This is the root cause of that feeling that we have. We're called to live by faith 00:20:17.200 --> 00:20:22.240 in belief that He is always with us, ever present. That's the promise that He gives us. 00:20:22.240 --> 00:20:26.960 It's a non-negotiable reality. It doesn't come and go. He doesn't leave us when we're 00:20:26.960 --> 00:20:31.680 disobedient and come closer when we're obedient. He's always in our hearts and lives. 00:20:33.039 --> 00:20:40.319 But when we act as if He is absent against all that He says and promises, we're putting out the 00:20:40.319 --> 00:20:47.279 Spirit's fire. We are quenching the Spirit. We're losing the joy and the comfort and the hope He 00:20:47.279 --> 00:20:53.360 wants us to have. The Spirit can't quench the Spirit. God can't quench the Spirit. Others can't 00:20:53.359 --> 00:20:59.679 quench the Spirit. Only you and I in our Christian lives can quench the Spirit by our absence. 00:21:01.919 --> 00:21:08.000 But I think also by our self-reliance, we looked at the Spirit of fire, the Spirit of power and 00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:16.639 passion. When we as Christians become self-reliant, and it's a carry on from the last one really, 00:21:16.639 --> 00:21:21.039 isn't it? When we do things in our own wisdom and strength, and when we start believing the 00:21:21.039 --> 00:21:27.279 memes that talk about going it alone, you don't find the willpower you created. 00:21:29.200 --> 00:21:38.399 Let's have more of these memes. Self-congratulatory, self-significant, self-making all about us. 00:21:39.599 --> 00:21:42.159 Just if you've got the willpower, you can do it. Come on. 00:21:45.119 --> 00:21:49.519 When we conclude as Christians and take that kind of philosophy and saying that God doesn't care, 00:21:49.519 --> 00:21:56.720 God isn't powerful for you. God doesn't answer your prayers. Have you ever considered, have I ever 00:21:56.720 --> 00:22:03.200 considered that when He doesn't answer our prayers, it's because we're asking Him for the wrong things? 00:22:06.160 --> 00:22:10.400 You know, if we knew everything that God knew about us, our prayers would be very different. We 00:22:10.400 --> 00:22:17.119 fared that before, haven't we? But we give up on Him and we look to obey in our own strength as if 00:22:17.119 --> 00:22:22.079 it's possible. We try and be Christians in our own strength. That is utterly miserable. There's 00:22:22.079 --> 00:22:26.559 nothing more miserable than trying to be a Christian in our own strength and in our own power. 00:22:27.199 --> 00:22:34.159 We miss out on His presence and His energy and His warmth and His impossible virtue for us. We quench 00:22:34.159 --> 00:22:40.879 Him when we just try and go it alone. And then we find there's no spiritual fire in our belly. 00:22:40.880 --> 00:22:47.920 There's no warmth and there's no passion and there's no enjoyment. And so we look for meaning and 00:22:47.920 --> 00:22:54.080 passion and strength and enjoyment away from Him because we think that's more significant. 00:22:54.080 --> 00:23:00.480 In other areas of life and achievements and in success, and we derive the teaching about the 00:23:00.480 --> 00:23:09.360 love of God, we quench His Spirit and we move away from finding that passion, power, presence, 00:23:09.359 --> 00:23:15.839 and love of God in our lives. So by our absence, by our self-reliance, and then lastly, by our 00:23:15.839 --> 00:23:24.479 disobedience, we spoke about His purity and what that means, His hatred of sin and all that sin 00:23:24.479 --> 00:23:33.039 stands for. When we make light of sin in our lives, you know, when you don't really care about what 00:23:33.039 --> 00:23:41.279 God thinks. I'm not really a much more concerned about what other people think. When sin for us 00:23:41.279 --> 00:23:46.559 doesn't become offensive, it becomes something we just, we shrug our shoulders and live with. 00:23:47.599 --> 00:23:54.799 We kind of shrug our shoulders at the lists of the lusts in the Bible and we are content 00:23:55.359 --> 00:23:58.559 with another philosophy which says just, well to err is human. 00:23:58.559 --> 00:24:06.799 We're no worse than that. In fact, we're actually much better than some other people. 00:24:06.799 --> 00:24:10.879 And that'll do. Am I a better Christian than other people? That'll keep me going. 00:24:10.879 --> 00:24:17.359 We're dabbling in sin here, we're dabbling in disobedience there. It's okay. As long as I'm 00:24:17.359 --> 00:24:22.799 keeping up with the crowd, we enjoy a bit of lust, we enjoy a bit of greed and self-centeredness. 00:24:22.799 --> 00:24:30.799 It doesn't really harm anyone. Other Christians are doing it. But in so doing, we're losing sight 00:24:31.440 --> 00:24:37.279 of His purity and of His holiness and of His power and of His presence in our hearts. 00:24:39.680 --> 00:24:47.680 Agape certainly doesn't make sense, loving the way God loves and loving the way God enables us to 00:24:47.680 --> 00:24:54.799 live. So it's significant that we quench the Spirit when we think like that and we lose 00:24:54.799 --> 00:25:01.200 the sense of His presence and the blessings and joy that comes from Him because we're choosing to 00:25:01.200 --> 00:25:07.440 turn our backs. So the command here goes out for you and for me, for every Christian, don't quench 00:25:07.440 --> 00:25:15.600 the Spirit. And if you're not a Christian, the great invitation has come to know God through 00:25:15.599 --> 00:25:22.799 Christ and enjoy the presence of the Holy Spirit eternally. So He's holy. He's the Holy Spirit 00:25:23.519 --> 00:25:29.279 and He calls us to be holy. But if you're consistently, and if I'm consistently making 00:25:29.279 --> 00:25:36.719 sinful choices, we're quenching the work of the Spirit. We're damaging our own soul. We're 00:25:36.720 --> 00:25:47.440 distancing ourselves from the one who wants to make you whole, who wants to enable you to 00:25:48.160 --> 00:25:55.680 love Him and live in His peace, finding true fulfillment and identity. So we have this great 00:25:55.680 --> 00:26:04.160 divine responsibility to be led by the Spirit and to walk in the Spirit, to bear the fruit of the 00:26:04.160 --> 00:26:12.400 Spirit, not put out the Spirit's fire, not quench the Spirit. I can barely do it for myself. I can't 00:26:12.400 --> 00:26:18.560 do it for anyone else. You can't do it for anyone else. Your responsibility and mine alone, ultimately 00:26:18.560 --> 00:26:24.960 before the living God. And it may be that we all need to speak to God about that. Let's pray. 00:26:24.960 --> 00:26:38.880 Father God, help us to love you and understand the way of your word. We often find other things more 00:26:38.880 --> 00:26:47.279 weighty, more significant to respond to in our lives. We sometimes grasp a very quick 00:26:47.279 --> 00:26:55.039 verse or two of Scripture in our day without really maybe considering its implications. 00:26:55.759 --> 00:27:03.920 And we can often easily run towards things that you don't want us to and you hate. 00:27:04.879 --> 00:27:12.639 Forgive us, we pray. But how we rejoice this evening, that you don't hold our sin against us, 00:27:12.640 --> 00:27:20.400 that you simply want us to be in your presence, to enjoy your power and the passion of knowing 00:27:20.400 --> 00:27:30.080 the living God and to know the purity that is not a kind of pietistical thing that 00:27:32.400 --> 00:27:40.880 makes us judgmental of others in any way or better than others, but is wholesome and is 00:27:40.880 --> 00:27:46.720 becoming what we were created to be in Jesus, the people you made us to be, 00:27:48.800 --> 00:27:59.920 unbroken and unfettered by the damage that sin does. We look forward to that sanctifying process 00:27:59.920 --> 00:28:06.720 in our lives, help us to cooperate with you in it and help us to hear your voice, drawing us back. 00:28:06.720 --> 00:28:12.640 Maybe some of us have not prayed to you for a long time or read your word with any sense of 00:28:12.640 --> 00:28:22.319 relational significance. Bring us back, we pray, and help us to resist, not to resist the Spirit 00:28:22.319 --> 00:28:29.759 or quench the Spirit or put out the Spirit's fire, but Lord, maybe cooperate with you and know the 00:28:29.759 --> 00:28:37.519 beauty of all that is involved in that. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen.