We're going to do something here. I'm going to... I want the band to stay up here.
And there's something I feel the Lord is asking me to share.
So if you want to sit during that, then when we're done with me sharing a couple of principles here,
we're going to have the band repeat what they just sang.
And it might take on a little bit different meaning to you.
We are, as the body of Christ, not this church, as the body of Christ,
there is still a major shift happening in what he is leading us toward
and the outpouring of his spirit and what's coming in our future and so forth.
And it's not just about the moving of the Holy Spirit of the last days.
It's going to center around that, but there it's like a spoke, spokes on wheels.
It's going to affect many, many different things.
And the thing that happens too often in churches, in the body of Christ,
is we get locked down in the way we want to see things happen
or the way we're used to it happening, and we don't allow the Holy Spirit to lead us on.
And what comes out of that obviously is religion and tradition,
but ultimately what comes out of that, you miss where the Holy Spirit is going.
And whoever doesn't get on board, he just goes on without you.
This is explained in Scripture. I'm going to go to Matthew 11.
I'm not going to read everything here, but I'm going to bounce through some things.
Things were changing and so different with Jesus' ministry
that John the Baptist was questioning if he's the one.
Now he should have known he's the one.
I mean, if you go back and what happened with the water baptism and everything,
if anybody should have known Jesus was the one, it was John the Baptist.
However, he sent his disciples and asked, are you really the one?
Because there's some weird stuff going on that we haven't seen before in Israel.
And Jesus' answer was, he said, verse 5,
The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised,
the poor have the gospel preached to them.
So in other words, the things of God are moving, they're happening.
That'd be a good Scripture to bring up in most churches in America.
Are you really the one we're looking at? Well, tell them.
When you look at me, the blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear,
the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them.
How many churches in America do we have that happening?
Not my point this morning, but that's for free.
Verse 6, Jesus said, blessed is he who is not offended because of me.
See, it was so different that John is going, wow, what is this?
So we read on a little bit here, then Jesus talks about John some
and John's ministry and him being the forerunner
and being the one who prepares the way.
Verse 12, from the days of John the Baptist till now,
which wasn't long, that wasn't like 500 years,
that wasn't a long period of time.
But from that time, John the Baptist was ministering
to Jesus' ministering.
He said, the kingdom of heaven is suffering violence
and the violent take it by force.
Two different things going on, both dealing with violence.
All the prophets and the laws prophesied until John,
if you would receive this, verse 14,
he is Elijah who is to come.
He who has ears, let him hear.
Let him hear.
So now he thinks, you know, John is, they're going to take that back to John.
John's already questioning.
Now he's saying, by the way, John, you're Elijah, which was to come.
That will really stretch him.
So you talk about something new.
Verse 16.
He says, but here's the issue.
What do I compare this generation to?
It's like children sitting in the marketplace
and calling to their companions and saying,
so it's, this is how it used to happen.
We played the flute for you and you used to dance.
We mourned for you and you used to lament.
Now the problem is we play the flute for you
and you're not dancing.
We mourn for you and you do not lament.
This is new. What's going on?
Verse 18.
John came neither eating or drinking.
They say, oh yeah, you can't eat or drink.
That guy's got a demon.
Jesus came mixing with the people who had problems with alcohol
and wine-beer and tax collectors and sinners.
And they say, what's his problem?
So in other words, as God starts moving,
certain people will never be satisfied.
They will pick and they will criticize no matter what God does.
That is a trend of Jesus saying,
this is what this generation's like.
Things are shifting, they're changing.
We played the flute, nobody's dancing.
Huh, that's new.
We mourned, nobody's lamenting.
Huh, that's new.
John's living one way, that ain't good enough.
Jesus living another way, that ain't good enough.
What's going on?
A shift, if there was ever a shift on this earth when Jesus was here.
But the principles hold true.
So what did Jesus come out of that saying?
Verse 20, he began to rebuke the cities
which most of his mighty works had been done in.
Why?
Because they weren't accepting what Jesus was bringing.
It was new, it was different.
Even though the things Jesus laid out, he said, look what's happening.
This is all godly stuff that's happening.
The people weren't accepting it.
And he says, this is not good.
It's going to catch you on the day of judgment.
And now I'm just going to skip some things.
I'm going to jump down to chapter 13, verse 52,
because here's the principle that I want to drive in this morning.
When God, by his spirit, moves our command to stay and step with the spirit.
Walk with the spirit, stay and step with the spirit.
Galatians 6, we have to follow in.
When God shifts, he doesn't stay doing it the way he's always done it.
And here's the danger, it can go one or two ways.
We can do with what they were wrestling with with Jesus
and just reject the new stuff that's going on and say,
yeah, we're not following that. No, that's not God.
And lock down in our religion and tradition
and just not go there.
Or, like the verse we're about to read,
we take everything that we've learned from what God has done
and we throw it out because now he's doing a new thing.
Like that stuff back there was all worthless.
And you know where the balance is?
It's in the middle.
Christians love to get out of balance and hit the ditch.
When I was growing up, we would sing
two, maybe three hymns out of the hymnal.
We wouldn't sing all the verses in each hymn because that wasn't tradition.
We'd sing the first, sometimes the last,
if we were really into it the first, the third and the last.
And then we'd sing a couple of choruses
that started at 10 o'clock
and by 10, 15, 10, 20 that was done, period.
Then the charismatic move came
and these people threw all those rules out.
Well, that can't be God.
Let me ask you this.
There were lessons learned in Asusa Street, early 1900s
God's not doing it exactly that way anymore
but there were lessons learned of how the spirit moves in the early 1900s.
Do we remember any of them?
Or did we just throw them all out when the healing move came?
There was lessons learned in the healing move,
in the charismatic move, in the faith move.
There was lessons learned.
Is the healing move like it was in the 50s?
Is that still going? No.
Is the charismatic move in the late 60s and 70s still going the way it was? No.
Is the faith move going the way it was? No.
God moves on,
but we have to be very cautious not to...
There's an old saying I grew up with,
not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
You know, we get so excited about getting the old water out
that we don't pay attention to what's going with the old water.
And we just throw the precious things away also.
There was things that were learned in the healing move of the 50s
that still apply today.
Do we have any clue what they are?
There were things learned in the charismatic move.
Do we have any idea what they were?
No, it's not being done like it happened in the charismatic move.
But do we have any idea what those lessons were?
There were things learned in the faith move.
Do we have any idea what they are?
Most of us would probably have to say,
no, I probably don't know one lesson that was learned.
That's the danger in the other ditch.
Let me read it to you.
Jesus in chapter 13.
All parables from the beginning.
Parable of the sower, this is how the kingdom works.
The purpose of parables, he explains it.
It was for the future salvation of Israel.
If you tie it to Romans 11.
Parable of the sower explained, so this is what it's like.
The parable of the wheat and the tares.
He's talking about growth. He's talking about movement
and how then when God's spirit moves, everything moves,
including the demonic realm, they're going to get involved too.
Parable of the mustard seed. Don't give up when God moves.
Even though it might be a small thing that starts and you let that baby grow
and nurture it, because it will become a huge, huge tree
that will do great things in your life.
Watch out for leaven.
Parable of the leaven. Watch out for leaven.
Don't let little things that shouldn't be in your life stay there
because they will grow too.
Parable of the tares. He explained it.
Verse 36. Verse 44.
Again, the kingdom is like a hidden treasure.
You go find it. Verse 45.
The parable of the pearl of great price.
If you want these things where God's going, you're going to have to pursue them.
You're going to have to seek them.
Parable of the dragnet as you go...
That's verse 47.
As you go pursuing and seeking these things
and giving yourself over to God,
you're going to gather all kinds of things.
Some of them are good.
Some of them you need to let go of.
But...
Verse 52.
Then he said to them.
Therefore, what for?
Everything he just said.
This is how it works when God moves.
Therefore,
every scribe or teacher, depending upon what translation you're reading,
instructed concerning the kingdom of heaven
is like
a householder who brings out his treasure,
things new
and things old.
When you're dealing with heaven
and you're instructing about
the kingdom of God and heaven and that whole thing,
there's going to be new things that need to be dealt with.
There's going to be old things that need to be dealt with.
Chapter 11.
They didn't want any of the new things.
They wanted to stick with the old things
and just, we're not changing.
This is how we've always done it.
This is what we're comfortable with.
And we're not changing.
Chapter 13.
Jesus goes through numerous parables
and says this is how it's going to walk out
as I work in your life.
But in the end,
you must hang on to the new
where the spirit's going
and you must hang on to the lessons of the old.
You have to bring both out
if you're going to stay balanced.
Like I said, we used to have
15 minutes of worship max
and then we'd move on
because the service had to be over in an hour.
Well, I really like that.
That's nice.
But you know what?
The Holy Spirit ain't there anymore.
That might have been great for then.
Might have been exactly what God wanted.
But you know what?
He's not there anymore.
And if we don't move with Him,
He will leave us out
and go to a people who will.
There are new things
that God is emphasizing
and taking us into
and we have to go with them.
Mary's going to talk about some this morning.
However, we don't take the lessons
that we learned in faith.
We don't take the lessons that we learned
in the charismatic move.
And there were some good ones
and there were some bad ones.
And it's like, hang on to the good.
Don't do that.
The charismatic moves known
for getting really weird.
Casting demons out of
windows, panes and door knobs
and your car didn't start
so the kingdom of darkness
has settled under the hood in your car
and they'd hold prayer meetings over the car.
Maybe just put some gas into it
that might make it run.
Just weird things.
Even in ministry,
there was weird things that happened.
If you didn't throw up,
you didn't have a demon cast out.
That's not what we hold on to.
But there were some good things
like the understanding of flowing in the spirit,
the gifts of the spirit being revived,
being able to flow with God.
That came out of the charismatic move
that we hold on to.
So the whole point is this.
As God continues to shift
his worldwide church,
there's going to be things he's going to lead us into
that are going to challenge us.
They're going to challenge our traditions.
They're going to challenge our religion.
They're going to challenge our comfort zone,
our convenience.
They're going to challenge us.
That's God.
That's God because his mercies are new
every morning.
Which means he's doing something new
every day.
So we have to learn to flow
with what God is,
even though it's going to be like,
that's different, that's weird.
We've never seen it like that before.
But at the same time,
we can't let go of the valuable
godly lessons that were taught to us
over the last few hundred years.
You know, some of the best books to read
are the ones that were written by ministers in the 1800s.
Oh, we're so far past them.
Are we?
Really? Are we?
Kind of arrogant talk is that.
They knew things that we have
long since forgotten,
but would be very valuable.
So we need to take the holy things
that God showed them,
and we need to hang on to the holy things
God is showing us,
and keep our focus right here.
And keep growing and walking
and believing and learning.
Because the last thing
that I want to happen is we miss
where God's going.
We're not going to miss this.