Welcome to the Bridge Church Greenbrier podcast where we connect all people to the person,
power and purpose of Jesus.
Wherever you are listening from, we're so glad that you are joining us.
Now let's listen to this week's message.
Again, good morning.
Thank you for being here.
For those that do not know me, my name is Scott and I serve as the executive pastor
at Bridge Church and it has been my honor to have been on staff for the last twenty-five
years or more here at Bridge Church and so, thank you, you're too kind.
You're wondering why in the world they let this guy hang around that long, I know.
But it has been an honor and I think one of the greatest honors it has been is to
see the history of Bridge Church and just to have the perspective of what God has done
over those years and I've actually been with Bridge for twenty-seven, been on staff
for twenty-five, so I was in the home groups that were meeting and there was just
a handful of us, my wife and I, meeting in those home groups and I think the first
home group was about sixteen, I think we got, you know, at the end of those home
groups was sixty or seventy people meeting before we had our first official launch.
But to see where we are now as three campuses with over seventeen hundred people on a weekly
attendance coming to Bridge Church is just amazing and I am so grateful for great campus
pastors such as the pastors that we have here at Greenbrier, Pastor Jed and Pastor
Allison, can you give them a hand, even though they're not here, let them hear it wherever
they are.
They have done an amazing job and it's just, it's a delight to be around people that just
have passion and energy and enthusiasm for the things of God. I've been around a lot
of people, seventeen hundred people on a weekly basis and over twenty-five years
I've been around a lot of people and it's always a joy to be around people who are
life-giving. There are people who are people that attract others, right, they're attractors,
they bring people to them and out of their life they point people to Jesus Christ and
that is so beautiful because in life, how many do you recognize, there are some people
that are detractors, not attractors. Like you just say, I don't know if I want
to be around those guys. So I am so grateful for Pastor Jed and Pastor Allison,
they have done an amazing job just in the last year and a half and so it's just
an honor to be with each and every one of you. I know some of you, but a lot of you are
new to me and over the last year and a half and it is just great to be here
today with my wife, Robin. But today we're going to begin a brand new
series at all of our campuses called Unseen but Present. Unseen but Present.
And in life there are a lot of things that are unseen but present. In fact, if you think about it,
when you go into a building, you're probably not thinking about the
foundation of that building because it's unseen, but it's present. You're not
thinking about the steel girders and the purlings that hold up the
roof because they're unseen, but they are present. And they're not the only
physical things that are unseen but present, but there are things that we
don't necessarily know how to call them, whether they're spiritual or not.
It's these non-physical things that are there, things like gravity.
Anybody ever experienced gravity? I've experienced gravity. Gravity was a great teacher for me when I was younger.
And I hope it's not a great teacher when I get older, right? But I mean,
falling off bicycles trying to jump ramps when I was a kid, falling out of
trees and hitting all the limbs on the way down.
It was, you know, falling out of the bunk bed in the middle of the night,
waking up and still having all the covers with you. Like, I don't know if you ever
experienced that, but gravity works at night.
It's amazing. And so there's things like gravity, but there's things like
there's things like sickness, right? Illness, cancer. There's things that are
unseen, but they're present. A couple of years ago, we all experienced
Covid. It was unseen but present. And so
it was that we had the effects of it. And so we were in lockdowns and
shutdowns and all of these things that was
because of something that was unseen but present.
And in our lives, there are a lot of things that are unseen but present.
There's the anxieties that some of us have. Some of us have
anxieties and worries and insecurities. They're
unseen, right? To the natural person. And we can't say what an
anxiety actually looks like. But it's present in our life. And so
we have these things that are going on
around us that are unseen but present. But what we're going to be talking
about over the next few weeks in this series
is the Holy Spirit. And how the Holy Spirit
is unseen but present in our life. And it's
important for us to understand the Holy Spirit and try to learn,
although we will never be able to totally grasp who the Holy Spirit is,
but it's important for us to understand because the Holy Spirit has
come to be a helper to us. And if we don't take the time to learn and
understand the gift that God has given to us through the Holy Spirit,
then we will struggle and live defeated Christian lives.
We will live out of a place of not victory but out of a place of
victim. There's this thing where
I could read the Bible and walk away and feel like I didn't get
anything out of it. There's a place in my life where I
bow down and I pray but it just seems like after 10 seconds I have nothing
else to pray about. Anybody ever experienced that
or is that just me? Come on. So that's where we are
in life sometimes as we find ourselves in this
routine and the struggles and the things of life
and we just don't know how to break free from those things and so God comes
along in His grace and in His beauty and He
gives us the Holy Spirit. So today's message
is the promise of the Holy Spirit. The promise of the Holy Spirit. So if you
have your Bibles, if you have your smart devices, your
Bible app, if you have the Bridge app, if you don't have the Bridge app, I
encourage you to download that. You can get the
sermon notes for all of our campuses. Everything's the same in there but
we're going to be looking at John chapter 14.
John chapter 14. We're also going to be looking at Acts chapter 1. You guys
okay? You with me? Okay, I got like three
people that are with me. You guys with me?
All right. All right. Just make it short. Make sure you second service. Now
you've got your coffee. You've got you should be loaded up with your
red bull and and the five-hour energy, right? So we'll be out of here before
your five-hour energy wears off. Okay, I guarantee you that. All right, so
here it is. John chapter 14 and I was starting with verse 15. This is
Jesus speaking with His disciples and He says this,
If you love Me, keep My commands and I will ask the Father
and He will give you another advocate. Say another.
Another. So underline those two words. Another advocate.
To help you and be with you forever. The Spirit of Truth. The world
cannot accept Him because they neither see Him nor
know Him. But you know Him and He lives within you and will be in you.
Acts chapter 1 verse 4 says this. This is Jesus
talking with His disciples and it says, On one occasion while He was eating with
Him, He gave them this command. Do not leave Jerusalem but wait for the gift
My Father promised which you have heard Me speak about. Let me just give
you the back story here real quick. Jesus is in the upper room. This is the
Last Supper setting and so He is with His disciples and He is preparing
for their departure. He is preparing for them
to know that He is going away. He's getting ready to go through
a sham trial. He's going to be executed. He is going to die. He's going
to be buried and then He will be resurrected. So He's trying
to prepare His disciples for what's going to take place
over the next few days and the months ahead. So He's trying to get
them ready and so it's important to understand that as
believers, as Christ followers, we understand
that God is a monotheistic God. That's what we believe
here at Bridge Church and the Christian Church believes in monotheism.
You say, Scott, what is monotheism? That is the belief of one God.
There's only one God. Polytheism is a belief in many gods. There's the
the God of the tree. There's the God of the moon. There's the God of the
wind. There's a whole bunch of different gods. We don't believe that way.
The Bible teaches that there is only one God but He has revealed Himself
to us in three different ways. He's revealed Himself to us as God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
If you want to think of it this way, it's God the Father loves us,
God the Son Jesus saves us, God the Holy Spirit dwells in us.
And this is what God has revealed Himself to us. So Jesus has gone away
or is getting ready to go away and He is preparing His disciples for
the departure and He's saying, hey listen, I am going to give you
another advocate, someone who will be with you.
And I can remember when my wife, when my kids were younger,
and my wife would go out of town, like say she was going to
visit her mom or maybe she was going to a women's conference like we had a
couple of weeks ago or maybe it was, you know, just a
girlfriend's time away and the weekend. She would go
and I don't think I really asked her. She just started doing this on her own
but because she knew I had the little guys, all of them, all these
little kids running around, two of them, and
she would go to Kroger and she would load up
on all the junk food and everything that was easy to cook
in the house. So she would be coming back with like, you know, some
some peanut butter and jelly and some frozen pizza and peanut M&M's and
Dr. Pepper's and all sorts of, you know,
Cheez-Its, that spicy Cheez-Its kind, you know, we got a little,
we like a little flavor in our house. So we had the spicy Cheez-Its and
and cookies, we'd have some Oreos, we'd have some
fudge striped cookies, we'd have all this stuff and probably the most
important thing that she would give is paper plates and paper cups because
she knew I wasn't going to do dishes. She didn't want to come back
to a messy kitchen, right? But it got to be such a good
sometimes she would go get us a red box movie. Red box is probably out of
business. This is before streaming. I know for many of you like there was
a time before streaming, they did not even exist, but there
was red box and so she would get us like kid-friendly movies so that
we could just kind of have a little little time to party. What she was
doing was she was preparing for my success
in her departure. She was preparing for my success
in her absence and just as Robin prepared for
for me, Jesus prepared for us. He prepared for us because he knew
that there would be times in life that things are challenging.
He knew that there'd be times in life where our loved ones would pass
away. There'd be times in our life where
there seemed like there's defeat and it seems like is it worth going on
and is this thing that I'm facing seems such a big challenge
that I don't even know if I'm going to be able to make it.
It seems so overwhelming and he prepared for us.
Don't you love a God who already has prepared for you
great things? He knows it's going to be a challenge, but he prepares for it.
So the Holy Spirit is the advocate that you and I need. He's the advocate. He's the one
that comes alongside. In fact, when you really hear out the
word another there, that word another actually means in the like manner.
The same semblance. It's not like a junior God that Jesus sends out.
It's not like a substitute teacher.
Anybody remember how school went when you had a substitute teacher?
You go to class and be like, oh, sub today.
Sub today. We're going to sit in the back and eat Fritos and
pop open Pepsi's and all that kind of stuff.
It's like, oh, it's going to be an easy day. It's going to be an easy day.
We don't have to do no work, right? It's going to be extra recess.
And you thought you could pull stuff over on and be like,
yeah, we normally don't do math. Yeah, we don't do math here.
So you'd be trying like, yeah, no, there is no spelling test.
We don't do spelling tests, right?
But the Holy Spirit is not some substitute teacher
that God sent to us just to kind of occupy us and babysit us.
Yeah, but he says that he's another.
He's just another. That word means in the same exactness.
So that means that just as Jesus walked in character,
the Holy Spirit walks in character.
When Jesus had his attributes of holiness,
the Holy Spirit has his attributes just like Jesus.
There's the spirit of wisdom, just like Jesus.
Everything is identical to Jesus.
The Bible says that we have him as an advocate in us.
That means that this other comes along,
the spirit that God has prepared for us,
and he's an advocate for us.
An advocate. What is an advocate?
An advocate is someone who speaks on your behalf.
Someone who fights with you.
Someone who's in the battle with you.
Someone who's in the trenches with you.
Someone who's a comforter.
Someone who comes alongside of.
It's the Greek word paraclete.
It's to come alongside of.
So the Holy Spirit comes alongside of us
to help us walk out this Christian life.
Because God knew there would be challenges.
God knew beforehand the struggle that you would face
before you even got on this people planet.
He knew about your parents.
He knew about the situation that would take place.
How you were abused or violated.
He knew about those things in advance.
And he says, I have a plan,
and the Holy Spirit will help him.
The Holy Spirit will help him.
And one of the greatest things I believe
about the Holy Spirit,
I mean so many great things,
but one of the things that I maybe enjoy the most
about the Holy Spirit is this ministry of presence.
The ministry of presence.
You say, what is that?
That sounds weird.
Not healing.
What is the ministry of presence?
The ministry of presence is just this presence
of just being there.
The ministry of presence is just him being there.
You know, sometimes in life,
my wife will tell me,
and she doesn't need me to give her advice.
Right?
She just wants me there.
Just to listen.
Right?
And I'm a man, and sometimes I'm a little thick-skulled,
and I don't get that.
But she wants me just to...
And so the Holy Spirit comes alongside us
in the midst of our trials,
in the midst of our circumstances,
in the midst of our pains,
and he comes and sits beside us.
And you can sense his presence there, right?
You just turn on some worship music,
and you just begin to set everything else aside,
and you just begin to close out some stuff,
and you just sense the presence of God there.
You don't even have to like say anything,
but he is there,
and he ministers to us,
and he brings us comfort.
He brings us strength.
He empowers us.
In the moments that we don't think
we could take another breath,
he gives us the capacity to breathe again.
He gives us the ability to once again
to inhale and exhale.
He gives us that.
So he's this advocate that we need.
He's this another just like Jesus.
Jesus has planned for you.
He did not leave you.
Jesus said this,
I do not leave you as orphans.
I'm not going to leave you as orphans, right?
I'm not going to leave you alone.
I'm not going to leave you to your own devices.
I'm not going to leave you by yourself.
No, no, I've got a plan,
and the plan is the Holy Spirit.
And he wants to commune with you
and fellowship with you.
You already, if you're a believer today,
you have the Holy Spirit dwelling in you.
The Holy Spirit is God dwelling in us.
God dwelling in us.
And in fact, in the Old Testament,
it would say that the Holy Spirit or the Spirit of God
would come upon somebody, right?
That's how it was described in the Old Testament.
So if there's a great battle or something that took place,
the Holy Spirit would come on someone
and they would be able to fight the battle
and then the Spirit would leave, right?
In other words, they didn't get to walk in that all the time
and say, you know, something else would come along.
Then the Spirit of God would come on that person
and then they would be able to accomplish
and do what God had called them to do.
But in the New Testament, it's different.
In the New Testament, it's not that the Holy Spirit
comes on us, it's the Holy Spirit dwells in us.
It's God in us.
So it's not just God with us, it's God with us,
but also in us.
I don't know if you guys have ever had the experience
of buying a new house or maybe renting an apartment
or renting a house or something like that,
but there comes a point where the previous owner,
the occupant, is out of the house.
And it's before you move in your stuff.
And I remember a couple of years ago,
my wife and I, we bought a house
and there were so few things I wanted to get done
or make sure were done before we moved in.
And so when I went in the house,
it was just completely empty.
It's like a strange feeling.
It's lifeless.
It's nothing but just walls.
It's empty.
There's no signs of life anywhere.
It's no signs that anybody was ever in this house.
It wasn't until we moved in and we put our stuff in,
it wasn't until Robin came in and started decorating
and started putting things and fixing things up
and until we started painting a room
and getting everything in place
and getting all of that together,
that it began to have life in it.
And that's the way it is for you and I.
Until we have an encounter with Jesus,
we're like an empty house.
We may look good on the outside.
There might be some curb appeal.
The bushes and shrubs might look good
and the landscaping might be cut
and it might be edged and it might be trimmed,
but inside is emptiness.
And that's the way it is with us in this temple,
in our body.
The Word says that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit,
but until we have an encounter with Jesus,
it's simply an empty house.
So it's God in us.
It's God dwelling in us.
It's this life-giving Holy Spirit that's in us.
The Bible just talks about that Jesus says
there'll be rivers of living waters that flow out,
that flow out of us.
Why does it flow out?
It doesn't flow out just to get us wet.
It flows out that we might impart it to other people.
And so this living water flows out of me.
Jesus talks about how come that you might have life
and life more abundantly.
It's when I begin to abide in the presence
of the Holy Spirit,
I begin to walk in the presence of the Holy Spirit,
that I begin to operate or experience the abundant life,
even in the midst of difficulties.
That's what we get.
That's the beauty of what Jesus offers us.
The gift of the Holy Spirit.
In fact, Jesus says that,
hey, it is good that I go away.
That's what he told his disciples.
I don't know about you now.
Now when Robin left and we'd go away for those visits,
I never thought it was good that she went away.
I thought it was trouble.
I was outmanned, right?
I was having a play.
It was two on one at that point.
At least before it was man to man defense.
But so I never thought it was good,
but Jesus said it is good that I go away.
Do you know what Jesus,
one of Jesus's assignments is right now
is that he's forever interceding on your behalf and my behalf.
He's interceding for you.
He knows everything that's going on
and he's interceding for you and on our behalf.
But here's the beauty of it.
Here's the beauty of it.
Jesus is in heaven interceding
and he's also given us his Holy Spirit on earth to empower us.
Come on, that's a double blessing right there.
That means that I can't lose and Satan can't win.
That means Jesus, he's impacting and interceding for me
and the Holy Spirit is working through me.
That means I am victorious.
I live a victorious life.
It may not look around me like I'm victorious.
It may not seem like I'm having a victory day
when the kids are going crazy and I'm late for work
and I've got the wrong pair of earrings on
and everything else that happens in life.
But I'm telling you, you are victorious
because you have Jesus interceding for you
and you have the Holy Spirit empowering you
and you are walking out this Christian life.
That's what we have.
That's the beauty of the Holy Spirit working within us.
We have this abundant life.
We get to experience the Holy Spirit.
Life and life more abundantly.
That comes from him.
It's the Holy Spirit working in us.
And so it's this place of surrender.
It's like, hey, if the Holy Spirit is in me,
how does he become more active in my life?
I tell you, he becomes more active in your life
is when you begin to surrender to him.
When you just simply begin to submit and surrender.
Because as long as you're doing it your way,
that's pride and you're saying,
I know how to do it better than you, Lord.
I know how to do this better than you.
I know you think you know how to do my job, Jesus,
but let me tell you, I've been doing it for 20 years.
No, you have to understand that there is a surrender to the Lord that takes place.
So if it's God in us or God in me,
that means I carry the anointing of the Holy Spirit wherever I go.
So when I walk into Walmart or Target or wherever I might go to shop,
that means the Holy Spirit right there is with me.
And I become a reflection of the Holy Spirit in the earth.
When I go to places I shouldn't be going,
I'm taking the Holy Spirit right there with me.
Would you take somebody, the Holy Spirit,
would you take Jesus into some of the places that you go?
I don't know.
But you have the Holy Spirit, it's just like Jesus,
and you take him into some places that you shouldn't be going into.
And so you're wondering,
how come I don't experience or feel refreshed with the Holy Spirit?
It's because maybe we're putting some places
or taking him some places that we shouldn't be.
And he's calling us to a place of surrender.
He's calling us to a place that we need to,
we just say, you know what?
It's not my will, it's your will, Lord.
I surrender to you.
Do you know, the Holy Spirit has two functions in our lives.
It's in form and function.
Has two purposes.
Form and function.
In other words, He forms us to look like Jesus.
That's what He does.
One of His purposes is to form us to look like Jesus.
So that when I go in the world,
when I go into the world,
I am the Jesus that people need to see.
Are you being the Jesus that people need to see?
Just as water runs over rocks and creates a riverbed
and begins to smooth out those rocks.
You ever bought river rocks from the Home Depot
and they're all smoothed out
and you use them as landscaping and all that stuff?
They charge big money for all those rocks
that have been worn down and smoothed out.
But that's one of the purposes of the Holy Spirit in our life.
It's to allow the Holy Spirit to rub off all those hard edges.
And just begin to break us down.
Begin to cause us to have smooth edges around.
And so He wants us to be like Jesus in the earth.
So when people see you, they see Jesus.
But the second purpose is that not only is it form,
it's also function.
He wants you to begin to function in His purpose and kingdom for your life.
Okay, that doesn't mean you got to go sell all your possessions
and become a televangelist.
Okay, it's not like that.
But He's calling us to function in our place of operation
and understand that what we're doing has a kingdom purpose.
That if I'm a teacher, then I'm teaching,
but I'm teaching for the glory of God
and I'm doing the best I can to point people to Jesus.
I got to maybe be subtle about it.
I don't want to get in trouble.
But as Colossians says,
do whatever you do, do it all in the name of the Lord.
With all your might, with all your strength, do it unto the Lord.
Right?
So He calls us into a place of forming us,
but He also places us in function.
That we have a responsibility.
That we have duties within the kingdom of God.
And so He calls us into this place of relationship with Him.
So it's God in us, or dwelling in us, that we might bring glory to Him.
And I don't want you to think that the Holy Spirit is something for the elite.
Right?
The Holy Spirit is for just those of the past.
And maybe it's just for preachers.
And maybe it's just for those who are really zany and nuts about God.
And maybe that's something.
There's been a lot of misconceptions about the Holy Spirit.
And the thing is about the Holy Spirit,
once you kind of get into misconceptions, you lose truth.
And so God calls us.
He says that the Holy Spirit would be a person of truth.
He would be the Spirit of truth.
So He guides us into all truth.
So when we have difficulty discerning the truth in our life,
the Holy Spirit there helps us to pick it out.
Go this direction.
No, go that direction.
Don't go through that door.
You might need to let those friendships go.
They're taking you nowhere.
And that relationship is not a good relationship for you.
So whatever it is, He begins to lead you and guide you in truth.
He begins to direct you.
But so the Holy Spirit is not just something just for those that are spiritually elite
or college professors.
No, it is for all believers.
This promise is for all believers.
All of us have the opportunity to experience the Holy Spirit working in our lives.
In fact, if you look at Acts chapter 2, verse 38 and 39, it says this.
It says,
Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ
for the forgiveness of your sins.
And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Verse 39, the promise, say promise,
is for you and your children and for all those who are far off,
for all whom the Lord our God will call.
There is a promise for you.
You know, we're the people who are all who are far off.
When you read that verse, that's us.
Like we're 2000 years of far off.
That's how far off we were.
2000 years.
But He comes and He says, hey, this is for everybody.
And He says the Holy Spirit, the promise of the Holy Spirit.
Can I just say God is a promise keeping God?
If He says that He will give, He will give.
See, it is through God's covenant that He makes a promise.
And it's by His character that He keeps it.
It is by God's covenant that He makes a promise,
but it's by His character that He keeps it.
Marriage is a covenant.
And in that covenant, we make promises.
They're called vows.
For better or for worse, sickness and health,
till death do us part, right?
So these are the promises.
But it's based on the character of the individuals
to be able to fulfill that promise
that they made in the covenant of marriage.
And all of us, all of us, have experienced brokenness
because of promises that were not kept.
Whether that was a parent that didn't say,
hey, I'll be at the ball game and didn't show.
I'll be at your birthday party and they never came.
Whether that's because of a spouse,
that there's separation and there's infidelity there,
whatever it was, and it caused a promise to be broken.
But God is faithful.
God will sustain His Word.
In other words, the Bible says when we are faithless,
that God is faithful because He cannot deny Himself.
It's in His character.
It's in His character to fulfill every promise that He has.
So if He says He's going to do it, He will do it.
If He says I'll never leave you nor forsake you,
you better guarantee He's never going to leave you nor forsake you.
If He says I'm close to the brokenhearted,
He will be there to the brokenhearted.
If He says I will be with you till the ends of the earth,
He will be with you till the ends of the earth
because He is a God who keeps His promise.
The Bible says that He's not a man that He should lie
nor the son of a man that He has to repent.
In other words, what that means is He's not a liar.
He's not going to say He's going to do something and then lie
and then turn around and have to repent for what He said
He was going to do and didn't do.
That's the God that we serve.
That's amazing.
That's a beautiful, wonderful God that we serve
who brings us this great gift and promise of the Holy Spirit in our life
that we might experience freedom in a new dimension,
that we might walk in victory at a new dimension,
that we don't have to sit and be in defeat
and worry about how we're going to make it in the low places of life.
I've got the Holy Spirit in me, dwelling and working and empowering me.
He's comforting me.
He's strengthening me.
He's giving me all that I need,
all the resources that I need to be able to live out this Christian life.
That's the beauty of the Holy Spirit.
His graciousness, His kindness, His strength.
It's available to you.
It's a promise to all those who believe.
The Holy Spirit is available.
Yeah, I had the privilege of kind of hanging out with my grandparents
when I was a little bit younger.
And so how many of you know, sometimes grandparents,
they have a different language of words
that you were not really familiar with.
They say things like cattywampus.
Anybody ever heard the word cattywampus?
Okay, a few of you.
You might be grandparents if you raised your hands on that.
Cattywampus is kind of like, hey, you kind of pull in
and my granddad would be like,
well, you couldn't park in a parking spot
because that person was cattywampus.
They were kind of in there crooked.
And some of y'all might be cattywampus out here in the parking lot
maybe that's why we have a difficult time
getting all the cars in and have parking issues
because I have people parking cattywampus.
But you know, one of the words was like this word,
like the doldrums, doldrums.
It's this idea that someone is kind of like lifeless.
You would say like they just got a case of the doldrums.
How's Sally doing?
Well, Sally's got a case of the doldrums.
She's inactive.
She's lifeless.
We would probably say like in today's vernacular, yeah, right?
You know, just kind of like this, you know, she's there, she's existing.
But this idea of the word doldrum, if you really kind of study it out,
it comes from a nautical term.
And the nautical term is when there were ships that were sailing
and it was before there was any other kind of fuel to move ships
and it was all done by wind.
And so they would sail around.
And so there's this place in the northern hemisphere
and where the southern hemisphere kind of connect.
And in that place where it connects, the air begins to circulate up.
It begins to kind of push up.
And so when you got into the doldrums,
which sailors and ships would try to avoid to get around
because they knew if they got in the doldrums
that the wind would stop blowing in their sails.
And they would get stuck in the doldrums.
Hence, that's why the term, you know, how Sally doing, she's in the doldrums.
She's stuck in a lifeless place.
She's not really moving, right?
And so the ships would get stuck in the doldrums.
And there's stories about ships kind of being lost in the doldrums
because they couldn't get out, right?
And they run out of supplies and resources
and then people would die in the doldrums.
And so what they would try to do to get out of the doldrums
is they would put their oars out
and they would have to strain the road, these big ships,
to try to get them out of the doldrums.
And they would row and they would try to move
and move those ships and row and row.
They would have to put an enormous amount of effort
to get that ship just out of the doldrums.
Something where that ship was moving easily with the wind and the sails.
But when they hit that place where there was no wind,
they had to put forth a lot of effort to succeed.
And that's the way it is sometimes in our spiritual life.
We find ourselves in spiritual doldrums
where we have no wind in our sail.
And it just simply feels like we're existing.
That we feel like we're not really making any headway.
And the headway that we are making,
I am putting a whole lot of effort to move forward.
I am rowing and I'm rowing and I'm rowing
and I'm never getting ahead.
I never seem to be moving forward.
I never seem like I can get ahead.
It never seems like I'm able to make it
because there's always another problem around the turn
and it just seems like life kind of stinks.
Right? You know, and stinks is a great Christian word
because we can't use any other words
and so we just have to kind of use words like stinks.
But it's the doldrums of life.
And I just believe over the next several weeks and even today
that God wants you to raise your spiritual sail
so that He can begin to blow in that sail again.
The word spirit actually means this.
The word spirit actually means breath or wind.
And they didn't know how to describe it
because really what they were trying to describe was this.
How do you describe...
And so they just began to call it wind or breath.
The breath of God.
The wind of God would begin to blow.
And I just believe that God wants to do that in your life today.
You know, we get the word pneumatic
or pneuma is the Greek word for spirit.
Pneuma.
And so we get words like pneumatic.
Like a pneumatic drill.
If you've ever heard it, air uses that drill.
Or we get pneumonia which deals with the lungs and the breathing of life.
And so the Spirit of God, I believe, wants to blow afresh on us once again.
Would you stand with me today?
Thank you so much for joining us today.
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Thanks so much for listening.
Now go out and be the bridge.