Michael Todd - I Have The Advantage - Part 3
What's going on my friends, I am so grateful you're tuning in today and I got a question are you ready, to live the amazing victorious Christian life, that the Bible talks about? See a lot of people believe it but they never see it because they have not received the upgrade. The powerful advantage that God gives his people, when they accept and receive the Holy Spirit. Today if you want the advantage in every area of your life, go ahead and receive the upgrade aka the Holy Spirit, let's do it together.
I can remember a time in ministry and people in this room in a ministry, I just thought I knew I can preach, I know I can do it if only Steven Furtick just knew me, we would be friends and I would be able, and I remember sitting behind him, at Victory Christian Center in a conference and Paul gets up and says, "Turn around and greet your neighbor", and right before he said, I said, "This is my moment", you know how the slow motion, it's like. Like I felt that moment and the Holy Spirit whispered to me, he said, "He's not your come up, I am. Don't meet him, turn around and meet somebody else", and in that split moment, I turned around and met a woman named Susan. And the story that would go on to be written in the relationship that God gave me with somebody, who was a mentor to me only he could have done it because I listened to the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit has a mind, can I prove it to you? John 16:13 "But when he the Spirit of Truth comes he will guide you into all," everybody say "truth". Say it again, "truth". How can the Holy Spirit guide you into all truth and he doesn't know everything? He knows everything that's why we say God is omniscient, that comes from two words that's omni, which means all and science, which means knowledge, God, the Holy Spirit has all knowledge, you have someone who knows everything, about everything that is living on the inside of you and he has committed to being your teacher, why would you not use the upgrade? You're a contractor in a business, ask the Holy Spirit to help you in your business, you're a law lawyer and you don't know how to crack the case, ask the Holy Spirit of what you're supposed to do, the Holy Spirit has a mind, guess what else he has?
The Holy Spirit has a will, look at Acts 16:6, this was Paul, he was trying to go to a place, "And now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit, to preach the word in Asia". Now, most of us would trip out right there, they just wanted to preach the word, they just wanted to do God's will, it's helping people and God says, if you want to know my will about it, I need you to follow my timing, do you all know that the right thing in the wrong season is a curse? No, no, no, no, no like I want you to realize like, it's not that it's bad, it's just bad timing and the word forbid means to exercise one's will, I have to forbid Ava, all the time, to eat candy, that girl will eat Starbursts Skittles, Slushies, Doughnuts, she just has so much, so, I have to literally tell her, "no, no, no, you're not eating any more candy until next week".
And then she looks at me and then I give another Starburst, but sometimes it works, but it's exercising my will, the Holy Spirit has a will, I'm trying to show you that all of these things, the Holy Spirit being a person, having a mind, willing emotion is an advantage for you, watch this, the Holy Spirit has emotions, see we always talks about the fruits of the spirit but have you recognized it's the fruits of the Holy Spirit, everybody like fruits of the spirit, love joy, peace, those are all traits of a person.
Galatians 5:22 "But the Fruit of the Spirit of the Holy Spirit is love," a person has love not trees, see 'cause a lot of people would say like, what qualifies you for being alive? And some people would say, qualify you for being a person and some people would say being alive but trees are alive but they're not a person and I want you to understand, that you have to have characteristics, he said the Fruit of the Spirit is love, a person has love, joy, a person has joy, peace, a person has peace, patience, a person has patience, kindness, a person has kindness, a tree can't have kindness, "Goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control, a person has those against such things there is no law", and in Ephesians 4:30, I'm just trying to show you that he is a person, he is real, he's realer than me and you it says, "And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, who you were sealed for the day of redemption".
Grief is an emotion, joy is an emotion, grief is an emotion, the Holy Spirit, how could you grieve the Holy Spirit if he was not a person? And do you know what grieves the Holy Spirit? Sin. See the one thing that nobody told me, that I hope you get today, as you walk around with the Holy Spirit as your advantage or you're about to accept him as the advantage and you're going to release him into your life is that what Jesus did was provide for your eternal salvation and then he gives us the upgrade and says it's to our advantage, that the Holy Spirit we accept him but what happens is he's still God and when we come down and we live our life and we sin, we grieve the Holy Spirit, see grief is sadness, watch this, listen, it's sadness you feel, when you lose intimacy with a person.
So, the Holy Spirit wants to walk come here, Charles, the Holy Spirit wants to walk close with you in everything you do, Charles represents the Holy Spirit but when I lie what it does is it creates a separation, between the whisper of God in my ear and what I want to do, now, watch this my eternity is still solidified, we are saved by grace through faith, it's not my works that produce my salvation it's what Jesus did but when I sin, I can no longer be intimate with the Holy Spirit. So, when I repent and when I say, God I don't want to live like that, Holy Spirit come fill me again, create in me a new heart, create in me a clean heart, renew in me a right spirit.
Now I can hear again and he says, go this way and he says, go that way and he says, move and he says, come and he says, go but then I get it and then I start going back to old habits 'cause the pressure is so, so hard, to be able to handle now at this level and so I need to go back to the bottle and it wasn't just a sip I got drunk and from the drunkenness then I invited with you, it was one of them nights and then things ended and I didn't know and what I did is I just distanced myself from being able to be intimate with the Holy Spirit and the worst place to be in this world is in a spot, where you can't hear God.
Can I be real? No, can I be real real? When I first started pastoring that last example wasn't a made up story, when I first started pastoring, I tell everybody very clearly and most pastors won't share this 'cause everybody's testimony is 42 years ago and 98 years ago, back when Flintstones ruled the earth like what. For me that first year of pastoring in youth ministry and we started going and I wasn't really taking it serious and then pressure started to come and then we was about to merge with different people and I had a battle with pornography for a decade and when I felt the pressure coming in of all the different things I started. I didn't know how to handle certain things and so I was looking for a release valve and I would try to pray, and I would try to do stuff, and I didn't have accountability, and I didn't know any of this stuff.
And then God would move in a service and young people will be getting saved everywhere and people would be coming from everywhere and then Monday night I'd find myself at a computer, it started off looking at tennis shoes, it started off looking at, looking at content for next week's message but can I be honest? I went from looking at content about next week's message, to looking at pornographic material and what the enemy did in that moment was trick me into believing that that could bring me, what only the fruits of the spirit could bring me and so I settled for a cheap counterfeit and the worst part about it is had to get up the next week, in front of those same young people and say, Holy Spirit come and it was muffled. He was still speaking but I couldn't hear the same way.
He responded every time I called but it's, I said everybody stand up I think that's what he said. Well, sing that again, sing it again, just sing it again, our first service used to be like four hours long, it wasn't because it takes the Holy Spirit long, to do anything, oh, oh, let me stop, some of the church services we've been in and some of the ways that we've done ministry is because the people who've been leading the church and been leading the worship and been leading the band, the Holy Spirit was speaking but it was muffled. And they're going again and again and again and again, trying to wait for a break or trying to wait for this, oh, there he is, he came, no he was there the whole time but you're sin muffled him. He was there the whole time. But what you did before and while you're touching people on the altar call and looking at their cleavage.
Ma'am can I speak to you afterwards, God's given me a word for you. You want to know how you grieve the Holy Spirit? And the reason why we have to bring reverence, back to the God person of the Holy Spirit is 'cause he's the one that's going to lead us into all truth, he's the one when I stand up and I get a prophetic word, he's the one that's telling me what to say, he's telling me of the things to come and can I help you? You can get a word from God in your one bedroom apartment, I'm going to say something that might offend, a lot of pastors and preachers, come close if you get a real relationship with God, the Holy Spirit, you only need me to confirm what he already told you.
The pastor should not be giving you new information. The prophet should not be giving, all they should be doing is edifying and confirming, correcting little tweaks of what God already told you, you don't got to pay $200 for a conference, please don't spend your money for a prophetic word, I'm messing people up right now because if you get a relationship with it is a free upgrade with accepting the person of Jesus, it's better, it's to your advantage that I go 'cause then I'll send you the Holy Spirit, the helper, the advocate.
The scripture literally uses different words and that word helper is in the scripture, five times, I believe and in the scriptures we read, we've already read it four times, all of them are talking about the Holy Spirit and this word Holy Spirit it's Parakletos and "para" means alongside and "kletos" means to come, what Jesus said is I'm sending someone, to come alongside of you in every situation you would ever go through, you're going through bankruptcy, the Paraclete or the Parakletos will be there with you, he's going to come alongside of you and in every document, ask about that, don't sign that yet, ask them what that means five years from now, do you know how many situations I've been in and I had no clue what to do? And all I had to say is Holy Spirit help me.
One of the words that is used as a translation for the Holy Spirit is the word comforter and when I started looking at this word in John 14:16, "And I will send you another comforter," I started thinking about what it looks like, to live in this world and the truth is this world is cold and there is nothing worse, than wanting to sleep and you cold. Me and my wife have almost had arguments that ended it all, over the amount of times that she rolled over and you know, when they roll over and they take, if you're not married you don't know nothing about this but all my married people in the comments, need to be saying amen because you know when they roll over and then they take and then you just wanting to be like pow!
There are many, many nights that I wake up frustrated because I'm cold, one of the things I'm being like but I thought about comforter, what would it look like in a cold world, to be in the bed of life and it looks good, I'm trying to get comfortable at the job, I'm trying to get comfortable, I got the pillows, trying to get comfortable but I still have not accepted the comforter, this is a picture of what many of you look like in your daily Christian life? Let me just put the pillows. You know what I got some tissue, I got a couple friends, I got some followers if I could just get my followers up, if I could just get the right connection, if they would join my clubhouse or follow me on Twitter, this is not a comforter, your friend group is not your comforter, no, no, no, no forget that I don't need no friends, it's just me and my ride or die.
I thought the relationship was going to make me feel warm, I thought the relationship was going to take care of the emptiness that I felt and some of us. In this cold world have settled. No, I'm going to get a divorce, I'm going to go for success now as long it's my business. Do I want my bottom half covered or my top half? Do I want to live in integrity or do I want to be used by God? And the whole time, the whole time, the comforter that was made and fit for the bed of life that I have to lay in is waiting, ready and available, why wouldn't you? Do you know how dumb it would look that night after night, that I tried to cover up with things that couldn't cover me, oh, oh, you saw this one you was like, well, why don't you cover up with this?
See the thing of this is it's fake. See what you don't know is this is supposed to be cashmere, it promised and looked and felt like something, that could really keep me warm but if you were to feel what I'm feeling right now, it's very thin, it looks weighty, it looks good but this is just like me being with no blanket, what are you saying Pastor Mike? It's time for us to get our weight up. And to stop settling for counterfeits and to open and release the power of the Holy Spirit, that has the weight, that has the ability, that has the size, the breadth and the depth, it can cover me whatever I go through, I can get all the way under it, hey I can get all the way under it, it has room for me and it has room for my family, oh, the Holy Spirit is the covering, that will make sure that we are comforted. My advantage is the comforter. In this cold world, why wouldn't you receive?