Rhythms | Week 3 | Daniel Goulding | Echoes Church

and amen. Alright. 12:00. Gotta help me out. How many of you guys have been to Jamaica before? Let me just see a show of hands around people who have suffered through it with me. Alright? If you've never been to Jamaica, I would encourage you to go. We got to go a couple years ago for a friend of ours in the church. They were getting married out there, and so we flew out there, had a great time. It was incredible. And I I would be in a hurry to go back to Jamaica because of the culture, the food, the people, the beaches, like, it's it's beautiful.

The part that's hard is getting to and from the resorts in Jamaica. Right? Like, if you could teleport, I would go again, but having to do the travel, I don't know if I'm willing to sign up for it. Now, if you ever been in a third world country, you know that driving is a little bit different than it is here in The United States. Right? This whole, like, laws and rules and traffic is kind of not the same thing. Well, Jamaica's like that times a 100. Right? You get picked up in a shuttle, they take you to the resort, And if you're lucky enough to survive, you enjoy your vacation, and then you go home. And when we were on the the trip back from the resort to the airport when our, you know, trip was over,

we went on probably one of the scariest drives of my life. Like, we're bobbing in and out of traffic. You're barely avoiding live animals that are all over the place, and our driver was crazy. Right? My wife's in the back. She's, like, gripping on with dear life. She's crying and, you know, praying in tongues, but she's not even a charismatic and just just terrified. Right? Like, it's a traumatic experience happening.

And we get on this thing that they call a freeway. And again, it's nothing like a freeway as we know where there's order and lanes and passing and blinkers like none of this. It's just chaos,

lots of horns, lots of bumble clots being yelled out at people. Right? And all of sudden, we're on this freeway, gets down to some congestion,

and we're in this big, like, shuttle van with a bunch of other people, and this guy tries to pass this garbage truck or the garbage truck tries to pass us, one of the two, but the the garbage truck literally starts to hit the side of our car. And as it's hitting us, it's blowing out the back windows and the glass is like shattering in on the seats. But luckily, thankfully, the the guy stopped before it shattered the windows next to us. The driver of our car, mind you, we're in the middle of the freeway. He puts the car into park. He gets out and turns around and gets out and just standing on the road is screaming and cussing out the garbage truck driver behind us. And we're just sitting here like, man, what is happening? Right? Like, where do we where do we go from here? Then all of sudden, he doesn't say anything to us. He just starts taking our luggage and pulling it out and setting it on the road on the freeway.

And he tells us, hey, you guys gotta get out here and wait for the next shuttle. And I'm like, here? Like, we're on a freeway right now. What are you talking about, bro? And so like, we're we're literally sitting there on the freeway, cars passing us, we're getting honked at, holding our luggage, waiting for some other shuttle that's supposed to show up, and praise God, we got on the shuttle, we made our flight, and you know, nobody died. But I I say all that to say, standing in the middle of the freeway holding my luggage, I was like,

I should have asked some more questions about who was driving us and the safety protocols that were in place. Right? Like, just you end up in these moments where you you don't even, you know, you don't really realize what you're signing up for, and all of a sudden you're led somewhere and you just go, man, how did I get here? And I think that that picture is such a perfect picture of how life can work sometimes. If you're not if you're not intentional with what or who or how your life is being led, the truth is is you will end up in some places, you'll end up in some seasons where you'll sit there and you'll feel like you're kind of holding the bag going, man, how did I get here? And the truth is is whether you know it or not, all of our lives are being led by something. They're being led by someone. The question is the question is is is our lives being led to a place in a destination that we will actually like when we get there? But what I wanna try to show you today is what led the life of Jesus. More importantly, who led the life of Jesus. Jesus was led by the spirit of God. And I wanna show you what it means to be a spirit led people. And I know again for some of us, depending on our church context and our church cultural upbringing,

even when I say the term spirit led, we immediately go to like, oh, the weird people. Right? You're talking about the weird like and I just wanna for the next couple minutes, let's just wipe the slate clean. Let's start fresh and just say, hey, for the next twenty or thirty minutes, let's look at what does it mean to really truly be spirit led. Again, the whole series has been a pretty simple idea.

The idea of the whole series is that if you want the experience if you want to experience the reality of Jesus, you've got to adopt the rhythms of Jesus. That's why I've been looking at the rhythms of Jesus' life. If you wanna walk in the fruit that Jesus walked in, patience, peace, kindness, gentleness, and self control, then we've got to adopt the rhythms of Jesus' life. The three that we've looked at, the first week was this this rhythm that he kept of worship.

Last week, I talked about the importance of getting alone with God and having a private relationship with God that exists Monday through Friday and not just on Sunday mornings. And today, I wanna talk to you about what I believe is the most important rhythm that Jesus kept, which is being spirit led.

Again, I wanna kinda just show you Jesus's life, what led up to his ministry. We spent a lot of time talking about the miracles and the supernatural works that Jesus did,

but we don't often look at the preparation that Jesus did to get ready for the season of ministry. And I believe that Jesus shows us in here a model of what it means to walk in and be led by the spirit of God that can prepare you for the calling and anointing that God has on your life. Again, believe that every single person here that God has a calling on your life, that you're not here randomly, that God has you here for a very specific purpose, that there's there's purpose to your existence

in the preparation and how we get ready for the calling on our life potentially is the thing that will determine our success in our calling. K. We're gonna pick up reading in Luke chapter three verse 21.

This is the very beginning of Jesus's public ministry. He's about to start the three years of ministry that will flip the planet on its head. It will start a revolution that will change the world and will affect people living here today in Arizona in 2025. But this is the beginning of that revolution.

He begins in Luke chapter three verse 21 says that one day when the crowds were being baptized, Jesus himself was

baptized. Again, if you're here and you've given your life to Jesus and you've never you've never been baptized before, I can encourage you enough that that that is your next step of obedience in your faith journey. Part of the reason that we are baptized, there's so many reasons why we do it, but part of it is we do it out of obedience because Jesus did it. If you have not yet been baptized, I can't encourage you enough. Sign up for our baptisms. It's gonna be a powerful weekend. Jesus himself was baptized

along with a bunch of people. And says, as he was praying, the heavens opened up and the holy spirit in bodily form descended on him like a dove. Now this is one of those verses that I think has been misunderstood

and misapplied for a long time. Right? Often, read this verse and we go, oh, the holy spirit is like a dove. And often, if you've seen a depiction of the holy spirit in the earth today, people often will draw a little cute dove, and that, like, represents the Holy Spirit. And oftentimes, when we think about the Holy Spirit, if I were to ask you, hey. Who who is the Holy Spirit or what is the Holy Spirit? We're like, I don't know. It's like this thing that's out there that, you know, flutters around. The truth is most of us don't really know that much about it. If we're completely honest, we're kind of scared of it because we've seen people that have caught the Holy Spirit and like things get weird. They start like spinning and doing like we've seen the televangelist stuff. Like, I don't want anything to do with that. And I wanna remind you today that the Holy Spirit is not a what, it's a it's a who. K? The introduction of the Holy Spirit on the scene in the New Testament, though we see it all throughout the Bible, is when Jesus is baptized, it says the Holy Spirit in bodily

form.

The Holy Spirit was not a dove, is not a dove. It descended on Jesus like a dove, but in bodily form. I don't know if that means that the Holy Spirit was like flapping his wings, and they thought it looked like a dove, so they they recorded it that it came down like a dove, but it's an important distinction to remember.

The Holy Spirit is not a dove. The Holy Spirit is a person that is the third part of a triune God.

And a lot of us grow up in church cultures where it's like God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Scriptures. That's the Trinity. Right? I'm here to remind us that the third person of the triune God is the holy spirit that Jesus Jesus learned to live submitted to. It says, then a voice from heaven said, you are my dearly loved son, and you bring me great joy.

Why should you and I sitting here in 2025 care about being spirit led followers of Jesus? Because I think we're living in a cultural moment where coincidentally identity has been completely hijacked,

and people are in a tailspin trying to figure out who they are, and people are searching for labels. They're searching for meaning. They're searching for significance. They're they're searching for something to attach their identity to, and it's interesting to me that if you get in proximity to the Holy Spirit, what he will confirm for you is who you are. The very first thing he reminds Jesus of is his identity and his calling.

He says, this is my son in whom I'm well pleased, brings me great pleasure and great joy. Again, it's not lost on me that this is before Jesus has ever done a single miracle for God. He's not raised a dead person. He's not healed a blind person. He has not done a single thing that would deem to be success,

yet he is affirmed in his identity and in his calling. It tells me that you and I need to remember who we are not based on what we do, but who we are because of the identity that we've been given in Christ.

That you are who God has made you to be. That you are uniquely and wonderfully made. The Bible says that he knit you together while you were in your mother's womb. That he knows the very hair on your head. God, God intimately knows you and he created you weird on purpose. Amen?

That you are designed beautifully for what God wants to accomplish through you. And in this world, if you don't know who you are in Christ, you will search for identity in all the wrong things.

And I'm telling you, the two most important questions you will ever answer in your in your life is, who are you going to worship and who are you? Because what you do will always be a byproduct of who you are. And the Holy Spirit starts by confirming the identity of Jesus.

And what we see here is the beginning of the model. Skip down with me to Luke chapter four verse one and two. Jesus then it says, was full of the Holy Spirit. He returned from the Jordan River, and here it is. He was then led by the spirit. Notice notice the process. K? He's he's baptized. He's filled with the spirit. And as he's filled with the spirit, he's now led with the spirit. See, the Bible says that you and I, the moment we give our life to Jesus, and there's there's a conversion that happens. The heart of stone that we used to have now becomes a heart of flesh, and the spirit of God begins to indwell in us. And you here who have given your life to Jesus, you have the spirit of God living in you. But what I would venture to guess is that a lot of us have yet to realize the power and the potential of what the spirit of God in us can do for us and through us.

And it's only as you become led by the spirit of God to begin to realize the power of what the spirit of God in you can do. It tells me there's ton of us who can be filled with the spirit of God yet not be led by him. Notice what Jesus notice where Jesus is led by the spirit of God in the very beginning. He says he was led by the spirit into

the wilderness. Again, most much of our Western Christian ideology around God is that blessing means good things, and that if God is present in my life, it means the absence of bad things, the the absence of suffering and difficulties and trials. Yet Jesus,

fully God, submitted to the spirit of God, led by the spirit of God, he's led where? Into a season of brutal temptation, trial, and difficulty. He's led into

the wilderness. It says that in verse two, where he was tempted by the devil for forty days, he ate nothing all that time and became very hungry. It's a side point. But if I'm gonna go forty days without eating and drinking, you better believe he's gotta be God himself that tells me to do it. Right?

Jesus for forty days spends alone time with God in the wilderness, and he was led by the spirit of God there. It tells me that maybe maybe there's potential in difficult seasons that we don't understand.

And that the notion that we've been sold that God's presence is only there when there's an absence of difficulty in my life is a lie from the pit of hell. And that sometimes the greatest work that God wants to do for you is actually work that he's gonna do in you before he's ever gonna do something through you. See, of us love the idea of God doing something great through us. But what we often skip is the season

where God has to first work in us. God has to mend our souls. He's gotta fix the brokenness that's there. He's gotta repair the broken identity that we have. Even Jesus himself had to go through a season

of learning intimacy with the father, having his soul mended before God could do something great through him. It tells me that maybe you and I can learn to embrace hard seasons instead of just running from them.

And then when you begin to really understand what it means to be led by the spirit of God, it means that even in the middle of the darkest seasons, the hardest trials,

the most brutal medical diagnosis is that God is as present there as he is when you are on the mountaintop of life with nothing but blessing all around you. He's always with you.

The question is is what is he trying to do in this season? Maybe for some of you, what he's doing is he's doing a deep work in you to prepare you for the deep work that he wants to do. He wants to do through you, but you and I can embrace tough seasons when you understand who who God is in us. Now skip down with me to verse 14 in Luke chapter four. Notice what happens after forty days as we talked about last week of this extended period of time alone with God. Jesus begins to learn some things about who God is. In verse 14, it says, then Jesus returned to Galilee.

Notice he went into the wilderness full of the spirit of God, but he leaves the wilderness and goes back to Galilee filled with the holy spirit's power.

See, it was only trial. It was only difficulty, and it was only alone time with God that began to help him understand the power that was available in the spirit of God. But he says that reports about him spread quickly throughout the whole region. He taught regularly in the synagogue, and he was praised by everyone. Verse 16 says that when he came to the village of Nazareth, which was his boyhood home, he went as usual to the synagogue. K. The synagogue was just a church like this

on the Sabbath, and he stood up to read the scriptures much like we're doing today. He pulled out the scroll of Isaiah. The prophet was handed to him, and he unrolled the scroll, and he found the place where it was written. Here's the verse that Jesus was teaching on that day. He quotes from the book of Isaiah and says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, and that the oppressed will be set free. It's this beautiful picture if you understand the prophetic fulfillment that Jesus is stepping into here. So you gotta understand the entire Old Testament for the nation of Israel was a prophecy of a day that was going to come where the spirit of God would not just dwell amongst the earth and dwell on the earth as as the spirit of God always has done. Right? Again, you go all the back to the Genesis story. The spirit of God was hovering on the earth. What took the chaos and turned it into order was the spirit of God. The spirit of God has always been there. But the Old Testament talked about how there was going to be a day that was going to come where that spirit was actually going to begin to indwell the people of God, and that God was going to pour his spirit out on all people. It says young men and old men, women and children, that God was going to pour his spirit out on all of them, but they knew that there was a domino that had to fall first.

And the first domino was that a spirit filled messiah was gonna have to come. The person who would live the life that we couldn't live and would die the death that we deserve, that one would come and he would live perfectly, and it would be the first domino that would tip, that would unleash the spirit of God on all the people of God.

And Jesus, having come out of the baptism waters, having gone through the wilderness season, he stands up to the church and he says, friends, the day has come.

The spirit of the Lord is upon me. And notice what he says. This is my hope and my prayer for every single one of who realize what it means to be spirit led and spirit filled people. He says, because I'm here, because the spirit of God is within me and I'm in this room, the oppressed will be set free.

Blind people will learn to see. Brokenness will be no more. You and I gotta remember, here's why being spirit filled, spirit led people matters because when the spirit of God enters a room, chains are broken. Generational cycles are stopped in the name of Jesus when the spirit of God interacts with them.

The reason I think that the enemy has worked overtime on getting us to be so weirded out with the idea of being spirit led is because he knows that connected to the spirit is the is the power.

The power that we're supposed to walk in, the authority we're supposed to walk into. You and I have got to realize that when we walk into a room, whether it's rooms that we're stepping into with family, we're going into a work environment, we're just going in to walk in to buy coffee. When we step into a room, we're not we're not simply measuring the temperature in the room. No. The the scripture say that we're actually the thermostat. We set the temperature.

That we actually walk in, we carry the very presence of God with us. And Jesus reminds us that you and I are supposed to be chain breakers.

And and what if what Jesus is showing us here is a model in in a method of how to be a spirit led person. Again, there's three things that I see here that Jesus does that you and I have to learn to do if we're going to actually be spirit led ourselves. The first one, the first part of the process is that Jesus was filled with the holy spirit.

The very beginning for every single one of us is we have to be filled with the spirit of God first. What does it mean to be filled with the holy spirit?

Again, it's interesting to me that Jesus, before he would ever start his ministry, he submitted to the filling of the Holy Spirit. Now again, the New Testament tells us that you and I, when we give our lives to Jesus, that we're filled with the spirit of God.

The question that all of us have to wrestle through this morning is, what are we filling our lives with? Because we're all filling our lives with something. We're all putting something into the crevices of our soul. The question is not what we're is whether or we're filling it. The question is just what are we filling it with? And it's interesting to me that Jesus lived a life of dependency

on the Holy Spirit, yet somehow you and I sit here today and think we can do this life on our own. If you're taking notes, I wrote it down this way. If Jesus was dependent on the Holy Spirit, what makes you and I think that we can live independent of him?

I don't know if you've heard somebody say, it's one of the dumbest things I've heard where people always say, man, God will never give you more than you can handle, and it's a really well intended thing. It's like when your life is kind of falling apart, it's like, well, just remember, God will never give you more than you can handle. I'm like, what? Have you read the bible or walked with God for more than five minutes?

I would say that God constantly gives you more than you can handle. But here's the good news, God won't give you more than he can handle.

But what it requires of you is to learn how to be filled with the spirit of God that is needed to fulfill the calling that's on your life. The reason that Jesus had to be filled with the spirit is because he was about to go through a brutal three years where he was gonna be lied against. He was gonna be tempted. He was gonna be tried in every single way, and the calling was too great for him to do on his own. And I'm telling you, the calling for you, the calling on your life, on your family, it is too great to do on your own as well. I promise you, you will not have a marriage that honors God through your own power. You will not fight for purity through your own power. You won't raise kids that honor God through your own power.

But if you begin to realize that you can be dependent on the spirit of God, you can be filled with the spirit of God, it can begin to give you access to a power source that you don't you don't have on your own, but it requires some stuff of us. Remember what Paul told the church in Ephesus in Ephesians chapter five? He tells us, don't be drunk with wine because that will ruin your life. K. For some of you, that should become your life verse. K. You don't need any other Bible verses. You're like, that's that defines most Saturdays for you. Let me just tell you, don't be drunk with wine. It's gonna ruin your life. Alright? Now again, this is where often we miss the mark, and we we take the scriptures, and we make a religious rule around this stuff. But we never we never talk about the why.

Why does Paul say to not give yourself over to drunkenness, to not fill your life with with booze. What is one of the other names for alcohol? It's spirits. See, what Paul is saying is that all of us are gonna fill our lives with something,

but don't fill it with something that's gonna lead you to a place that you don't want to be led to. He's saying that alcohol, just like everything else that you fill your life with, it's going to lead you somewhere. He says, instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Learn what it means to be filled with the spirit of God because only then will you be led to a destination that you won't have regret when you get there. It is only when we learn to live our lives filled with the spirit of God that we can get to destinations that don't come with regret attached

to it. So the question, the logical question this morning has to be asked, what has filled your life? What is it that you're pushing into your soul today? Because the truth is all of us are filling it with something.

Some of us are filling our souls with with with drugs and alcohol, with lust, with greed, with achievement, with striving, with trying to earn more, to prove more. All of us are filling our lives with something.

My submission to you is the only thing that will actually satisfy the longings of your soul is the spirit of God. Here's why it matters what fills your life because the kingdom principle that Jesus is showing us is that what fills you eventually is the thing that will lead you.

And if you're filling your life with lust, you will be led by lust. If you're filling your life with greed in comparison, you will be led by greed in comparison.

And all of a sudden, you will hear the bible talk about giving and kingdom resources, and all you'll hear is that God's trying to take something from you. Why? Because you're being led by greed and comparison instead of by the spirit of God. And I'm telling you, something begins to happen when you get to when you're being led by the spirit. You understand, oh, I don't have to give. I get to give. It's a privilege and an honor to get to build God's house. The thing that I'm most passionate about is the local church. It is still God's plan a to reach this world. It is the hope of the world, and one of the greatest privileges and honors that I've been given is I get to give a portion of my resources to building God's kingdom. But it's a very different spirit than going, oh, I begrudgingly do this. I have to do this. But you can't get there on your own. You've gotta be filled with the spirit of God. Secondly,

eventually, Jesus, after being filled, he was also then led by the spirit of God. Again, we read the verse already. Luke chapter four

verse one says, Jesus, full of the holy spirit, he returned from the Jordan River, and he was now led by the spirit. What does it mean practically for you and I to live lives that are led by the spirit? I mean, really practically, Monday through Friday. Staying home with your kids, going to work,

getting coffee, going grocery shopping. What does it mean to be led by the spirit of God? See, think often what we do is we we think that God only works in these really big ways. And I think what thinking that God only does these big things, it it negates and neglects

the seemingly insignificant moments of our everyday life that I honestly think are the greatest opportunities that God wants to use you in.

And that a life of being led by the spirit is one that's it's much it's inviting Jesus into the much more simple and ordinary things that we could ever we could ever possibly imagine. Again, remember what Galatians chapter five says? It says, so that I I I say walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They're actually they're in conflict with each other so that you are not to do whatever you want.

Paul talks about this idea that this is the tension of why so many of us aren't actually led by the spirit of God even though we've been filled with the spirit because simultaneously

inside of our soul, there's a war that's happening. There's a war that's happening between our flesh that wants everything contrary to the desires of the spirit, and then we have the spirit of God that's there. And depending on which one you're feeding, we'll get victory in your life. And so many of us, what we're filling our lives with is more of this, and the problem is is when we do that, it's quenching the spirit of God that's in us.

And what Paul says is that you and I, as followers of Jesus, we don't get to do whatever we want.

And that's a message that's hard for us Americans who freedom is our ultimate thing to hear. Nobody gets to tell me what I get to do, what I I want to do. You've gotta remember an invitation of faith is one to a life of surrender.

Paul will continue in this passage to say that the life that I now live, I I live through the resurrection power understanding that my life is no longer my own,

that I've handed the reins of my life to Jesus, and that I am now willing to do and go and be whatever and whoever he's asked me to be. That as I learn to be led by the spirit of God, I understand that it simultaneously means I've gotta learn how to put to death the flesh that's in me.

And the truth is that every single one of us, the great equalizer in this room, is all of us have this thing called sin in us. We all do it differently. It smells different depending on what flavor of it that you like versus the ones that other people like. But all of us in this room, man, we struggle

we struggle with sin. And the more you live into your carnal nature, the more you give into your flesh, you'll realize, man, the spirit feels really weak. And there'll be moments. I don't know why it's like this, but a relationship with God feels like it's two steps forward and four steps back. It's three steps into victory, and it's four steps back into defeat.

What Paul is saying is don't give up the battle. Don't give up the fight. Still engage in the battle and watch what God will do as you learn to live into the spirit of God and not just your your carnal fleshly nature.

And I again, I also want to encourage you that I think being led by the spirit is much more simple than we realize.

That God wants to speak to you twenty four seven. He wants you to be a representation of him on this earth in every environment that you walk into. And the longer that I've been engaged in this process, the the more and more I've realized that God will ask me to do things that are completely bizarre and they make no sense. But I'm also learning that those are sometimes where I I I know for sure this is the voice of God. It just happened to me the other day. Again, I could tell you stories for days where God has asked me to do really bizarre things, but I was walking out of Chipotle. I was meeting with a guy in the church. And again, side point, Chipotle is God's favorite food if you were wondering.

It's it's it's incredible. K? I'm like a VIP there. The district manager knows who I am. They're like telling me about new food menu items that are coming out and stuff. It's pretty amazing. But I'm walking out, and as I walk out, I see a homeless guy sitting there with his dog. And I do the same thing that every single person does. Right? Like, eyes down. Don't make eye contact. If you make eye contact, you're gonna feel, like, obligated. And I'm also a pastor. Somebody's gonna know, oh, pastor Daniel just walked by the homeless guy. But if I don't make eye contact, then it doesn't count. Right? I just walked past him, and literally, I'm telling you, I get past him and I feel like God again, it's like an audible voice. It was like this gentle whisper in my soul that says, just go talk to him, ask him what his name is. I'm like, I don't wanna do that. You know, like, trying to get home. I got stuff to do, but I'm again, I'm also learning. When when God speaks, it's like it's like little kids. Our job is to respond quickly and completely. Right? Just like we do with our toddlers, respond quickly and completely to my voice. And so I go and I talk to this guy, have a conversation, and I just tell him, man, what's your name? And he tells me his name is Joshua. And the moment he says Joshua, God just starts to download who Joshua in the Bible was, and I start to tell this guy, man, God's got a plan for your life. And I'm sitting there patting myself on the back. This is like amazing, super spiritual. I'm praying for the guy, and then God tells me, hey, give him some money. And I'm like, I'm definitely not doing that. Right? Like, I'm not right. You don't give homeless people money, start going through all the rationalizations in your head, but I just keep hearing God as I'm praying for him. Just give him some money. So I reach into my wallet and literally I have $200 bills. I'm like, I'm definitely not giving him a $100 bill. Right? Like, it's it's just not happening. But then and again, I wish I could stand up here and tell you that I, like, joyfully jumped over, and I handed him a $100 bill, we all celebrated the presence of God that was there, but it did it just didn't happen that way. Like, I I begrudgingly

reached into my wallet. I gave the guy a $100 bill just trying to be obedient,

all the rational thoughts in my head started to go through of what's he gonna do with it? Did I just enable him? But here's what I'm here to tell you today. What I'm learning is what I'm trying to encourage you to understand is that our job is to simply be obedient to what God has asked us to do. What this guy does with it, honestly, has nothing to do with the the my responsibility in it. God will take care of that stuff, but what God wants to do, and this is what's mind blowing to me, that every single one of you, every single day, God wants to set up divine appointments between you and really hurt and broken people,

and you and I potentially can be the answer to people's prayers. That for me is an adventure with God that seems that that's enticing.

But just going through the motions and playing church and checking a box on Sundays and just going through the ritual so we can get to heaven one day, man, I'm telling you, that's that that is not what a life led by the spirit of God is. It it is a a westernized version of spirituality that just is not a you can't find it in the Bible. But I wanna remind you that if you commit to going, man, I wanna be led by the spirit of God, I wanna remind you that being spirit led will always it won't always make sense, but it will always make a difference.

That God is going to ask you to do really weird things, to forgive people who haven't earned your forgiveness, to talk to people who deserve to not be spoken to,

to go and give somebody money that, honestly, it makes no sense to give them money to. And it might not always make sense, but I promise you on the other side of it, it will always make a difference.

The second thing that Jesus did is he was led by the spirit, and all of this was kind of a setup because Jesus, the end of the day here's what I'm hoping for every single one of us is that eventually we can learn to do what Jesus did, which is to rely on the power of the holy spirit.

This is a really mind blowing thought if you kinda go down the rabbit trail for just a second, that Jesus lived a life of radical obedience, radical dependence on the holy spirit. Think about that for a second. Jesus was 100% god.

Yet before he did a single miracle, what did he do? He learned to be filled with the spirit, to be led by the spirit, and to walk in the power of the holy spirit. Why?

Because I think that Jesus was trying to show us what was possible on this earth for you and I. Now again, this is a, again, a rabbit trail that you could talk for a whole hour on, but there's a theological term that's called kenosis. Kenosis is essentially a a word that just means emptying of oneself.

Here's the idea, and this is what I believe, is that Jesus, while he was on this Earth, while he walked on this Earth, that he didn't operate out of the supernatural, out of his divinity.

That the Bible says that he actually he self limited his God given ability. Now, again, follow me for just a second. We know that Jesus was all knowing. Right? But the scriptures say that Jesus grew in both knowledge and wisdom. How did he grow in knowledge and wisdom? He somehow he self he self, like, stopped his divinity.

We know that Jesus is omnipresent. He's all places at all times, yet while he was a human, he was only in one place at a time. Why? He self limited his divinity.

Here's why. He was trying to show us what was possible for every single one of us as you learn to be led by the spirit of God and rely on the power of the spirit of God. Because if Jesus does the miraculous and the supernatural out of his divinity,

we might be impressed by it, but nobody sits back and thinks, well, I can do that too. But I wanna remind you, the book of Acts tells us something. Acts chapter 10 verse 38 says, and you know that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power. That God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and then Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil for God was with him. Why does this matter?

Because that same Jesus who self limited his divine ability that showed us what a life submitted to the Holy Spirit can look like, he had the audacity to stand up in John chapter 14 and say to the disciples and to say to all of us sitting here this morning, I tell you the truth.

Anybody who believes in me will do the same works that I have done and even greater works because I'm going to be with the father. I think we often forget that Jesus says that you and I are supposed to do the same things that he did. Not out of our ability, not out of our own

our own power, but because we learn to be filled with the spirit, to be led by the spirit, to rely on the the power of the spirit of God, that we can say the same thing that Jesus said, that the spirit of God is upon me. And when the spirit of God is present, chains are broken,

oppressed people are set free, addictions are broken, marriages are restored, People who are lost are found. The blind can now see. That's what happens when you and I begin to understand who we are in Christ. And I'm telling you friends right now,

the world is desperate for the church to remember the power we're supposed to walk with. The authority that we've been given. When you walk into the workplace, that's the authority that you carry. You can do even greater works than God did. And I'm here to remind every single one of you this morning,

whatever it is that you're struggling with, whatever rut you find yourself in, whether it's a rut of depression, trying to find purpose, it's an addiction that you can't get rid of, a it's marital problem that just doesn't seem to go away.

It's wayward children that you're wondering when they're gonna come home. I'm here to remind you that God has given you access to all the power that you need to do everything that he desires. You have access to power,

but the enemy doesn't want you to know it. The same life that Jesus died for you to give, the Bible says that the enemy is trying to kill, steal, and destroy that life. And I wanna remind you, friend, you've got power.

Not because of what you did, but because of what Jesus did on the cross. Because the spirit of God was poured out on him first, and he became the one, the first domino to fall. We're now, Acts chapter two tells us that the spirit of God descended on all people.

Our name, Echoes Church, comes from Acts two two. It says a sound like a mighty rushing wind, it filled the room, and the spirit of God filled all the people that were there. I'm telling you, you and I are supposed to be spirit filled, spirit led people operating not out of weakness, but out of power, a sound mind,

and self control. We're not just stuck in ruts of sin. You and I have the ability to get out of bondage, to walk in freedom, to have victory in the name of Jesus. But you gotta start and just say, okay. I'm I'm willing to surrender.

I think the beautiful part of this whole thing is it starts for Jesus with his moment of baptism. What what is baptism?

Baptism is literally a symbolic representation of what the life of of following Christ is like. It's an invitation to death. Why do we go under the baptism waters? Because it symbolically unifies us with Jesus' death. It's us acknowledging

my old life, my old person, who I was, that person is dying. But what's gonna come out of the water is a brand new creation that is alive in Christ.

The heart that I had that was a heart of stone is now a heart of flesh where I can feel, and I can hear the voice of God, and I can walk in power, and I can have victory, and I can overcome sin.

And I wanna remind you, the scriptures tell us that what Jesus did on the cross, it didn't just it didn't just pay the penalty for our sin, but it also broke the power that sin has over us. You don't have to continue in the sin pattern that you've been in. You can, at any point, surrender

and say, I'm willing to, I'm wanting to to walk in victory. Here's my ask for you this week, that we would be people who make a simple decision to say, God, I want more of you and less of me. It's not that we're not filled, it's that we're just we're filled with the wrong stuff.

And we gotta go through the process of being emptied. Emptied of our self, emptied of our depression, emptied of our addictions so that we can be filled with the spirit of God. I think one of the best ways we could close this service is by taking communion together. Again, we do this once a month as a church.

You probably got one of these on your way in. If you didn't, our ushers will hand one to you right now. But communion is one of the greatest reminders to you and I about what is on the other side of surrender.

Remember what Jesus did. There's one up here in the front if you could get him, my man. Right here in the front. Thank you, sir. Communion is us remembering that the life of faith that we get to walk in, the power source that we have access to, it came

on the other side of Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection. He took his best friends. The night that he was betrayed, he gathered them in an upper room. He says, guys, I want you to do this often to remember me

because my body is about to be broken for you. And it's my brokenness that paves the path for you to live a life beyond your wildest dreams. So together today, we take and we eat the body remembering the body that was broken for us. And then Jesus took a cup.

He held it up, and he said, guys, my my blood is about to be spilled for you. And the scriptures say that it's the blood of Jesus that breaks the power that the enemy has for us, that it breaks the strongholds of this earth. And we do this frequently to remember

that the gift of salvation, it was free for us. It cost us nothing. It's something we receive, but it cost Jesus everything. So together today, we take and we drink remembering the blood that was spilled for us.

So, father, this morning, god, there's no way that I can know every circumstance and situation that is sitting in this room. God, all all the all the heartbreak, god, all the confusion, all the questions, all the let downs, all the disappointments. But, god, I know that you do,

and that, god, you care about all of the seemingly insignificant details of our life. And, father, there are people who are here right now who, under the sound of my voice, who are desperate to walk into a new identity with you, that they are desperate to walk into a new season that has power to overcome bondage,

that has power to break the cycles of addiction that they've been stuck in.

And so, father, I pray right now that you would speak specifically to every single person that's here. That God, even right now, as silly as it sounds, God, as the bread and as the juice literally becomes a part of our body, that we would remember

as our body breaks it down, that we would remember that your spirit is alive and active in us. It is a part of us as much as the communion that we just ate. And that, God, we have access to a power source beyond our wildest understanding and imagination.

So, father, I pray this week that you would show us what more of you and less of us looks like, and that we would believe to take you at your word, and that we would actually believe that we can do even greater things than you, and that we have power to overcome every stronghold in our life.

In Jesus' name, all God's people said. Amen and amen.