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Content from The Book of Ephesians, chapter 5 on how Christians should think about celebrating with wisdom.
At Sandals Church, our vision is to be real with ourselves, God and others. This channel features sermons and teaching from Pastor Matt Brown and other members of the Sandals Church preaching team. You can find sermon notes, videos and more content at http://sandalschurch.com/watch
Thanks for tuning in to the Sandals Church podcast. Our vision as a church is to be real with ourselves, god, and others. We're glad you're here, and we hope you enjoy this message.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Hi, guys. Merry Christmas. I wanna start off with a question. If I say a word, I want you to think of whatever comes to your mind. Now don't say it out loud because you might be embarrassed.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:K? But I'm gonna say a word, and I just want you to think about what word comes to your mind privately to yourself. The word is alcohol. If I say alcohol, what comes to your mind? Like, if you're, if you're like a teenager, you're like someday.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Right? That's the word that comes to your mind. For some of you, it's fun. Oh, man. Great times.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:For some of us, it's regret. Oh, man. Some of us, it's embarrassment. For some people in our church, the word is loss. Oh, I I I lost a loved one.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I was having dinner this week with one of my good friends, and I said, how long ago did your mom die? And he's my age. He said, 30 years ago. He said, she died from alcoholism. He said, my mom was younger than than us.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And so for a lot of us, whenever we say this word, it means all kinds of things. And during the Christmas season, more alcohol is purchased during this time than any other time. And so as Christians, we need to have a theology of alcohol. What should I believe about it? How should I use it?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You know, what is it for me? And so today, I wanna talk about a different way to celebrate. We're gonna look at a very difficult passage for some of you, especially if you're new to Christianity or thinking about becoming a Christian. I just want to start with this. Anything God teaches is for your benefit.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You get to decide whether you listen or not, and you get to pay the consequence for being obedient or not. Now that's on you. But God says, hey. I love you. Here's my wisdom for this area.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And so we're gonna begin in Ephesians chapter 5, verse 15 to 20, just 5 verses that will change the way you celebrate. So Ephesians 5 15 through 20. So be careful how you live. Don't live like fools. Some of you are really good at that.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Amen? Like, you've nailed it. You are get an a in foolishness. Don't live like fools, but like those who are wise. I mean, does anybody in here have a friend, a relative that you just can't believe they can keep a job?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Amen? Yeah. And if you don't have that friend, it's you. Everybody's like, how does he keep his job? How does she keep her job?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So don't live like fools, but live like those who are wise. Listen to this. Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. I wonder what Paul would think about our days. If he thought his days were evil, what are these days where the world is literally changing upside down?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Right is wrong and wrong is right. Everything is backwards. He says, Don't act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do. Don't be drunk with wine, he says. Why?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Because that will ruin your life. Instead, the Bible says, be filled with the Holy Spirit. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs amongst yourselves and making music to the Lord in your hearts. Okay? That's how I sing in my heart.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Because if I sing with my mouth, you're not gonna think of God. You'll think of the devil and everything awful and evil. But we're to sing in our hearts and give thanks for everything to God, the father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. I wanna talk about a different way to celebrate. Now let me just say this.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:As Christians, we should celebrate. We shouldn't be boring. We shouldn't be angry. Like, I believe church should be the best hour of your week. We should learn to celebrate.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:We should learn to have a good time. But as Christians, I need to think about how God wants me to celebrate. Like, you're all headed for parties. You're all headed for, you know, end of the year parties, New Year's parties. All of these things are coming, And you need to be thinking about how am I gonna handle this?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Because here's the number one reason I think Christians blow it. They don't have a plan. They don't have a plan. They don't think about things before they happen. And many of us pay the consequences.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Most mistakes simply become simply happen because you didn't plan. You didn't have a contingency plan. You need to say, okay, what am I gonna do if so Ephesians 5 16. So be careful how you live. Look, you can blow it.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:There was a young lady in our church who, she went to a party, she got drunk one time. This is what she told me. She said, What's the worst thing that can happen? Well, it did. And it wrecked her life.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It wrecked her life. And so we need to understand that God is going to give us the freedom to make decisions, but we get to experience the consequence for those decisions. He says don't live like fools, but like those who are wise. Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. These are evil days.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So many of you are like, I don't understand why God allowed this to happen. These are evil days. Don't, Ephesians 5 17 says, don't act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do. And this is about how we party, how we celebrate, how we let off some steam. So here's 4 great questions I wanna challenge all of you, regardless of your age, to ask yourself when you're ready to celebrate.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Number 1, where should I go? Location is everything. If you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, you are gonna face terrible consequences. Where should I go? So many Christians, you feel social pressure to be somewhere that's not safe.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Okay? Here's the question when I go somewhere. Should I be here? One of the first times I remember God speaking to me, I was in college and I was drunk, and I went in to use the restroom. K?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And if you don't know why that is, you've never been drunk, right? Because you've taken all those fluids and it's gotta come out. I went into the restroom, I looked in the mirror, and I heard God say right to my face in the mirror, why are you here? I wasn't happy. I wasn't having a good time, and I didn't feel loved, and I didn't feel known.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:God said, should you be here? That's the first thing that God spoke to me. The next week, I was in church. And then before you know it, I was changing my life and I was following God. But the first question I heard, or first statement I heard from God was a question.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Should I be here? And let me just say this. If you're a Christian and you feel like you're someplace, you know, and you're not comfortable, that is the Holy Spirit saying, get out of here. This is not safe. When Tammy and I were at college, we just started dating.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And a bunch of my friends, you know, had a party. I knew there would be alcohol, but I said, I'm not gonna drink. K? I changed my life. I'm not drinking anymore, but we're just gonna show up.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Right? We're gonna be Jesus to everyone else. K? That is usually the first sentence before you're really stupid. That's what Christians say.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And so we went to this party, and my wife said I mean, she was my girlfriend at the time. She said, I feel uncomfortable. And I said, okay. And we left. You know, right after we left, someone else came to the party who wasn't invited, and they robbed everybody at gunpoint.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Man, that's the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was speaking to my girlfriend at the time, who is my wife, and she said, I feel like we need to leave. 1 of the women that stayed there got pistol whipped at that party. It was scary. Nobody knew them.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Nobody knew where they came from, but they heard about the party. And listen to me, young people. In the day and age of social media, everybody knows, and many of those people are people you don't want to know, where you are and the party that you're having. You know, social media, you know what it does? Invites the world to your life, and people can know where you are, and maybe somebody that you don't ever wanna meet would show up.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So be thinking about this. Next, if you're a Christian, I want you to ask this. If you're throwin' a party, who should I invite? We worship a God who invites. So many of you, man, there are people in our church that are lonely, people in our church that would love to come to your house, love to know somebody.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You know what we did on Thanksgiving? We had Thanksgiving with Australians. They don't even know what Thanksgiving is. Amen? They don't know how to be thankful.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:They're not grateful at all in Australia. K? Kidding. I love them. But, you know, they they don't they don't have that holiday, but they're still sitting at home.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You know? Nothing's open. Nobody's talking to them. Everybody's around, you know, a table eating delicious turkey. And and if you deep fry it, I'm praying for you.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I don't understand that. I love a baked turkey. Pray about it. The holy spirit will lead you. Amen?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:But I want you to think about this this Christmas. Who should we invite? I mean, think about the first Christmas. We have shepherds. They smell.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:We have wise men been sitting on camels. Anybody ever met a camel? They smell like urine. Do you know why that is? They pee on themselves.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:K? It's the way it's it's God's version of air conditioning in the desert. It's disgusting. But those are the people that God brought in the middle of a barn while Jesus lay in a feeding trough. K?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Not a cute little manger. It's the place where the animals ate. That's where Jesus laid, full of saliva and snitch. And here's the next thing I wanna encourage you to ask. When you're at a party, you know, we had a staff Christmas party this this last week at Sandals, and and my wife and I, at the end, we kept asking, who didn't you see?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Who didn't show? You know one of the greatest gifts you could give to somebody this Christmas is just sending a text message or calling them and saying, hey, I didn't see you at church. Hey, I missed you at small group. Hey, we had that party. I would've loved if you were If you would've come.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Are you okay? And oftentimes, man, that little invitation, that little follow-up will change somebody's life. Because there are literally thousands of people at this church that are saying, I don't know that I matter. I don't know that I'm invited. I don't know that I'm apart.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And let me say this. The bigger sandals gets, the harder it is to connect and push in. Now, for those of you who are in, you need to know not everybody has that experience. And so, you know, where am I gonna go? I need to I need to pray about my plans.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:If you're somewhere where you are uncomfortable, should I be here? And let me say this. Don't be afraid to speak up. Tammy and I were, driving with a friend in the car. We were on vacation, and he was driving erratic.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And it was making my wife uncomfortable. And here's the thing. These are all adults in the car. And listen to me, adults. Sometimes, we don't practice the very same thing we tell our kids.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You know what I tell my kids? If you're ever in the car with somebody that you think is drunk, call me. I'll come get you. No consequence. K?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Because because we can fix that kinda mistake. I can't fix a dead kid. I can't fix that. And here's what I told myself. I said, what would I ask my kids to do?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:As adults, we face peer pressure too. And I told my friend, I need you to pull over right now. I need you to pull over. I didn't know my friend had a drinking problem. I thought we were all drinking orange juice for breakfast.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:He was drinking vodka and orange juice. I didn't know that. It was 9 in the morning. Right? Who's drunk at 9 in the morning?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Well, some people are. And so I had to challenge him. Hey. Give me the keys. And he did.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Now I embarrassed him. I embarrassed his wife. I probably embarrassed my wife, but everybody else felt safer and everybody at the end. And let me just say this. You know, people want people to be brave, but nobody in the moment, you know, celebrates you.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:They come later, like, oh, thank you so much for doing that. Appreciate it. Just know people are chickens, but I would rather you be the one brave one and come home alive. So I just wanna encourage you. Don't be afraid to speak out and tell your friends, hey, you've been drinking too much.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You know? And a lot of times, drunk people don't think that they've been drinking too much. Take their keys. Say, I love you, but I I don't think you should drive today. And I'm passionate about that because, you know, just a couple days ago, we would have celebrated my mom's best friend's daughter's 46th birthday, but she died at 4 because she was hit and killed by a drunk driver in a car.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And so that's something that's passionate for me. It's something that's important to me. You know, I would love to call Lindsay today and say happy birthday, happy 46th. But she didn't get a 5th birthday, a 6th birthday, or a 7th birthday because somebody, you know, had too much to drink and got in a car and drove. And so as a Christian, we need to say, okay, I need a different way to celebrate.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Number 2. As a Christian, I need to find ways to celebrate that don't ruin my life. Amen? Right? What happens in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It comes home with you all the time. And by the way, just drive around Vegas. Get off the Strip. You go one street over, and you will see what happens to people that party all the time. It's terrible.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It's awful. Don't be fooled by the bright lights. Go one street over, and you will see people's lives who've been ruined. Ephesians 5:18. Don't be drunk with wine.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Why? Because God hates you? Because he doesn't want you to have a good time? No. Because God loves you, because that will ruin your life.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So let me just talk about life. Parents, here's what you need to tell your kids. Life is hard. Get over it. Amen?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It's hard. It's difficult. I don't wanna hear about your homework. You wanna see my homework? Right?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It never ends. You're a part of my homework. It's challenging. Life is hard. Listen to me.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And it's okay. It's okay to let loose. Amen? K? Foot loose.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Just like just like Kevin Bacon. Let it loose. Hang out. It's okay to have a good time. God is not against you having a good time.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:He just wants you to do it differently. Life is hard. It's okay to let loose. I mean, that's why God gives us a Sabbath. We can enjoy God.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:We can enjoy life. The prohibition is not against no alcohol. The prohibition is against being drunk. One of my favorite billboards on the 210 as you're going to Los Angeles, it's the Coors manufacturing plant, has a big sign that says think when you drink. Some of you can't think even though you haven't drunk.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Amen? When you think, when you drink, it makes it harder to think. You can't process. That's why it affects driving. K?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So life is hard. It's okay to let loose. Let's not be, you know, a bunch of fuddy duddies not celebrating. Man, we had a staff party, this last week, and I I don't know if somebody put alcohol in the punch, but it got a little crazy. Amen?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And was any of you guys in there? We had a snowball fight with cellophane. It was like, I was like, oh my gosh. Like, you know, I don't know if you've ever been to a party where it's like, okay. This is gonna turn into a professional wrestling event.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:But, like, we were super close to, like, chairs being slammed on backs. It was it was nuts, but we we had a good time. We had a great time. And as far as I know, no one was drunk. And if you know that someone was drunk, please let me know.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Okay. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. So, life is hard. It's okay to let loose.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Life is hard. But listen to me, alcohol can make it worse. It can make it worse. Let me just confess. Do you see my mouth?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I have a hard time operating this. If you put a little alcohol on this thing, like if we pour alcohol on this container, this gets out of control. Like, it's super funny, and my wife doesn't like it at all. One of the worst fights we ever got on, we were on our 10th year anniversary, and we were on an island in the middle of Pacific Ocean that didn't have refrigeration. So, like, your yogurt was like water for breakfast.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. You're like, I'll just drink this. It was horrible. And we went to a fancy restaurant where they had ice cold beer. We'd been out on the beach all day long.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I'm not a big drinker. And they said, do you want a beer? It's ice cold. I said, yep. Threw it down.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Do you want another one? Without thinking, Yep. And all of a sudden, I was floating. I was floating. I was feeling good.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And I was just sharing to Tammy all of the funny jokes that I'd been saving up for the past year. Here's the sad thing. I don't even know what I said. She got up, walked out of the restaurant, took a cab, and went home. I came home, and I said, knocking on the door.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:She said, go sleep somewhere else. I was like, we're on an island. I don't know what I said, and that's a problem. Listen to me. If you have a hard time controlling your behavior, if you have a hard time controlling your mouth, alcohol does not help.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It makes it worse. K? If you're not a good decision maker, pray about it. Alcohol makes you worse. So life is hard.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It's okay to let loose. Alcohol can make life that's hard worse. Listen to me. Life is hard, and addiction will make it impossible. Okay, we don't have a homeless problem in the state of California.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:We have an addiction problem. It is huge. And so many of these people are literally addicted to something. We don't know what it is. Now, I'm not saying they haven't hit hard times.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I'm not saying we shouldn't have compassion. I'm not saying mental illness is a real challenge. I'm just saying this. Addiction is the demon in the room nobody wants to address. So let me give you some statistics.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:The these are these are hard and fast, scientific proven researched over and over statistics. If you're a human being, raise your hand. K. About half of you. So hopefully hopefully, those watching on video, you raised your hand.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:In the studio, some people weren't sure. If you're a human being, you know, I'm glad you're here. Everyone here is one of those. 1 third of you will have no addictive qualities at all. So what that means, if I injected you with heroin, which sounds terrible, but this is a fake illustration, you would get high and never have a desire to do it again.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Some people just they just aren't addicted. They don't have a problem with sugar. They don't have a problem with chocolate. They don't have a problem with alcohol. Some people are completely averse to addiction.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:One third of you. Next, one third of you, you have moderate levels of addiction. You might struggle. You're like, yeah. I eat a little too much, pastor.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You know? Like, you can never pass chocolate by. It calls you Matthew. Right? It calls you.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So some of you, you you can get addicted to things, sports, sugar, you know, pornography, you know, but you're not you're not an addict. You have a moderate tendency towards addiction. And what I would say with this is you wrestle with it, but you're aware. You're you know, you're aware. You're like, this is how you know if you have a moderate addiction.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. I I need to cut back. Then 1 third of you have a serious struggle with addictive tendencies. This is why when you go to an AA meeting, people are down in coffee and smoking cigarettes like it's the last one, talking about sobriety. They have an addictive personality, and they may have temporarily kicked alcohol or drugs or whatever it is, but they're smoking chains like their fingers are gonna fall off.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:They're drinking coffee like there's no end. This is our culture. So here's what I want you to hear from me. You have a 30% chance, roughly, of having no problem with addiction at all. You have a 60% chance or greater that you are going to struggle with some level of addiction.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So if you fall in those last two categories, you have to be especially careful with anything that's pleasurable. Sex, sugars, foods, alcohol or drugs. Gambling. Anything that gives you a temporary buzz, a temporary high, you have to really, really watch this if it's you. So here's the thing where Christians go wrong.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Christians, some say you shouldn't drink ever. That's the tradition I grew up in. K? There's gonna be Baptist women in heaven who are afraid Jesus is sinning because he's having a glass of wine. Amen?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And they're gonna have a little meeting. Somebody should go talk to Jesus. He needs to put that down. I'm not sure he's perfect anymore. Right?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That's gonna be them. So that's the world I grew up in. And then there's the other world where, you know, maybe you grew up Catholic or Lutheran and your pastor or your, priest was an alcoholic. And that's just a reality. Because in some of those traditions, you can't dump the wine out.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Once it's blessed, you gotta chug it. That's helpful. Right? It's a it's a problem. And so we just need to know, you know, no matter where you come here's what the Bible says.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It says it says don't be drunk. Drunkenness is never good. It doesn't say that you can't enjoy a glass of wine, you can't have a beer, you can't relax. It just says if it's a problem, it's gonna ruin your life. And God says, I love you, and I I God wants you to know that He died to save your life, not to destroy it.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So here's what I would encourage you. Stop numbing your pain and start dealing with it. Listen to me very carefully. Addiction is never the problem. It's always the wrong solution.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Always the wrong solution. You don't have an alcohol problem. You don't have a porn problem. You don't have a sex addiction problem. You have some pain inside of you that that temporarily numbs it and makes it go away for a second.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Instead of saying, I need a drink, say this. I need a better solution. I need to figure out how to deal with this marriage that's hurting me, this relationship that's messed with me, this trauma that I haven't processed. I need to deal with those things. Then you can celebrate and be who God's called you to be.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So all alcohol does is it temporarily numbs you. And for a lot of us, let's be honest, man, the only reason you're drinking is you don't wanna be at the party anyways. Amen? You're like, I just gotta be drunk to put up with all these people. Some of you are laughing.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. Parties are uncomfortable. Like, it's a weird thing. There's a lot of pressure. Like, guys just own it.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Get on your phone, find a corner, and chill. Amen? That's what we do. That's that's how you're cool. Yeah.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Come on, guys. What are we doing? Get out of the corner. Say hi to some people. But we all need a different way to celebrate.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Number 3. As a Christian, I need to learn to party with the spirit of God. Some of you don't realize this. Man, one of my favorite passages in the Bible is Acts chapter 2. When the Holy Spirit falls down, people are like, these guys are drunk.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And the apostle Paul says, no. No. No. No. It's only 9 AM.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That is the funniest verse in the Bible. No, no. Later, we're gonna get hammered. No, that's not what he's saying. But it's only 9 AM.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:But here's the thing. When people saw people filled with the Spirit, they assumed they were drunk. And this is the problem of the world. When they look at us as Christians, they don't see anything fun. And so they turn to everything that Vegas has, everything that alcohol has, everything that drugs have.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Here's what you need to know. Jesus is inviting you to a party forever. It's gonna be an amazing, amazing party. He calls it paradise. He calls it the great feast.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:He calls it the wedding banquet. These are all things of celebration. You have no idea how good God is. And let me say this. A party with God is always better than the party you're at.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Like, some of you I mean, how many of you guys ever been to a club? Anybody ever been to a club? Yeah. There's a couple honest people. Some of you guys are like, no, pastor.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I stay at home praying reading my bible for you, and then I post it on Instagram so everyone else will know what I was doing. I I hate clubs. First of all, you can't see. People smell. People are drunk, and you can't hear.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Amen? What? Yeah. Okay. Right on.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It's awful. You cannot have a conversation. You can't talk with people. You're just like that's it. That's it.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:What are you doing, man? I mean, one of the things I love to do is to connect with people. I love to talk with people. I love to hang out with people. I hate leaving a place where my eardrums are still going till 2 in the morning.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I can't stand that. And some of you are young and are like, I don't understand what that is. It's coming. It's coming. So Ephesians 5 1820.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Don't be drunk with wine because that will what? Ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Look, God doesn't wanna ruin your life. God wants to bless your life.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:God wants to save your soul. God wants to empower you. Listen to what he says. He says singing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs amongst yourselves. You know what that is?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:When you sing to yourself, you're happy. When you sing to yourself, you're feeling good. One of my favorite things when we would feed our oldest daughter when she was little, you know, I always thought Madison was gonna be on the worship team. When she would eat, she would sing. Anybody have a kid that does that?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Like, you I don't even know what the song was. She would just make it up. I'm like, what are you singing? She's like, I don't know, but it feels good. You know?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And she's just having a great time, enjoying life. Think about that. She was eating a bowl of Cheerios, celebrating. Happier than anybody in Vegas. She didn't lose any money.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Amen? Just having a good time. You know, just all over the place, flinging Cheerios, milk. You know, it was just it was just a great time. That's what God wants to bless you with.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:If you have to go somewhere to have a good time, you're missing out. God wants you to be able to have a good time wherever you are. Like, that's what life is. It says, making music to the Lord in your hearts. In your hearts.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, some of you, look, I love you, but you're full of alcohol. Some of you, praise God, full of the spirit. Anybody? And some of you are full of something else that caught you a little slow.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:But I wanna challenge you to be full of the spirit. Here's a different way to celebrate. The holy spirit can give me a couple things, a better attitude, number 1, towards life. You know what's wrong with our world? Everybody has a bad attitude.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Everybody's discouraged. Everybody's upset. I was talking to a pastor friend of mine, and we were just talking about how to navigate a culture where everybody's so angry. Do you know why you're so angry? Because you're empty of the holy spirit, and you're full of a different spirit.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You know when your friends say, well, I'm a spiritual person. Not every spirit is good. Some spirits are evil. The holy spirit is the spirit of God and he loves you. Ephesians 423.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. So many of you guys at Christmas or the holidays, you get depressed, you get sad. You know, maybe you're not married. Maybe you have a broken relationship with a family member. Maybe it's your 1st Christmas without your spouse.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Man, these are difficult, difficult times if we're not where we wanna be. Let the holy spirit renew your attitude. One of my favorite people at our church, she's so sweet. She lost her husband a couple years ago, and she works at See's Candy. She's a widow.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And I asked her, I said, I said, why do you work at See's Candy? You know what she told me? She said, the holidays are really hard for me. So what I wanna do, she said, I wanna be a part of celebrating it with as many people as possible. And so she sells seized candy, which by the way is made by Jesus.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:K? If you're thinking about a gift, I'm not saying what you should get, but I love seized candy. That's all I'm saying. Dark chocolate. Right?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Because that was made by Christ. Anyways, but I love me some seized candy. Next, the holy spirit can give me new strength for my struggles. You don't have to struggle alone. You don't have to be alone.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Every single one of you is a container. You were made to be filled by the spirit of God. You will either be filled by him or something else. We all struggle. We all feel alone.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:We all have battles that we face. We all battle discouragement. We all battle depression. Remember, life is hard. Life is hard.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:People are hard. Have you met a person? They're very, very difficult. Ephesians 3 16. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources, he will empower you with inner strength through what?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:His spirit. There's more power than you know. I mean, look, look at we're all out of power. I mean, every time I go into the gas station to get a drink, I'm amazed at how many energy drinks there are. Like, at some point, there's gonna be, like, one water bottle and just heroin in a can.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Right? That's what it's gonna be. It's like, good god, man. How many monster drinks? And none of them sound great.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Like, yeah, they they all have these these these definitions that are just scary. You know? I'm I keep waiting for the energy drink that just says possessed. Like, that's just what it is. Like, but we don't need that.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:We need an inner strength. Next, the Holy Spirit will give you more power in your prayers. Ephesians 16, 618, pray in the spirit at all times and on every occasion. I don't know about you guys, but sometimes when I'm praying, my mind wanders. Sometimes I have a hard time staying focused.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Sometimes I'm just I'm just forgetful to pray. The holy spirit can help you pray. Listen to what he says. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere. How do we pray?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:We pray in the spirit. And all you need to do is say, holy spirit, help me. Help me talk to God. And that's what the Holy Spirit wants to do in your life, help you talk to God. So here's the question.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:How do I get the Holy Spirit in my life? Now, this is gonna be some theological teaching. So if you're new to Christianity, this is just gonna make sense. But if you're raised in a church somewhere else, I'm gonna teach you what we believe at Sandals. So here's what we believe at Sandals.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:The moment you become a Christian, you have the holy spirit in your life. Those who have Jesus have the spirit. Every single believer has the Holy Spirit in them the moment they come to Christ. That's what we believe. That's what we teach.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:If you're new to Christianity, just know there's a bazillion different churches that disagree with me. K? But I'm right, and they can pray about it. Amen? Just sing.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Ephesians 2 18. Remember, we're in the book of Ephesians. Now to all of us. To whom? All of us.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Now all of us can come to the father through the same Holy Spirit. Why? Because of what Christ has done for us. How do we receive the Spirit? We invite Jesus Christ into our lives.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That's how we receive the Holy Spirit. But here's the thing. Some of you are like, well, I don't feel the Spirit. I don't feel his power. I don't feel his energy.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:The holy spirit is a person. The holy spirit is the 3rd person of the trinity, the relational God that we worship, and here's the thing is you can offend him. K? He will never leave you, but you can offend him, and you will not experience all of the power that he has. So here's what I wanna challenge you to do.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Get rid of this sin that keeps me from the Spirit's power. Now, if you've ever felt the spirit's power, you know when it's gone. It's why David in the Old Testament says, Do not remove your holy spirit from me. Because he knows what it's like to live in the spirit, and he knows what it's like to lose the spirit's power. So here's how you lose the Holy Spirit's power in your life.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Paul says this in Ephesians 4:30. All of these verses are in Ephesians, everything that I'm teaching you. And do not bring sorrow to God's Holy Spirit. How? By the way you live.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You see, the way we live and the sins we do can grieve the holy spirit. And when the holy spirit is grieved, we do not receive his full power, his full strength in our lives. He doesn't leave you, but he's not empowering you. And this is the best illustration I can give. If I've grieved my wife, we're still married, but we're not right.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Unfortunately, there have been many times when we've gone to bed back to back, shoulders tucked, looking the other way. And here's what you need to know. We worship a relational God. Relationship is all about love. Do you know what love's about?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Love is about intimacy. And if you're struggling in any relationship, and you're like, well, I love this person, but we're not right, it's because you lack intimacy. And here's why. You know what you have to have to have intimacy? Honesty.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You have to confess and say, hey. Here's what happened. Here's how I'm feeling. Here's what I did. Here's what I'm going through.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Here's what I'm feeling. If you wanna feel the spirit of God, if you wanna be empowered by the Spirit of God, here's what you need to do. You need to get rid of the sin in your life that's keeping His power from you. Some of you guys, the reason you can't fix your marriage is you're trying to fix it yourself. You need the Holy Spirit.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:If you're single, the reason you can't manage whatever it is that you're struggling with or wrestling with is because you're trying to do it on your own. You don't have to do it on your own. Invite the Holy Spirit into your life. If you're battling depression, if you're battling anxiety, man, that's like half our church. Invite the Holy Spirit to come into your life.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And for me, anxiety is almost always when I just lack trust and faith in God. My anxiety almost always is about the things I can't fix and I can't control. You know who can fix things? You know who can control things? God.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And so when I hand those to him, it's amazing how my anxiety just drops. You know what my depression, when I get depressed, oftentimes it's because my life isn't what I want. You know when it goes away when I say, God, what do you want? What do you want from my life? The first verse was, don't be thoughtless about your life, but ask what God wants you to do.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I'm depressed because I'm not living out my dream. Man, you know what I'm encouraged? When I'm living out God's dream for my life. It's amazing. So what I wanna do right now is if you're not a Christian, you need to come forward at the end of service today.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You just need to come on forward and say, I want I want to invite Christ. Because you cannot have the Spirit without the Son. You can't have Him. You gotta have Jesus first. But for some of you, you're a Christian and you know you've been sinning.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You know you've been wrestling. You know you've been struggling. And I hear this all the time, I don't feel God. I don't sense God. I don't see God.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Well, here's the thing, God is here, God is moving, God is present. God is not the problem. What is happening in your life that is keeping you from God? And some of you, you might just need to come forward for preparing and say, I don't know. I don't know what I'm doing.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And And that's okay. We can ask God, God, what is it? God, what is it that's keeping me from you? And I believe the Holy Spirit will reveal that to us today. But I wanna encourage you all, have a great time this Christmas, have a great holiday.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Man, if you're a Christian and you got friends and your life is full, would you just pray about, who do I need to invite? Who needs to be at my table this Christmas? Man, and if you haven't seen somebody at church in a while, send them a text. I miss you. You doing okay?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Where have you been? Because so many people in our world today feel unseen. They don't feel missed. And the greatest gift you can give to them this Christmas is just a text message, I haven't seen you in a while. I love you.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I'd love to see you back. And here's what my wife and I do when we invite people to church, come sit with me. Come sit with us. That is such a powerful, powerful tool to share with somebody how much you love them. So let's bow our heads and close our eyes.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So let's just ask the Holy Spirit right now. Holy Spirit, is there something in my life that's keeping me from Your power, that's keeping me just from your strength, that's keeping me from your blessing and giftedness? Holy Spirit, just reveal that to me. What is it right now? Is it a broken relationship?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Is it an addiction? Is it an emotion? Am I angry? Am I depressed? Am I anxious?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:God, what is it that's keeping me from your full power and the full expression of your spirit in my life? Now I want you all to do something. Just lift your hands up, and I'm just gonna pray the Holy Spirit over you. The Holy Spirit doesn't wanna make you weird. He wants to make you right.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So let me just pray this spirit over all of you. Heavenly Father, because you sent our Son your Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us on the cross, we can have your Spirit. And Jesus, you promised that whenever we ask for your Holy Spirit, that you would always give him to us. And so we ask right now for your Spirit on our lives, over our hearts, in our families, in our homes. God, fill our spirits.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:God, fill us with his energy, his power, his strength. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Morgan Teruel:Thanks for listening to the Sandals Church podcast. Our vision here is to be real with ourselves, God, and others. At Sandals Church, we wanna see a movement of authenticity take place all over the world, and donating to the work of Sandals Church helps make that happen. If you wanna support this movement here at Sandals Church, I wanna invite you to visit donate.sc. Thanks again for listening, and God bless.