Our commitment is that we will seek the face of the Lord sufficiently enough to discern which of those potential risks are from the Lord and which are from our imaginations.  When we have clearly discerned the Lord is in a thing, we will be able to stand up with confidence before you as our congregation and declare, “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit….and to us…that we should do….”  We believe this to be the call of God on our lives for this season.  

To help us facilitate this concept I want to look at a passage from 1 John.  The Apostle John was one of Jesus’ original twelve followers and closest friends on the earth.  He was the last of the Twelve Apostles to die and is nearing the end of his life as he writes this letter to the community he had been pastoring for some time.  

In the book of Acts chapter 15, verse 28, James says, “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us….”  In other words, the method for making their decision is clarified.  Yes, they listened to both sides.  Yes, they debated the impact that those things would have on the church.  But most importantly, they prayed.  And the result of their prayers was a clear indication of what pleased the Holy Spirit.  And when that was discovered, they were pleased as well and enacted the Spirit’s pleasure over the situation.  

Did you catch that?  James had the authority to make the decision but it was really the Holy Spirit who made the call.  The focus of the leadership and James in particular was to find out what pleased the Holy Spirit more than any other group of people.  

If the Enemy is going to be giving his best to destroy the Kingdom; shouldn’t we be willing to give our best to build it?  Shouldn’t It get our best thoughts, our best plans, our best efforts, our greatest resources, and our full attention?  This is why we have to take risks!  Desperate enemies take risks to accomplish their goals.  We should be willing to risk to counter them!  No risk it!  No Biscuit!

Leaders need our support.  The enemy is constantly trying to harm the Church of Jesus Christ.  One of his most frequent attacks is to seek to discourage those who lead the Church.  If he can discourage them, then he can take their focus off of equipping and mobilizing the people of God.  That leaves those under their care ill-equipped and without direction in the work of the Kingdom.

God has a plan for our lives when He saves us and that plan leverages all the pieces of our life to accomplish it.

Each and every time one of the Holy Spirit’s grace gifts manifests itself through you it is because the Holy Spirit shows up.  He manifests Himself through you in that moment to accomplish His will. 

Failing to recognize this is why we can sometimes become prideful when those grace gifts operate through us and people recognize their effectiveness.  We delude ourselves that those gifts are taking place because we’ve been endowed with a particular amount of the Spirit’s power and it feeds our ego.  It deceives us into believing that there is something special about us when in reality it is something powerful about Him. 

Each and every human being longs for significance and meaning in life and where we seek to find that meaning will set the very trajectory of our lives.

Instead of focusing on methods or techniques to repel the Enemy’s attacks, we’ve set out to lay a solid foundation of understanding regarding the spiritual realities around us.  Techniques don’t matter if our fundamental understanding of God, the Enemy, and ourselves is flawed.

Jesus described the Devil as one who does not hold to the truth and has no truth in him.  Falsehood is tied to his very existence.

Every single human being who has ever lived apart from Christ has followed the lies of the Devil.  It’s our default setting as human beings.  We are born into sin, we know nothing but sin, and we naturally follow the ways of the world and the ruler of the earth which is Satan himself.  

Our level of freedom from deception will be directly proportional to the depth of our relationship with Jesus! 

The goal is to eliminate as much deception from our lives as possible by living as closely connected to Jesus as possible.  As we walk closely to Him and live in obedience to Him we are susceptible to less and less deception in our lives.  Only in heaven will we know the truth completely but we can live lives of freedom on this side of eternity as well!

Sermon preached Sunday October 15th 2023