I am not going to speak my plan message for this morning. We're just going to postpone that.
But I am going to ask that they bring up the cycle of maturing.
I want to talk about that. Just remind us of a few things.
Everybody goes through this cycle multiple times in your lifetime.
I mean it goes over and over and over. It's a maturing cycle.
We can all be at different places in our personal life, but in a corporate body we go through this also.
And it will affect all of us as individuals.
And right now I believe we are down in the sifting because he's getting ready to do some great things.
Harvest is the mountaintop. It's where the great things take place.
It's where you get saved. It's where you get baptized in the Holy Spirit.
It's where healings and miracles and all this kind of stuff takes place in our life and it leaves us on a high.
And as we come out of that he's going to want us to mature and grow into what we just received.
And to develop in it. So that's the maturing part.
That's where he says, come follow me.
I want you to do this. I want you to do that in your heart.
You just know he's asking you to do things differently than before the harvest time of your life.
Whatever just happened to you, he wants to change us a cog or two.
He will do that by saying, okay now let's start doing this. Now let's start going that way.
Let's get rid of this and start doing this. That's the maturing part.
It's where we get that knowledge. It's where we get that understanding.
The sifting part is where we choose whether we're going to obey or not.
And it's really sad to say that because we as Christians should be quick to obey always.
But we're not. So he will sift us.
Can you bring up Luke chapter 2, Luke chapter 3 verse number...
Oh, I'll do it in the New King James. Let's go with starting at verse 15.
Luke chapter 3 verse 15. Then we'll go back to that PowerPoint.
Now as the people were in expectation and all reasoned in their hearts about John.
That's John the Baptist. Whether he was the Christ or not, John answered saying to all,
I indeed baptize you with water. That's why he was called John the Baptist.
But one mightier than I is coming whose sandal strap I am not even worthy to loose.
Not even worthy to loose the sandal strap on Jesus.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
Now here's the verse 17. His winnowing fan is in his hand.
Different translations say winnowing fork, so forth.
It goes back to the picture of harvest years ago when the way they would sift things is not run it through a combine.
They would lay the grain out on a hard surface and trample on it, drag things over it, run oxen and so forth over it
to separate the grain from the chaff. And then they had a fork, a many pronged fork.
I'd like to get one but they're so hard to get a hold of now because they're all old and made out of wood.
And they would have many tines and they'd grab that and on hopefully a windier day they would throw everything in the air.
And the chaff and the straw would blow away and the grain would come down.
That's a winnowing fork. It sifts, separates the good from what's not usable.
His winnowing fork or fan is in his hand and he will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor.
That's where you and I are laying. We're the grain on the threshing floor.
We're the ones who just got harvested and now he's sifting us.
The reason is to gather the wheat into his barn.
That's the good things in us that he needs to stay there.
But the chaff he will burn with an unquenchable fire.
So go back to the chart again if you would please.
In the sifting part he's doing numerous things at the same time.
According to that verse Jesus does the sifting.
The Holy Spirit does the burning.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
And then it says his referring to Jesus.
His winnowing fork is in his hand and he will clear his threshing floor.
Gathering the grain, separating out the straw and the chaff.
Which he will burn by the power of the Holy Spirit.
When we are being sifted there are things that are going to be separated out of our life.
I was going to say it could be painful to the flesh.
It's always painful to the flesh.
And when the old nature gets in pain it likes to play the blame game.
This in the sifting area is the spot we get offended.
We get offended with spouses.
We get offended with children.
We get offended with pastors.
We get offended with the church.
We get offended with God.
That's the point we want to blame someone else for what's happening.
It's happening in our life.
Because God is separating some things and trying to clean us up a bit.
So that he can prepare us for the next round of harvest.
You can't take grain in its harvested form and replant it.
If any of you are farmers this is like duh.
But they take the grain, they harvest it, they separate the chaff,
they separate the straw, they get just the grain
and then they will re-sift that again to get the weeds and everything out of it.
Before the next spring they plant it for the new harvest.
For us to continue to have harvests in our lives
we have to be sifted.
It's how the process works.
That sifting thing is rarely fun.
We thought we were changed by the harvest and we were.
God did some marvelous things in us
and now he's helping us to grow so we can house that.
That's the maturing part.
We can house what he just did in us.
But in order for the wineskin to handle the new wine that was just poured in
it has to be renewed.
In order for the cloth to not split under the enlargement
of what he just did in our life it has to be made new.
That takes place in the sifting part.
And he will sift on us and work on us
and that's where we decide if we're going to follow or not.
That's where many of us are right now.
There's things God wants us to do.
We know he wants us to do.
There's things he wants us to change in our life.
We're supposed to start handling life differently
making different types of choices and decisions
creating different priorities than we've had in the past.
And the old nature just goes,
I want nothing to do with that.
I like my life the way it is.
And the war is on.
For us to be able to be prepared, replanted so to speak
so a new harvest can come through us personally,
come through this church.
Something has to change from what we were last week,
last month, last year.
If we can't look back and say,
I am different than I was a year ago,
you have resisted this process.
And you've locked down and said I'm not going to be sifted
because that's where the change of how we live in this container,
how much control we let this container have,
that's where that's addressed.
It's in the sifting part.
And I really want to encourage you.
We keep talking about, oh, God's going to do great things,
great things are coming.
And I believe that with all my heart.
But before we as a corporate body,
before we as individuals are ready
for the next great harvest in our lives,
he has to sift us.
You realize that sifted grain,
before it can produce another harvest, it has to die.
Lest the grain of wheat fall on the ground and die,
it abides alone.
But if it dies,
now it will produce the next harvest.
That's the cycle.
That's how it works.
It works in us individually.
It works in us in our marriage.
It works in us in our family.
It works in our business.
It works in every area of a Christian's life.
I believe I've seen it work in non-Christian's life.
God is just working on it.
I'm trying to draw him closer so he can change him.
Don't pass through this season the same.
Don't resist what he's doing in you.
And I'm not calling tragedies,
or Mary was mentioning that in the last month,
for whatever reason,
and I've got speculation on it,
but there's no reason to go into speculation.
For whatever reason,
there is a huge push for people to die.
We're in the middle of it.
Physically die.
And I'm not talking die of old age,
die of natural causes.
I'm talking die of overdose, die of suicide.
She dealt with, I believe, four people this last week.
Who said, that's it, I'm done.
I'm just calling to say goodbye.
I'm killing myself.
Say what?
Last week it was seven.
Last week it was seven.
The week I was gone.
See now, that's just odd, don't you think?
Seven and four, eleven people in two weeks
saying I'm done with this.
I'm just going to kill myself.
I'm done.
In the last, well, this is probably five weeks into it.
So there was a month period of time
that seven people who have come through TBO's doors
died of overdoses.
It was just, now we're probably a week past that month,
but she told me before I left,
she said in the last month,
we've had seven people who sat in the seats
at TBO's die of overdoses.
What is that?
I'm not sure what that is,
but I can guarantee you,
every one of them was suffering pain,
was suffering wounds,
whether they wanted to kill themselves
or they overdosed, killed themselves that way,
whatever it is.
And any time we suffer those things,
we blame because we're offended.
We blame.
For this body, for the people at TBO,
for we are as a church preparing,
and I believe it's not word of life.
I believe this is a nationwide thing
that's happening by talking to some other ministers.
There is a preparation process underway
for the churches who will follow it
nationwide to get ready for what's coming.
And to get us ready, he has to sift us.
This is not the time to say,
it's because of you.
It's because of Pastor Verner, Pastor Mary,
that this problem is in my life.
It's because word of life teaches this stuff.
That's why I just so fed up with it
that I quit being offended and blaming out
and actually look in and say,
God, what are you trying to do in me?
This isn't an outward problem.
This is a God is trying to sift you,
change you, break off the stuff
that no longer needs to be there.
It's hindering you.
He wants to replant you.
That's part of preparation, by the way.
We usually think, oh, we're going to get
all these gifts and God's going to endow me
with the ability to lay hands on the sick
and everyone's going to be healed.
That's the preparation.
Well, it might be, but you know what?
You're going to have to die before any of that's going to happen.
Because a seed has to be planted and died
before it can produce harvest.
And sifting begins that death process.
I choose to surrender and follow
what you're asking me to do.
No turning back, I have decided to follow Jesus.
See, we're not the only generation who's had that.
That's an old hymn.
There's other generations that have faced the same thing.
It's a human nature thing.
I've decided to follow, I'm not going to turn back.
You say, well, what happens if I choose against God?
You're going to get the consequences of that.
Not that God is going to be angry and say,
well, I'm just going to smack him now.
No, he's trying to take you someplace
that will benefit your life and others around you.
When you refuse to go, you stay stuck in the same old problems.
And that's the consequences of it.
You just get stuck in the same old issues.
We've had this issue in our marriage for 13 years.
Yeah, somebody's not dying, somebody's not sifting.
Maybe both.
You're resisting the process
because he would have pulled you out of that years ago.
And we just keep struggling in the same you fill in the blank.
We're in the season now where he's saying,
I will take that out of you.
I will take that problem out of your way.
I will set you free and set you up
for new harvest in your life like you can imagine.
But we have to be willing to follow and submit.
So Lord, help us be willing to follow and submit.