Sermon Tone Analysis

Good morning!

we are in our series on The Generous life ..

Over the past few week we have been looking at God’s blessing towards us..

These are inflows of God’s Generosity —Generosity always begins with God and his goodness towards us...

James 1:17 Every good and perfect comes to us from the Father of lights whom there is no changing.. God gives good gifts that are perfectly matched towards us… God nature doesn’t change… God is always going to be about Generosity..

We are going to be spending the next few moments talking about Generosity of God in the Out Pouring of the Holy Spirit.

During the Great Depression there was a ranch owned by a man named Yates.

Mr. Yates wasn't able to make enough on his ranching operation to pay the principal and interest on the mortgage, so he was in danger of losing his ranch.

With little money for clothes or food, his family (like many others) had to live on government subsidy’s.

Day after day, as he grazed his sheep over those rolling West Texas hills, he was no doubt greatly troubled about how he would pay his bills.

Then a seismographic crew from an oil company came into the area and told him there might be oil on his land.

They asked permission to drill a wildcat well, and he signed a lease contract.

At 1,115 feet they struck a huge oil reserve.

The first well came in at 80,000 barrels a day.

Many subsequent wells were more than twice as large.

In fact, 30 years after the discovery, a government test of one of the wells showed it still had the potential flow of 125,000 barrels of oil a day.

And Mr. Yates owned it all.

The day he purchased the land he had received the oil and mineral rights.

Yet, he'd been living on relief.

A multimillionaire living in poverty.

The problem?

He didn't know the oil was there even though he owned it.

(Bill Bright)

One of the great gifts that we have been given in Christ is the gift of the Holy Spirit… The Holy Spirit is a great reservoir, He is our helper, our counselor, our teacher, our prayer partner (Romans 8:26 ) we don’t know how to pray but the spirit himself intercedes for us with groans to deep for words.

The HS empowers us to live godly lives and for mission in the world…

The Holy Spirit is this great reservoir--- this great resource where by we can draw from— The indwelling of Holy Spirit is conceptualized in scripture as being this flowing river of living water — Jesus said in the book of John 7:38

When Jesus talked about this river He was thinking of this Great River… that would flow within the life of a believer…that we would be filled with his spirt.

We have been having a lot of rain recently here in Butte County.

I was thinking about all this rain that we have had… and the water tables are filling up.. water is a blessing… our wells and reservoirs are filling up…

the purpose of reservoirs is that we can conserve and go back later…

We need reservoirs for our crops.... we need reservoirs for drinking water.. Droughts can be difficult… from 2012-2016 we had this drought… What happens with out pouring of rain is that it filled up our lakes and dams.

In John chapter 4 Jesus offered offered the Samaritan water at the well do draw from this living river.

… Her life was broken… she had a past.... Jesus offered her something that would fill the desires of her heart… He offered her water from this deep reservoir whereby she would never thirst again.

What he was offering Her was abundant life that came with the Holy Spirit… .The Same Holy Spirit that is available to us..

The Holy Spirit is connects us to Christ in a life giving relationship..

Jesus made it clear that when he was no longer on the earth that the he would pray to the Father to send us HS to be our helper…

and just like the Son was sent to reveal the Father so the Holy Spirit come to reveal Jesus… The Holy Spirit is the one who will clearly reveal Jesus to us… When we honor the Holy Spirit — He will reveal to us the presence of God…

The Holy Spirit — draws us into the Presence of God..

One of the fundamental differences between the OT and NT — Is the proximity to God…to his people

The distance between God and us in the Bible can mean more than spacial distance… because God’s presence can be hidden in Revelation, hidden Wrath, or even hidden in His grace… …

In the OT …

.. The only way to approach God would be with a sacrifice through the priesthood…on the day of atonement the priest would enter into the presence of God in behalf of the whole nation.

In the new covenant Jesus became both sacrifice and High priest.. as the sacrifice.. Jesus willing layed down his life and perfect lamb of God fully satisfied the justice and requirements of a Holy God…then .

Through resurrection and ascension Jesus became our High priest and when He passed into the the heavens ..

Jesus closed the gap between us and the Father… No longer strangers were we considered aliens to the promises of God — but we received sonship —and as children of God we had access into the very presence of God.

in Hebrews 4:16 we have one of the most amazing verses in Scripture…

The “throne of grace” is the place of God’s presence, from which grace emanates to the people of God

.There is this sense of awe around the throne room.…Not

anyone can approach a King… ‘’The Greek word translated “approach” implies the need for a formal introduction into the presence of a king.

But Hebrews tells us we can draw near with confidence.. we come to a Benevolent God… it is a throne of mercy --- it is a throne of grace..

We are invited into this space to experiencing the presence of God .... this space of knowing God personally… But here is the thing… we still have to approach God… it’s an invitation… let us draw near…and it’s still a privilege.

Jesus our High priest is not so lofty or separated that He is incapable of understanding our human situation.

Rather He is one who is totally familiar with it, having been tempted at every turn of the road just as we have been who is available to help us in our time in need.. and from his throne we receive Grace and Mercy…

I love what the message says on this verse… it says don’t let this opportunity slip through your fingers..

“He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin.

So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give.

Take the mercy, accept the help.”

The coming of the Holy Spirit.. is about being brought nearer to God…God spirit would no longer would God dwell in tabernacles of stone but he would now dwell within His people..

T/S The outpouring of the Holy Spirit is given for a purpose..

1.

The Holy Spirit Out-pouring and our Transformation.

When we talk about transformation — what we talking about is Spiritual formation… Becoming more like Christ… it is a more than becoming a Christian or following Jesus , attending church, reading the Bible… These are important… part they are part of the process.. not the end goal…’

The End goal of the Christian life is Transformation.. it’s Christ likeness.

It means that we are embodying his very character that we are living out the vitality and the life of Christ through our own lives..

One of the things that we forget is that transformation is a lifelong pursuit… Christianity is not seasonal — it’s not a fad that comes and goes ...…

we are engaging in a life long pursuit… we are going to be in the process of being and becoming our whole life… It’s a personal pursuit of holistic transformation…

What it means is that as God changes us from the inside out through us living out His life through His Spirit, what happens is that holistically, through our entire person, God changes us…

This kind of transformation changes everything from the way that we think — that is the cognitive part… our convictions change… we may feel stronger about certain things… because we take on Christ like values…

It changes our behavior… the way we live… Transformation that we the church together become a like minded community...

The book of Ezekiel tells the story of transformation —

From this place of Failure to Restoration….

Ezekiel was a priest and Prophet in Judah and his ministry spans this time period Before and after the fall of Jerusalem 586 BC— His message is one of Judgement and hope.

Ezekiel predicted the coming collapse of Jerusalem.

His message fell on deaf ears till word of the city’s destruction was received in Babylon...

Judah had drifted from God and started practicing idolatry in the temple and worshipping other gods…

God was going to remove himself from them and they would be taken off into Babylonian Captivity… When Ezekiel prophesied this message it fell on deaf ears..

In Ezek 10:1-22 we see Ezekiels vision of God removing his Glory form the temple…

It’s elaborate vision that Ezekiel has of the throne of God…… there whirling wheals under the Cherubim (angel) — he has this amazement of these spinning wheels… they where wheels with in wheels… they could travel in four directions…the wheels had eyes.. need to remember the genre that these are visiona — figurative language…

The bottom line God’s Glory was departing the temple…

The glory of the Lord had departed from the city, leaving it vulnerable to destruction.

Judah would pay for its rebellion against the Lord.

However, the Lord would eventually restore His people to the land and reestablish pure worship in a new temple

God has not abandoned them.

He has both the purpose and the power to restore them to their homeland, nationhood and covenant faith.

The Lord would eventually restore His people to the land and reestablish pure worship in a new temple.

Ezekiel shows us a way back to God, to see his glory restored in our lives.

God says to Judah that he would not Hide his presence from Israel any more...

When the Bible speaks about the Face of God its speaking about the favor and the Grace of God… Why would God do this?

In chapter 36 it’s clearly expressed that It had nothing to do with any innate goodness or desirability in the people themselves.

Rather, it had to do with God’s desire that his name should not be profaned

.

The very fact that Israel was in exile led others to think that the God of Israel was either incapable or unwilling to look after his own people.

This situation was denigrating the character of God, and for this reason, God would restore his people

So “the restoration of Israel is not only a display of God’s love and power in behalf of his people, but also ‘an event necessary to the preservation of the honor of the true God.’ ”

How does God restore His people?

God does this through pouring out his Spirit… That is the way that God brings about transformations.

What happens when God pours out His Spirit..

He does heart surgery…

He will give you a new Heart

He will remove heart of stone and give you heart of flesh…

He will put a new Spirit in you

He will cause us to walk in his obedience to His word.