Sermon: Spiritual Discernment
• Romans 12:1–2
Why Discernment Breaks Down
1. We Replace Trust with Control
2. We Organize for Efficiency, Not Attentiveness
3. We Lose the Expectation That God Acts. God as the subject with an active verb:
• Acts 13:2, 4
• Acts 16:14
• Mark 1:2
• Acts 2:47
• Acts 15:8
• 1 Corinthians 3:6
• Romans 8:14
• Ephesians 2:10
Raising the Sails: Giving the Spirit Bandwidth
(Not Techniques, But a rule of Life)
1. Prayer as Togetherness
2. Table Fellowship as Discernment Space
• Luke–Acts (hospitality of God on others’ terms)
• Luke 10 (people of peace)
3. Availability to Disruption
• Acts 13:1–2
Postures and Practices
Posture 1: Waiting
• Psalm 4:4
Posture 2: Witnessing
• Deuteronomy 4:5–7
Posture 3: Practice, Practice, Practice
• Hebrews 5:13–14
• 1 Corinthians 2:14
Some highlights and follow up questions:
• Discernment is not a technique we apply; it is a way of life we inhabit.
• The church does not discover its identity before mission—it discovers it in mission.
• We often build oars to move the church by our own strength instead of raising sails to catch the Spirit’s wind.
• When growth becomes our driving question, experiencing the living God quietly moves to the back burner.
• When God is no longer the subject of our sentences, we become functional atheists.
• The Holy Spirit is already at work ahead of us; discernment is learning to notice and join Him. His will be done.
• Discernment rarely happens in isolation; it emerges in shared life. Shared tables are often the Spirit’s preferred classroom, where God’s hospitality is experienced and the gospel is witnessed tangibly.
• Discernment costs us control, efficiency, and predictability.
• The life required to discern the Spirit is the life of the church.
Where have we been rowing harder instead of raising our sails?
What areas of our life or church are driven more by anxiety, control, or efficiency than trust and attentiveness and response to His calling?
What would it look like for God to be the subject of our sentences again?
Where do we expect God to act—and where have we quietly stopped expecting Him to show up?
What postures and practices are giving the Holy Spirit real bandwidth in our shared life?