We welcome you to the We Are Zion sermon podcast.
We are a church based out of Chennai, India.
We are thrilled that you tuned in today and hope that you will
be refreshed, revived, and energized by what you hear.
Our desire is that you will live life with a renewed sense of
purpose that stems from a vibrant faith in Jesus.
The year 2025 is 1 where we will be positioned by God to possess
our promise. We are celebrating all that God
has done and has promised to do over the next few weeks.
Every word that God has spoken will come to pass.
Everything that you have sown into will begin to reap its
fruit. The harvest is here and it's
plentiful. Can we lean into the Lord of the
harvest and hear what He has to say to us?
And in keeping with that, last week at church we had a harvest
festival. We had an amazing time.
We had so many stalls, food and games and we had a thrift.
Store. We had arts and crafts being
sold by our very own church people and we raised money for
missions. It was such an amazing time.
More than anything else, I think the fellowship, just having
people eat together, you know, there was so much of laughter.
We had a lot of games that were happening.
We had a hamper that they had to guess the weight of and there
were a lot of games, prizes to be won.
We had an auction which happened.
So much fun all around. And so we had for breakfast we
had something different. We had a dosa, a live dosa
counter. So one of our friends runs a
catering business so he came and set up a counter for us.
We had live dosas that were just being made fresh on the go.
We had so many options of dosa. There was something like 8 to 9
varieties of dosas that were been offered.
There was also eggs that were being made with it and different
gravies, different chutneys and basically everyone who had it
said they enjoyed it. You know, and it was just this
beautiful start for the day. And so we had given this person
to set up his dosa stall. We had given him the place just
outside of our church space because, well, it had a live gas
stub and we wanted to be safe and he preferred something
without an AC. So he said I want the place
outside. So we gave it to him.
But we felt bad for him because this is Chennai heat.
It is not the heat is not reducing now that it's
September, it's still as bad. And so as much as we have
windows there and he would have had a bit of breeze, we we
didn't want to be so still that he would sweat and get tired.
So we, we bought this fan for him and we said, hey, you know
what, we want to make sure you're comfortable.
So this fan's going to be in a corner.
It's going to circulate air. But he was very clear.
He told me and told the other people who were asking him, He
said, I don't want a fan in that space because this fan will run
so fast that the flame for the stuff will keep going off.
And we can't be dealing with that.
I'd rather sweat it out, is what he said.
And it got me thinking in, in terms of today's world.
We're going to be talking today about winnowing.
And when you look at these videos of winnowing, most of the
time it's done with a huge fan, sometimes an industrial sized
fan where the grains are actually grown up in this tray
and the fan is kept on in front of it.
And as they, you know, throw this grain up and down the fan
which is on pushes all the shaft far away while the grain is left
behind on the trail. Right.
And it got me thinking that so many times in my.
Life. I have rejected the wind of the
Holy Spirit based on a similar situation of Ohio.
He probably come in too strong and I might get overwhelmed or I
might look, you know, foolish to my friends and family.
I would rather keep him toned down.
Many times I don't. I have the Holy Spirit in my
life. I've had him for so many years,
ever since I experienced Jesus as my Lord and Saviour in Grade
8. But he has just been relegated
to this companion who stands there unplugged.
But I believe God is calling us in the season of harvest to plug
in because the Holy Spirit can't just be like a pedestal fan left
there for. Sure, he needs to be.
Plugged in, we need to be plugging into him, and many
times we plug in, but we keep his level at zero.
Well, like you know what, Holy Spirit, I know you're there.
I need your wisdom for this. But this other thing, I've got
it covered. I feel like I'm deficit in this
space, but this, I'm operating out of strength.
Don't worry about it, but I believe God is calling us into a
place where we just don't have Him as this fancy companion that
we. Speak of or.
Sometimes don't even. Speak of.
But it's somebody that we are plugged into constantly and he's
not just on the red button, but he's at level 4.
He has got. Full freedom to do what He
desires to do in US. And with that in mind, I want to
step into this. The word today that is winnowing
the harvest has so many things that are happening.
Grain is being harvested, is being cut.
Right. And then it's been threshed and
then it's been winnowed. Winnowed is so winnowing is so
important because it actually leaves the grain ready for
what's next. Many times we we allow ourselves
to be in this place of just quiet.
Numbness. We don't want the holy.
Spirit to disrupt our seemingly ordinary in control lives.
But I want to ask. You today, would you be willing
to be winnowed? And to be disturbed a little, so
that what is important stays, and what is unimportant leaves.
Proverbs 20 verse 8 says when a king sits on his throne to
judge, he winnows out all evil with his eyes.
I want to. Take a direct correlation to the
King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, Jesus himself seated on
the throne. When he looks at our lives, when
he looks at all humanity, in his discernment, in his infinite
wisdom, with his vision for every human being, he can winnow
out what is evil and retain what is good.
And so I want to ask you, are you open to what the King wants
to do in your life? The King desires to winnow us so
that what is pure remains right. Everyone of us, you know,
without exception, everyone of us have these traits that are a
tad ungodly, even the the most, you know, kind and.
Good of the lot of mankind has a spark of something that isn't
right and that's just the way we wire it says the Bible says we
were conceived in sin. You look at a newborn baby looks
so pure and untouched by evil. But then it's interesting.
I was watching this meme of this little child and she's just
purely acting. She's about 3 months when her
mum comes over. The crib, she.
Pretends to cry just to get her attention.
When the mum moves away, she figures no one's paying
attention. She stops crying.
There's a huge. Amount of acting that's going
on. Who taught that to a three month
old child? It's the way we are wired.
There is so much of stuff in US that is just inbred into US.
And I believe that the Holy Spirit, when He is given
permission and room at the time of our salvation and henceforth
He begins to come and disrupt those things and and unsettled
those things that have settled into our very psyche and settled
into our character to set us. Truly free.
Maybe it's those small lies that you've been labeling.
White lies when a lie is a lie. Maybe it's that cuss word that
just slips out when you stub your toe on the on a shelf.
Maybe it's that hateful glance. Maybe it's that contemptuous
expression, the disdain you show for someone.
What is it that you have been overlooking?
But you know hard of us that probably doesn't.
Please God, let's not kid ourselves.
Try as we might, we are not able to change some of these things
because they're so hard wired into us, right?
But the beautiful thing is that the Holy Spirit, like I likened
him to this fan, he's not only about the superficial, he's not
just about behaviour change. He comes in and does an internal
reset, which eventually shows up in our behaviour and attitudes
and all of that, but he does an internal job first.
And so I want. To come to John chapter 20 where
Jesus has risen from the dead. He's meeting with his disciples.
They're all huddled together afraid.
When he has risen from the dead, He comes and meets them and this
is what he says. John 20 verse 21 to 23.
Again Jesus said peace be with you as the Father.
Has sent me, I am sending you. And with that he breathed on
them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit.
If you forgive anyone's sins and their sins are forgiven.
If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.
But what does? He do.
In the middle of that, he says he breathes on them.
And says receive the Holy Spirit.
The word for Holy Spirit here is Ruach.
He's a wind, he's a breath in certain translations, he's a
whirlwind. But the word here that I want
you to focus on is, he breathed on them, it says.
So before the upper. Room experience where the
tongues of fire came on each of them and they began to speak in
different languages. They had this experience where
the where Jesus in a very understated moment just breathes
upon them and says receive the Holy Spirit.
I, I don't know if they even, you know, knew the weightage of
that moment, but the word for breathe into or blow upon is
emphusao. Emphusao, which actually means
to blow out or on to puff. And Jesus was what was he
basically doing? He was basically imparting to
them his. Spirit.
The Spirit that was on him. What was the Spirit that was on
him? Isaiah talked about it
repeatedly. In Isaiah 61, he talks about it.
Isaiah 11, he talks about it. He talks about the Spirit that
would be given to this person that would set him apart from
everyone else, that would help him to judge peoples, that would
be that would enable him to restore people.
This was the Spirit that was on him and this is what Jesus was
doing. He was breathing the Spirit upon
them, so that He was imparting to them what He had on him, and
what He had in him had He not done.
This we sometimes can overlook the small little detail and the
words and continue to the ascension, but had Jesus not
breathed on them his spirit, I'm afraid these people would have
been exactly the same way when that that they were at when
Jesus died. How were they when Jesus
actually died? They were doubting, they were
fearful, they were incapable, they were inconsistent.
Yet He breathes upon them. And I think something began to
happen that prepared them for the upper room experience.
Something began to stir within them.
I'm sure each of them were grappling with their inner
demons. Each of them were dealing with
stuff that was bogging them down.
Each of them was struggling with regrets or doubts.
And the Holy Spirit was now breathed upon them, and he says
receive it, and I'm sure something.
Shifted. So before we go to actually the
book of Isaiah to understand what this winnowing looks like
practically right, I want to ask you this question.
Have you allowed God to breathe his spirit into you?
The very breath we take in in our lives today, every single
day is a gift. The breath in our lungs is the
breath of God. He breathed into Adam in the
same breath exists in each of us.
It keeps us going. But the you know, this new life
in Christ, this Zoe life requires.
That we have the. Spirit of God breathing afresh
every day upon us. It can't be a one and done
thing. I can't just have received the
Holy Spirit in that one situation when I was in grade 8
or grade 10. But I need the Holy Spirit today
more than I did yesterday. I will need him more tomorrow
than I did today. And for that I need to have this
place of saying, Lord, bring your breath every day into me.
Blow your breath M Fusao daily. It should be that kind of a
desire that we have. Are you open to God displacing
evil thoughts from your life? Are you OK with God displacing
and winnowing out wicked desires, selfish ambition,
deceit, hypocrisy? Are you OK if you was to winnow
those things? Out.
Ruach, Ruach. Hakodesh.
He's the Holy Spirit. He is God in spirit form.
He knows the mind of God. He's the one who was with Jesus,
enabling him to do the things he did on earth, and he's the one
that we receive. The minute we say yes to Jesus,
the Holy Spirit comes to make his presence known in our lives.
And if you look at the Bible right as a whole, anyone who did
anything remotely impactful for God needed to have the Holy
Spirit's in filling and the leading.
You couldn't have done it without the Holy Spirit, right?
And so therefore today I want to leave this with you.
If you want to even be able to do the basic, you know, the
things, small things you think that you need to do for God.
I believe there are very existence, not just doing things
for God, but are very existence is dependent on the wind of the
Holy Spirit. And I believe that this wind is
not just a wind that comes howling and creates a bit of
drama. No, this wind is very specific.
It's very, very purposeful. It is very intentional because I
believe there. Are three reasons why we need
this wind of winnowing the wind wind of winnowing has three
purposes right and before we get into the three purposes I want
to. Show you this quick clip of what
we're knowing actually looks like.
Just for those of us who are completely city bred, we have no
clue. What we're knowing is I want you
to watch this. So you had a glimpse of what it
looks like to winnow. Wheat.
To winnow grain, you see the process.
The process is very simple. The grain is absolutely safe in
the hands of the farmer who's winnowing it.
What is removed is that which is light and nutrition less and
absolutely worthless, right? With that in mind, the Holy
Spirit's wind is a wind of winnowing.
And first of all, it's a wind that brings identification.
Wind of identification. Matthew chapter 3, verse 12, it
says his winnowing fork is in his hand and he will clear his
threshing flow, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning
up the shaft with unquenchable fire.
I want you to highlight, He will gather his wheat.
God is identifying with the wheat.
He's saying it's his. It belongs to him.
The Spirit of God, we knows us, moves in us so that we are more
sure than ever before of our identity in Christ.
See, the problem is many times we go by the identifiers that
the world gives us. We, we go by the labels the
world gives us. We go by these things of, oh,
you know what? Many times when you sit in
groups, people say, oh, you know what, I'm a recovering
alcoholic. That's a label.
It's a genuine one, but it's a label that we have assumed over
time because of a certain struggle.
We could say my label is that of a single mother, fatherless
child. What is the label that you have
been putting on yourself and identified it with the point to
which your actual identity in Christ has gotten diminished?
God is calling us into this place where we allow the Holy
Spirit to come in so that He brings in the fresh and real
identification of who we are today globally.
Globally with the LGBTQ movement, people say they
identify themselves as pansexual, asexual, transsexual
and all kinds of identifiers, but I won't bring it back to
this. Your identity is found in Christ
and it is found in who God says you are.
It is not based on your sexuality.
It is based on your adoption into the family of God.
When you say yes to Jesus, you become a son and a daughter of
the most high God. You are adopted into his family.
Ephesians one verse 13 says this.
And also you were included in Christ when you heard the
message of truth, the gospel of your salvation.
When you believed, you were marked in Him with a seal, the
promised holy. Spirit.
Who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the
redemption of those who are God's possession to the praise
of his glory. The Spirit of God literally
brands us. The wind of God, the breath of
God brands us. If you've watched any cackle
shows, a cackle that belongs to a particular landowner is
branded with hot iron, right? They take this stamp and they
stamp it on the calf who's about, you know, two years or
something. They stamp in or out so that
they stamp the animal with a brand so that the if ever the
cattle gets lost, they know who it belongs to.
Sounds familiar? The Holy Spirit in you and me
brands us, makes us visibly different so that when someone
sees us, they know we are a child of God.
Too many of us have gotten confused with the identifiers
that people have given us, that the world has given us, that we
have forgotten our identity in Christ and the enemy finds us as
prime targets when our identity is shaky.
When the minute you are thinking, you know what, I'm all
alone, I'm solitary, no one loves me, no one cares for me.
I don't have a family, I don't have anyone that cares.
You set yourself up for disaster.
If you look at these videos on Nat Geo, when tigers and
lionesses are hunting, they're always seated low in the in the
Savannah grass and they're observing.
These. Huge herds running or grazing
and they never go for the the cow, the khaki which the
wildebeest, which are in the center of the herd.
They're always watching for the ones that wander off alone.
Because they make for ripe pickings.
And the problem with this is this, if we, the Holy Spirit
does not brand us with the identity as children of God, if
you don't give him the room, because he does, he wants to,
many times we don't accept that we become solitary isolated
Christians and we are right pickings for the enemy.
I want to ask you, will you allow the Holy Spirit, his wind
of identification to fill you so that you know exactly whose you
are? Too many of us are trying to be
so self aware of who we are, we have misplaced the idea of whose
we are. You are a child of God.
Your Father, your heavenly Father owns the world, He owns
the cattle on 1000 hills, He owns the wealth of every mind.
He can do anything for you. He is omnipotent, He's
omniscient, He is beyond our imagination in wisdom, in
knowledge. He is boundless in power.
Why are we living afraid? Why are we living so, you know,
scared of things? Why are we living so confined
when the God of the universe is our heavenly Father?
And like a good father, maybe you have a bad experience with
the Father. This is a father that he doesn't
deny good things to his children.
All we need to do is ask. But how would you ask if you
don't know who you are in him? When the Holy Spirit fills you,
you know without a doubt. That you are a child of God.
You don't have. To feel unwanted, you don't have
to feel unloved. You don't have to feel
overlooked or rejected because you were worth dying for.
He gave his one son for you so that you could come into the
family of God you now have. The same inheritance that Jesus
had, you have the same inheritance.
You have access to peace, You have access to joy.
Everything you thought you don't have, you now have because
you're a child of God. Don't allow the enemy to isolate
you. The beautiful thing is that when
you have the wind of identification moving in you,
you experience a sense of belonging.
It's amazing to have a family of God, you know, wherever we
travel in the world. As a family, when we were in,
you know, different parts of the world, studying, ministering,
we've always found ourselves in a church on Sunday.
We've made sure of that. And the beautiful thing is we
may not know people there, We may not know the pastor, but we
fit right. In just by virtue of the fact.
That this is the family of God. It doesn't matter what our skin
colour is, it doesn't matter what background we come from.
The minute we walk in, we feel at home.
That's the sense of belonging that the Holy Spirit, the wind
of identification, does to us. And before we carry on, I just
want to pray this over someone. If you've been struggling with
this, identifying. If you've been.
Saying I don't know what who I am.
I don't know whose I am. I just want to pray this over
you, Father. I pray if they're struggling
with their identity today that they will lay every label down.
And they will believe that they are a child of God.
And I pray that they will walk in the confidence with their
head held high, shoulders back, knowing that their Father owns
the universe, knowing that their Father is unlimited in power and
in love. And I pray that Lord, they will
walk with their confidence. I pray that you would Holy
Spirit come in, bring in that identification that only you can
in Jesus name, Amen. Amen.
The second thing that the wind of winnowing does is it brings
in the wind of consecration. You look at that, the video of
the winnowing process, something flies off and something stays
right. Matthew Chapter.
Three verse 12. Same verse, but I'm reading it
from the Passion translation. It says he comes with a
winnowing fork in his hands and comes to his threshing floor to
sift what is worthless from what is.
Pure. Now what is a winnowing?
Fork, you might ask? Because the last time we saw it
wasn't a winnowing fork. I just want you to look at this.
Quick quick bit which helps you understand what a winnowing.
Fork does. So you notice that a bunch of
farmers, they're throwing up the grain with the winnowing folks.
So it helps them to handle more grain at a time and then the job
is done quicker. Now here's the thing.
It says over here to sift what is worthless from what is pure.
And many times in our lives, the minute we say yes to Jesus, I
think the first few weeks or months are the honeymoon period
when we're just walking on clouds.
We're experiencing his love, we're loving this new life.
We're free of certain addictions.
We're the free from the need to do certain things because we're
really experiencing that Zoe life, that life that the Lord
gives us, the new life that faith in Christ brings us.
But gradually, you know, it starts to get old and gradually
the old stuff starts to return. That tendency to do that
particular thing that you used to do before.
Or it could be just an attitude that hasn't changed.
Or it could be just certain relationships that are so just
burdensome because. You.
Know they don't fit in this new life with you.
Certain habits, but the beautiful thing about the holy.
Spirit is He comes in and He doesn't leave us the way we wear
it. At the moment of salvation, He
starts to transform us, and the first way of doing that is
through consecrating us. Consecration is a setting apart.
It is removing the things that are weighing us down, that are
harmful for us, that are not of God, and retaining what is pure,
what is holy. And the way He does that is
allowing us to walk into these different situations of our
life, handling certain relationships, having certain
confrontations. And it is in those that He
consecrates us. The Holy Spirit does not
consecrate you and me in isolation.
He does not do it in a little bubble in this little scientific
laboratory. Which is completely sterile.
No, we are in a dark and dirty world and it's in the midst of
these everyday reactions. It could be with a spouse, with
our children, with our maids. It could be with with friends,
it could be at work, it could be with our passion projects,
whatever it is. It could be with our financial
crunches. He meets us there and
consecrates us on the job every. Single day consecration
separates in US. What is worthless and retains
what is pure? Because God's desire is not to
wipe us out. God's desire is not to just
annihilate my personality completely and just recreate a
new figure, a figurine. No God.
God created me with a purpose. He, He put certain traits in me
which are innate to me. He's given me certain strengths.
He knows my weaknesses. But what He wants to do in
consecration is take me and make me whole.
Because so many parts of me are broken.
So many parts of me are not pleasing to Him.
Let's be honest. And he wants to refine that.
So I want to ask you, what are some things that have been
adding impurity to your life? Has it been envy, falsehood,
pride, discontent, breed, lust, fear, insecurity, anger?
You read the episodes and they help you.
Paul writes to Titus and Timothy and to the Corinthian church.
And when you're reading those, you realize that could be me.
He could be writing to me, right?
But the beautiful thing about consecration is that the end
result, the end result is not to decimate us.
It's not to remove our personality and make us like
zombies. No, it's to bring out the best
within us and to separate us and make us holy unto God.
Isaiah 11 versus 2 to 4. The Spirit of the Lord will rest
on him, the spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the spirit of
counsel and of might, the spirit of the knowledge and fear of the
Lord. And he will delight in the fear
of the Lord. He will not judge by what he
sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears, but
with righteousness. He will judge the needy.
With justice. He will give decisions for the
poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with
the rod of his mouth. With the breath of his lips he
will slay the wicked. I told you about how Isaiah
spoke repeatedly about the Spirit that would be on Jesus,
and he didn't leave it there. Isaiah somehow could see because
he was a prophet, the Holy Spirit.
Was. Revealing to him that this
spirit that was on Jesus would be passed to those who accepted
Jesus, but they would also have the Spirit.
But what is the Spirit? The Spirit there is wisdom and
understanding, if you have seen. Someone who walks in genuine
wisdom and understanding, you will see that they are set
apart. They don't talk like the people
of the world. They don't plot and plan like
the people of the world. They operate in another realm.
The Spirit of. Counsel and might.
It's different when the Holy Spirit is working in you.
You are not. Looking to people you have,
people that you listen to for wise counsel you you have.
People who provide you with, you know, strength in terms of
encouraging you and all that, but your primary source is God
himself and that in itself consecrates you.
He says he will the spirit of knowledge and.
Fear of the Lord. He will delight in the fear of
the Lord. He will not judge by what he
sees or what he hears, but he with the righteousness he will
judge the Spirit. That was on Jesus had
consecrated him. Jesus was God himself, but when
he came to earth he was 100% man.
But he had the spirit. Of God in him, and this had
consecrated him and set him apart from other 33 year old
men. He was not the same as others.
Because of this. Wisdom because of this
understanding, how do. You think he healed?
People. He had a knowledge of them from
the time they were A1 celled Organism in their mother's womb.
He knew everything about them, superior might, superior
counsel, knowledge, fear of the Lord Jesus walked in.
The fear of the Lord Jesus walked in such a way that could
honour His Father on earth. Consecration is a byproduct of
the anointing. When the Holy Spirit fills you,
you are automatically receiving the consecration that the Holy
Spirit brings. You are not the same you were
one year back. You're not the same.
You're not the same you were one week back because He is working
in you and you are. Aware of it.
Jesus judged not by what he saw like we humans do.
He didn't judge by what he heard.
He had an understanding which was beyond He was righteousness
personified. That being said, Jesus hated
evil. Jesus hated evil and he kept
speaking to those who are unrepentant of the evil they
did. He said they would face
consequences. Let's not confuse ourselves on
that. You know, many times in this
Christian journey we find it more comfortable to coexist with
the defilement. You know what?
Yeah, I am selfish. I do live for myself, but that's
because my childhood was like this.
I had to grasp. So this is OK, Lord, you know,
you understand. But God is bringing me to this
place of saying that was. Then, but now you have me.
I want you to live for others. I want you to be selfless.
You see that the contentment with the old defilement has to
change. And that is what the Holy Spirit
brings in. And many times we, we, it's not
even an apathy. Sometimes we're just exhausted
from trying. Not I really want to kick this
envy and you know, in the knees and get it out.
But it's something I struggle with.
I'm always envy from the time I was a child, if someone had a
better eraser, I wanted that. If someone had better clothes, I
wished I had that. I don't know how to change this.
The Holy Spirit, He can do anything.
He can do it anyhow. But the point is, would I allow
him? Would I first of all call it
like it is? What I say, This is a part of me
which is unholy, Lord. This is a part of me which is
unrefined. This is a part of me which is
unsanctified. I need help.
That's the first step.
The next step is actually allowing Him to do what He does.
You know, today in today's world, holiness and purity,
modesty. Words like this are like bad
words. People are like you know what
it's my life. You know, this is I'm living in
my zone. I I it's my life.
It's my story. I can do what I want with it's
my body. These are words that are
considered I'll fitting for any human, but God's word is
timeless irrespective of the era we are in.
If he said be holy as I am holy, holiness is a requirement.
If he said blessed are the pure and heartful, they will see God.
You're wondering why you cannot see God in your daily life if
you're not able to see Him in situations, it's possibly
because there's a huge amount of impurity, huge amount of.
Defilement. Sometimes it could be even a
little defilement. That's causing a lack of vision,
and God is. Calling us into this place of
consecration, he's saying, Will you let my wind come in and
consecrate you? You remember that story that
Jesus said about this person who had a evil spirit, and then he
said it gets driven out and the place is swept clean.
But then he says this demon returns, finds it so clean, he
brings seven other demons and they make the person go upside
down even worse. What is he talking about that
many times in our salvation experience, we experience this
deliverance. We are, we're free of the things
that were, you know, shackling us, but we forget to involve the
Holy Spirit in that space. We forget to invite him in or we
overlook inviting him in and we leave it unoccupied.
And that's a dangerous place. Anything unoccupied is up for
grabs. And God is calling us into a
place where he says, you invite me in like a whirlwind.
I come in, I will take away the things that are not meant to be,
because a lot of the things that we retain as definement, even in
a swept clean house, can become seeds for bitter roots, can
become seeds that grow into ugly trees of dysfunction.
And the Holy Spirit wants to remove it.
He wants to remove it. So I want to ask you, is it your
desire to live consecrated? Is it your desire to live in
such a way that sets you apart? This past week, we heard the
tragic news of Charlie Cook dying.
And I was just sitting and watching a lot of his videos.
I didn't know anything about him.
My son came down that morning and said, mum, I watch him on a
lot of podcast. He's an incredible speaker.
He defends the faith and this is what has happened to him.
So I, I sat through the day. I was listening to his, you
know, debates with college students.
He was able to address things that many pastors have not been
able to address. He was able to address things
with such boldness, with such courage, and that's because of
the Holy Spirit's work in consecrating him.
He was set apart in a culture where anything goes.
He was able to say no, I will stand against abortion, I will
stand against premarital sex. I will stand for what is the
right to honour God in His Word. And consecration is costly, but
God is looking for a man and a woman who will be consecrated.
God is looking for those who will say, Lord, do with me as
you will, remove the impurity so that what is pure remains.
God is not looking for those who will live these hybrid lives
with the old and the new, wrestling constantly.
He is looking for those who are all in who are saying, Lord, we
know me so that I'm consecrated Holy for you.
Can I just? Pray that for you before we
progress. Father, I just pray for each of
us. We welcome the Holy Spirit to
come in and do this work of consecration deep within us.
That, Lord, holiness and purity will no longer seem like a bad
taste in our mouth, but it will come so naturally to us that You
will make us holy as You are holy.
That Lord, we will be so pure in heart that each of us will begin
to see you and hear you like never before.
In Jesus name we pray, Amen. Amen.
The beautiful thing about consecration is that you know,
you start to live different, that people notice it.
And it doesn't have to be a life that you publicize, you talk
about. You don't say I'm living a holy
life, that that would be terrible.
You won't be different than any of the God men out there.
Consecration is such a private process, but it will be seen
publicly. You won't be always welcome into
every circle. You will have those who rise
against you, but you will have the God of all, the living God,
Yahweh, who backs you up with all of heaven.
He surrounds you, He'll protect you, He'll lead you, He'll have
a purpose for your life. And that leads me to the third
wind of winnowing. What it does, the wind of
winnowing is a wind of restoration.
Isaiah chapter 61 verses one to four.
It says the spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me because
the Lord has appointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim
freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the
prisoners. To proclaim the year of the
Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God.
To comfort all who mourn and provide for those who grieve in
Zion. To bestow on them a crown of
beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and
a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the
Lord for the display of His splendor.
They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places
long devastated. They will renew the ruined
cities that have been devastated for generations.
It's unbelievable the kind of transformative power that the
Holy Spirit has. You know, I was just, you know,
revisiting my years as a pastor's wife, as a mother, and
I've just been seeing how God has worked in me.
So many things that I started out doing wrong, God has had to
shape. Sometimes the wind has been
rough, certain things. He's been very gentle with me.
But the point is this, over 41 years, I'm not the same as I was
years back. God has been changing me and
transforming me every year, every season there's been a
shift. And I'm sure you can say the
same for yourself. And I believe that when we allow
the wind of winnowing the Holy Spirit to breathe into our
lives, it is inevitable that we experience restoration.
It is inevitable. That he will restore things in a
way you and I never imagined it. You might be looking at the.
Ashes of your life. He can restore it in a minute.
He prefers the process. He prefers the process where he
works on US, changes us, but he can do anything you feel you're
running. Against a clock, he can turn
back the clock in a minute. And I believe that he is
restoring to us in the season things that we have thought
lost. He's restoring lost causes.
He's restoring lost finance. He's restoring the lost years.
He's bringing us. Freedom because where the Spirit
of the Lord is. There is freedom and restoration
is actually breaking free from bondage, breaking free from
brokenness, breaking free from sadness and stepping into joy,
stepping into abundant places. Stepping into blessing and I
believe God is doing that with us.
And the beautiful thing is, you know, the Christian life is
amazing. If you're contemplating it, I
would. Highly recommended because when
you get restored, you become an agent of restoration for someone
else. Because the Holy Spirit is
stirring up this restoration within you, you can't help but
share it with someone else. You want to journey with them.
You want to see them restored. Two Corinthians chapter 3,
verses 17 to 18 says now the Lord is the Spirit, and where
the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
And we all who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's
glory are being transformed into His image with ever increasing
glory which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
We are being transformed. Whether we like it or not, we
are being transformed. But the thing about restoration
is this. It is not just a one month
process. It is not just a one year
process. It is lifelong.
Restoration is ongoing and it doesn't because you know,
truthfully, when I look at my life even now, I am nowhere
close to being like Jesus. Let's face it, He's shaping me
into the image of His Son. But I'm so far from the image
that I really do need a lifetime to even be remotely close to
Jesus. And so restoration is so long
winded. But the beautiful thing is it's
literally day by day, one day at a time.
You take it, you invite the Holy Spirit in for the day.
And you know, each day he sets us a little more free.
He unravels certain things that need to be unraveled.
He breaks off certain small micro chains that are holding us
down. And when God's Spirit breathes
upon us, we begin to experience a restoration that's not only
for us. But is a blessing for others.
The thing is where God meets you and heals you and restores you
is usually the point of greatest breakthrough that you can use
for someone else. And I want to believe with you
that the Holy Spirit, when He breathes upon your life today,
that He will begin to start this work of restoration.
It's already begun. You may have missed it, but it's
happening because He desires to bring wholeness.
Into our lives like never before.
And not just wholeness. He desires to bring purpose.
Maybe your life has been lacking
in purpose. You might just need the wind of
restoration so that as you are being restored, He helps you
restore others. So as I just I want to just.
Quickly pray for those who need this wind of restoration because
I really believe God is in this. He's on the move.
God is moving in hearts and minds.
He's moving in our situations. You may not see anything in the
physical realm, but in another realm, in the spiritual realm,
He's doing so much. And I believe that we need to
open our lives up and say, Lord, these are the barren places of
my life. It could be your marriage, it
could be your parenting, it could be your career, it could
be your finances. It could be all the debts you've
accumulated. God, I need your Holy Spirit,
the Spirit of restoration. To blow up on these places and
bring life once more. To bring hope once more.
To restore the things that I have thought were lost.
Father, we are praying over wombs that have been barren for
years to be opened in the name of Jesus.
Lord, we are praying for restoration of health.
Lord, that original design will be brought back into bodies.
I pray for minds that need restoration.
Spirit of God, will you move in minds and heal them right now?
We thank you Father, for you are a God who restores all things
and makes all things new. In Jesus mighty name I pray,
Amen. Amen.
This past week we had such an interesting experience.
It's something I've never experienced before.
So as you know, we have one dog at home.
We have Mocha, who's a retriever and she's an indoor dog.
She is pointless as a. Watchdog, which is.
Such a sweet house guest. Loves everyone who comes.
She's a pastor's dog. She loves everyone of our
friends who walk in, loves church people.
And so this week on Tuesday, we woke up.
I went out for a walk. I come back in when my cook
says, did you notice the puppy under your car?
You ran near our car. We have a bunch of benches.
She said, did you notice the puppy there?
And I said, what puppy? We didn't see a puppy.
So my husband and I went back out and there was this small
little brown indie puppy, adorable, sleeping under the car
near the benches. And we were confused for a few
seconds because our house is right in the middle of our
community. How did this dog get past the
security? How did no one else see it
wandering in for such a long walk for a little puppy?
How did it land up in our house? There are 8, there are actually
16 houses that she would have had to cross before she got got
to us. Why did she make it into our
garage? You know?
So I'm like, you know, racking my brain.
In the meantime, our kids come down.
They were on holiday. They walked down, they see her
and they're like convincing me that this is God, that we need
to adopt this dog. Fast forward, we took her to the
vet, we got her checked up. When she came to us, she was.
Ridden with ticks. And she was so undernourished.
She was shaking from some sort of trauma.
She had wounds all over her body.
She had her ribs poking out. And but still, you know, in the
midst of it, she was so friendly with us, ate whatever we gave
her. And so the doctor gave us a
bunch of instructions and stuff. So we brought her back home and
it's been 5 days now, right? It's been 5 to 6 days since
she's come home. She's adopted herself.
Into our home and the doctor told us to keep her away from
Mocha for the time being till the takes and, you know, she's
dewormed and all of that so I watch her just enjoy our garden,
enjoy our backyard. She sleeps in the shade of
things. She's, you know, sniffing all my
plants. And she's the picture of
adoption. You know, I was watching her and
thinking, this is what it's like when I entered the family of
God, when I said yes to Jesus, I came into this walled, safe
space of salvation. And my heavenly Father just
welcomed me with open arms. And I've been struggling with
the fact that, you know, I can't welcome her with open arms yet
because she hasn't got her rabies shot.
She's too young for it. She needs it in a week that I
haven't been able to, that I have to keep her away from the
other dog and all of that. But I've just been reveling in
the fact that my God accepts me, ticks and all, and that he
doesn't cordon off places and say you just stay.
There while we stay here. But he invites me into all that
is his. And as I was watching her, we
came up with a name for her. She's so spindly and thin that
we named her Maggie because our kids love Maggie Noodles.
We named her Maggie September because she walked into our
lives in September and she still doesn't respond wholly to her
name. But when she's sleeping and one
of us called Maggie or Mags, she comes running.
The power of identification. She knows who's she is, whether
she recognizes her name. She knows when someone calls
aloud, it's for her. And when the Spirit of God comes
in, he gives us that ability to know who's calling out to us.
If you've been listening to the wrong voices, I would urge that
you come into this place of knowing your heavenly Father,
because my sheep know my voice, he says.
And the beautiful thing is, Maggie came in dirty, wounded,
loaded with ticks. The doctors treated her.
We've been giving her antibiotics, giving her a lot of
nourishing food. We gave her a bath.
She's clean. She's being, you know, freed of
all the worms and the ticks and all of that consecration is
happening. Of course, it's on a very
physical realm, but the beautiful thing is that our
adoption and the presence of the Holy Spirit in us, the
consecration work begins. And when I was looking at her
this morning, before I left and came to speak, she was sitting
beside me, and I was doing some work, and she was just sitting
beside me. And I was just thinking how her
ribs are no longer poking out. She's already grown taller.
She's already got a stronger voice.
And restoration happens in the most uncanny ways because that's
what God does. God is a God of constant
movement. He's a God of transformation.
He doesn't. Leave us the way he finds us.
Things change in his presence. And the beautiful thing is the
beauty. This is a picture of Maggie, by
the way, how she looks now. But I want to just.
Encourage you in this process of the harvest and the season of
the harvest. The process of winnowing is very
important and winnowing literally has to be an everyday
thing where we allow the Holy Spirit to breathe into our lives
so that everything that is not a substance He takes out and what
is of great worth is. Retained and I want to.
Just leave this with you. Why does winnowing not leave you
and me injured? You know, when you look at
threshing, threshing is painful. Like I talked about it.
There's there's a painful experience with threshing, but
we know on the other hand, doesn't harm us.
You know why 2 Corinthians chapter 3, verses 7 to 11 and 17
to 18, the greater glory of the new covenant.
Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in
letters on stone, came with glory, so the Israelites could
not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory,
transitory though it was, will not the ministry of the Spirit
be even more glorious? If the ministry that brought
condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the
ministry that brings righteousness?
For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the
surpassing glory. And what if what was transitory
came with glory? How much greater is the glory of
that which lasts? What is he talking about?
What am I talking about? So when you when you saw that
video of the husk being winnowed, the shaft flying away
and the grain being left behind, the reason the grain made it
back on the sieve is because the grain was heavy, it was
nutritious. It was dense and therefore the
wind didn't drive it away. It stayed in our lives.
The reason winnowing doesn't destroy us is because of the
indwelling presence of God. And the beauty is that glory.
The word for glory here in the New Testament.
In Greek it is doxa. And in the old.
Testament. It's Cabot which both mean
weightiness. The reason you and I are weighty
enough to withstand winnowing is because of the presence of the
Holy Spirit within us. When Moses went up to the went
into the Tabernacle, he spent hours with God face to face,
talking as with a friend. When he came out, his face was
aglow. It was shining so much that
people couldn't look at him directly that he had to put a
veil. He says now in the new covenant,
you no longer have a mediator like Moses going in and meeting
for you. You meet with him directly.
You have relationship access to God himself and not even better
than that, you have the Holy Spirit dwelling in you.
So you you begin to understand how God thinks, how God works.
You're beginning to have this deep relationship with God.
So he says the. Word here is what was transitory
came with glory. How much greater is the glory of
that which he lasts? The word for lasts is abides.
We have the abiding presence of Jesus in us through His Holy
Spirit, because of which the glory of God is so rampantly
evident in our lives. Unfortunately, unfortunately,
when we don't live with our identity secure and who Christ
is and who we are in Christ. When we don't live consecrated
to Him, desiring holiness, desiring purity, when we don't
want to live restored, the glory of God is submerged, it's
diminished. People don't see it.
All they see is our flesh. All they see is our emotions.
All they see is is our humanity at its worst.
But when we begin to live in the new identity that is in Christ,
when we live with the confidence that I'm a child of God, when I
begin to live with a sense of belonging, when I start to live
in this place of consecration where Lord, how I live, how I
act, how I stay, how I am in my marriage, everything is
consecrated. It begins to show the way
restoration begins to happen, the way I begin to reach my
hands and feet to help others. The glory of God cannot be
withheld. It begins to glow through us.
It is so obvious. And I want to ask you, are you
willing to let God's glory show through you?
For too long? Christians have got a bad rap.
Oh, that Christian, he cheated me of money.
Oh, that Christian, he cheated on his wife.
Oh, that Christian, she's like that at work.
She's terrible. We've got a bad rap because we
have not been consecrated. We've had a bad rap because
we've not lived as sons of God. We've got a bad rap because we
prefer living in an unrestored state.
But it's about time that changes because the weight of God's
glory, you know, the Cabo, there's the weight.
Glory adds weight, and it's this beautiful weight that's makes us
stand apart in a crowd. It's a beautiful state when His
glory is evident because of your sonship, because of your
identity. So even as I close, I want to
pray that for us, that each of us will display God's glory in
the places we go in we enter. To work, to rest.
To holiday wherever it is that God's glory.
Will fill the earth like it was prophesied that we would be
carriers of glory. And the glory will never be us,
it belongs to Him. But we would be carriers of that
glory because of how we live, because of how we actually live
this life on earth. So can I pray that for us,
Father? I just pray that each of us, me
included, that we will be carriers of Your glory, that
Lord, we will live in such a way that Your glory is evident.
We pray that Lord, our consecration will be deep.
We pray, O Lord, that our identity will be sealed in who
we are in Christ. Lord, we pray that Your
restorative power will course through our bodies so that Your
glory is made evident to all around.
That many will see Your glory and come to a saving knowledge
of You. Father, we thank you and we love
you. In Jesus name we pray.
Amen. Amen.
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