Becoming One as the Father and the Son Are One

We heard, while he was still a long way off, his father ran to him, embraced him, and kissed him. And I hope, children, as you heard that verse, that you'll never forget it. You may find yourself, quite possibly, some, if not many, if not all of you, will find yourself, at some point, feeling distant from God, feeling like you've failed him, feeling like he has failed you.

You may feel like that, wondering what his plan in your life is and why he has allowed different things in your life. And, in that moment, I hope you remember the story Jesus told in Luke 15, and how the father saw him from a long distance and ran to him. And, if you turn to God, wherever you are, God will find you there.

If you turn to God, wherever you are, God will find you there, because he knows that many of us are incapable of even taking, perhaps, you don't even have the strength to get up and start to walk towards God, towards home. Wherever you are, if you turn to God, if you want to remain in your sin, if you want to remain in the pit that you are, God can't do anything, because God operates on the basis of repentance and faith. And, so, if you'll turn, repentance doesn't even mean running, it means turning.

So, if you feel like you're in a place where you're incapable to run back to God or walk back to God, turn back to God, repent, and you'll find him doing the running to you. This is how God operates. And, so, dear friend, dear brother, dear sister, and especially dear children, the time may come when you'll find yourself feeling distant from God, and I hope you'll remember that.

Whatever pit you're in, whatever circumstance you're in, if you turn to God, he will find you where you are. He's done that for me. That's my testimony.

And if you could ask each one of these, your parents and the other brothers and sisters in this church, you'll find that that is all of our testimony. We were incapable of coming back to God, we were incapable of even walking home, and he found us. But, you must repent, you must turn, you must acknowledge, you must be done with blaming other people, you must be done with making excuses, and you must forgive others for what harm they might have done to you.

And if you do that, you'll find God will come running to you. And the point of that story is not the things that the prodigal son did, even though we're told a little bit of detail about what he did. It's not so much what he did as much as that he came back home.

The center of that story is not all the bad things or how deep the pit is, but the whole, everything centers around the whole, the father's house in that story. That's why there's two sons, you know, Jesus could have told the story and completely ignored the older son, just told the story about the younger son. Why did Jesus mention the older son as well? Because he wanted us to see, maybe you're not one who has wandered out and done, lived an evil, wicked lifestyle.

I hope that all of you young children will never walk away from God. I hope, really hope that, that you won't go out into the far country and waste your life and wake up years later having wasted your life and say, Oh, I'm so sorry. Yes, God will come find, God will welcome you back.

But your example in that story is not the younger son. That is there for all of us who have walked away and fallen and, and we're all in need of forgiveness. That's true.

But you don't have to go out and live a wicked, horrible lifestyle and waste your time and money and come back ragged and beaten up by sin. You don't have to do that. And that's why Jesus told about the older son.

Now, unfortunately, the older son didn't see the importance and the value of being at home with his father. He didn't treasure the presence of the father and being that home that he had. And even so, both of them, really, the point of the story was neither of them valued the home.

And that's why the younger son went out and wasted father's money because he didn't value the home. He didn't value his father. And the older son sat at home and didn't value his father either.

The life that he had with his father wasn't valuable to him. And sadly, at the end of the story, you see the older son outside the home, he doesn't want to come in. And I think he went off into the far country after that.

You know, we're not told. But you and I, whether you're the older son or the younger son, if you're in the house of God today, if you're not in the house of God today, come in. He invites you to come in.

The door is open. He stands at the door and knocks and he says, come in. Let's have fellowship.

We'll have, we'll dine and we'll have fellowship. But once you come in, the point of that story for me is that the father wants us to see that true joy and satisfaction comes from being in his presence and being with him. And this is, for me, the quest of the Christian life is how do I come to the place where, like we sang in that song, my goal is God himself.

Not even joy, not peace, not some other earthly blessing that he can give me, but it's God himself. Are you on that quest, dear brother, dear sister, dear child? You can be on that journey to find out God himself, not something he can give you. My goal is God himself, not something he can give me.

He'll give me everything that I need and what he gives me will vary. What he gives us will be different for different people. But we have one goal, dear brothers, dear sisters.

To be a part of RLCF, I want to tell you plainly is this. We have one goal. We don't need a long mission statement or anything like that.

We want God himself. We don't want a reputation. We don't want a testimony.

We don't want more people, bigger buildings, or anything else. We want God himself. And we want as many people as want God himself that God chooses to plant in our pursuit of God here.

So that's our goal. And today, I think it's not by accident that God has been laying on our hearts recently, especially in the last few months, the importance of being filled with the Holy Spirit. And the true experience of being baptized in the Holy Spirit and the life that comes from being filled with the Holy Spirit.

If you're like me, you will listen to a lot of teaching about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And it will, if you really are sincere, it will incite a little bit of a thirst in you. But if you do nothing about that thirst, if that hunger that's perhaps, if that spark that's lit during a Sunday meeting where we sing songs about being filled with the Spirit of God and pursuing God as our only ambition, if that spark that happens on a Sunday morning perhaps through the teaching and through the fellowship and times of prayer and pouring out our soul to the Lord, that spark is not continued to be fed during the week.

It will die out. And the result will be that you will go from Sunday to Sunday hearing about a life of being filled with the Holy Spirit without actually experiencing the reality of it. And if I could look into each one of your eyes and say, the Lord knows where you're at.

And if I could encourage you in that, simply in this, don't give up. Because that was my life for many years. I would listen to teaching on what it meant to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

But I would go from Sunday after Sunday and hear another message about life in the Spirit and the baptism of the Holy Spirit and being filled with the Spirit of God and coming to a life that looks more Christ-like because I'm filled with the Holy Spirit. And I had a little bit of a longing, but I never came to that experience of it. And God doesn't want to tease you, dear brother, dear sister, dear children.

I hope you children are praying for God to fill you with His Holy Spirit. You should be praying at a young age. I hope that's your prayer.

You hear us say this often in the church. From a young age, make it your constant prayer, Lord, I want to be filled with your Spirit. You know when you're filled with the Holy Spirit, He'll help you in your school.

You won't finish first in the class because that's not God's plan for your life. You won't win the football game or the baseball game or whatever. That's not God's plan for your life.

He wants something far greater than that. He'll help you with whatever you need to do, but He'll make you like Jesus. And then you'll be able to do whatever it is that God wants you to do here on this earth.

So I pray that through everything that you're facing and everything that you're going through, you ask to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and you will fulfill God's plan for your life. And so if that's your testimony as well, that you hear the elders and hear us teaching about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but you have to be honest with yourself. Say, Lord, I still am not experiencing a Spirit-filled life.

It starts with that honesty, and God can work with that. God will fill you. God wants to fill you.

He's more eager to fill you with His Holy Spirit than you are eager to receive Him. You heard that from this pulpit many times. God is more eager.

So as thirsty and as hungry and as desperate as you feel to be filled with the Holy Spirit, God is more eager to fill you. His desire, His passion, His yearning to fill you with the Holy Spirit is much greater than what you have. You can be sure of that.

And so believe Him in faith. Let's turn to Acts chapter 2. I think the reason that many people are not filled with the Holy Spirit is, I can think of two reasons that have come to my mind right now. One is they have been misled by teaching about the Holy Spirit.

That is wrong. They've been given a false impression about the Holy Spirit. A false picture has been painted about who the Holy Spirit is and what being filled with the Holy Spirit looks like.

And so they're chasing after that. And maybe they would get that. But it's still an empty life.

Because it's not God Himself. Their goal is some experience or speaking in tongues or some other outward manifestation. Even some good manifestations.

But their goal becomes something else. And so it results in a disappointment. And that even though they may go around saying that they are filled with the Holy Spirit or baptized with the Holy Spirit and they are around people that act as if they're baptized with the Holy Spirit, it's not the spiritual life that you read in the New Testament.

That's one. Because they've been taught incorrectly about who the Holy Spirit is. The other is that I think that many people haven't really understood that to have a spiritual life is a very uncomfortable life.

You don't get to do whatever you want anymore. It's a life of surrender. It's a life of brokenness.

It's a life of suffering. It's a life of discipline. It's a very uncomfortable life to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

One of the reasons I'm tremendously blessed by the biographies of older men and women, by older I mean that lived in the past, and why I've had a desire to share them with us during our prayer meetings, on our monthly prayer meetings, is because we get to see many of these men and women who were living good lives, even living lives where they were effective in the ministry, but they weren't Spirit-filled. And if you remember the stories that we've been hearing over the last few years now, last four or five years that we've been going through those stories, one thing is common that I see with all of them. When they came to the experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit, they really started to suffer.

They really started to be put through the grinder as it were. It became inconvenient. It became like thorns in their flesh that came in all of a sudden.

The pressing, the squeezing, the constriction, the narrowness was even more after they were filled with the Holy Spirit. And that's why I want to ask you, dear brother, dear sister, is that the life you want? If you want a comfortable life on this earth, a life where God works out everything for you and you kind of settle into a nice little groove and you coast along until Jesus Christ comes, then the baptism of the Holy Spirit is not for you. But I'll tell you this, you will live with regret for all eternity.

God wants every one of his children to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Let me say that again. God wants every single one of his children to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

It's not just for some. And that's again what I meant when I said that. Some people think, oh, I must be filled with the Holy Spirit if I'm going to be an elder or be the preacher or lead the singing.

Yes, of course, that is. But you know that to be a husband, you need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Do you know that to be a wife, you must be filled with the Holy Spirit? To be a member of Christ's body, you must be filled with the Holy Spirit.

To be a child 10 years old and 12 years old who's pleasing to God, you must be filled with the Holy Spirit. To be a good employee, to attend to your own business and do your work, 1 Thessalonians 4.11, you need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And when we see that God has so ordained the Christian life in such a way that he brings us to a place where we realize, I cannot live this life unless you fill me with your power.

So God's desire is that every single one of his children must be filled with the Holy Spirit. And there are many aspects of that life that we've been hearing about over the last few months, I think. And I'd like to speak about one aspect of that.

In Acts chapter 2, you see how on the first time that people were filled with the Holy Spirit, until this time, other people had experienced some level of anointing by the Spirit. Even somebody like Samson, defeated as he was, sinful, carnal as he was, the Spirit of God could come upon him and he could do amazing things for God and for the people of God. Saul prophesied the Spirit came upon him.

David also prophesied the Spirit came upon him. But we read in John 7 very clearly that the Spirit had not yet been given in the way that was later on given in Acts chapter 2 on the day of Pentecost. So something different happened.

The Holy Spirit for the first time could come and dwell and fill somebody on the inside. But the reason that couldn't happen before was because people's hearts were still filthy, the blood of Jesus Christ. They could receive forgiveness through the blood of bulls and goats.

But it was when Christ came and died on the cross and paid the penalty for our sin that our hearts could be cleansed. And you've seen the picture of a cup that's inverted upside down and the Spirit coming upon such a cup and that overflow of the Spirit going around to people or to things around that cup. But the inside of the cup was still dirty and now that cup was turned upside down.

And in order for the Holy Spirit to fill this cup, to fill it to overflowing so that the Holy Spirit could be manifest around it, that cup must have been cleansed first. And it's cleansed through the blood of Jesus. So after Jesus came and opened up the way into the Father and offered His blood as a sacrifice, as the means by which our sins could be forgiven.

Now the inside of our cups could be cleansed and God could fill our cups and it could overflow into tongues, into other gifts, but more importantly into love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control, all of these things. The overflow of that, the fruit of the Spirit. And so when you read what happened in Acts chapter 2, there's a lot of things that you could choose to focus on.

A lot of people focus on the rushing wind, the sound like a rushing wind that came through, on the tongues of fire that sat above them and the tongues that they spoke into. There's a lot of things that people focus on. And then you read later on that 3,000 were baptized that day.

And the last verse of Acts chapter 2 says that the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved. And a lot of these things are, these are clearly true and happened to them. And it is our prayer that if it is God's will that He will do the same for us.

If it's God's will that you should speak in tongues, He'll give you that gift. If it's God's will that 3,000 should one day be baptized, God will do that. But what I see here, what I want to share with you this morning, dear brothers and sisters, is something that happened in the midst of these people, the people through whom the church was built, that started a train that would continue and is continuing now until Jesus Christ comes.

And so here we read in Acts chapter 2, let's begin reading in verse 46. Before you read in verse, in the last part of verse 47 that the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved, you read in verse 46, day by day they continued with one mind in the temple. You see what happened when the Holy Spirit came upon them? For the first time, they could actually have one mind.

Before that, if you read even these apostles in the presence of Jesus, these 12 disciples, when they were in the presence of Jesus, when they were with Him, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come and dwelt within Peter and James and John and Thomas and Nathanael and all the other apostles or the other disciples, they still had different minds. Peter had his mind about, Lord, everybody else will deny you, all those other 11, they'll deny you, but I'm not going to. You see the different mind there? Peter says, my mind is different, Lord, theirs is different from ours.

They were arguing about who would be the greatest. Each of them had a different mind and you find them constantly bickering. You know that even the presence, the physical presence of Jesus cannot set you free from a bickering, quarreling mindset, a mindset that thinks of itself as better than the other.

Jesus was there in their midst among the 12 disciples and yet they still fought with each other, they still quarreled. That's a picture for me of what it could be like in our homes or in the church. Jesus, do you think that if Jesus was physically in your home, husband, you and your wife would stop arguing and fighting? Think about what I just said.

If Jesus was physically in your home, would that actually make you stop fighting and arguing and being irritated with your spouse? If Jesus was physically in this church every Sunday, do you think that would make us be wonderful in unity? I hope that the three and a half years that the disciples had with Jesus physically in their midst is proof enough that that's not the case. That you could have Jesus physically in your home, physically in the church, and that will not mean that you and your spouse will be one. Because like the disciples, you'll go over way until, oh, Jesus is there in the living room, let's go into the bedroom and have our private little fight and cover it up from Jesus.

That's what the disciples did. They were whispering amongst themselves thinking that Jesus wasn't hearing about, no, I'm greater, no, I'm better. No, see, I did this and you remember when I did that? Jesus is from a distance watching them argue about who was greater.

You read in one place that Jesus was aware what they were talking about. Is Jesus in your home? And he's in one room and you're having a private little argument with your spouse in another room thinking I will hide it from Jesus or hide it from the children. Even the physical presence of Jesus will not bring peace and unity in our homes.

There's only one thing that can bring unity and oneness and peace in our homes and that is being filled with the Holy Spirit. As I've said that, dear brother, dear sister, especially husbands and wives, for those of us that live with another person in the home where it's so easy for friction to come in, does that cause you to say, Lord, I've tried to live a good Christian marriage up to this point, tried to have a good reputation in front of others, tried to look good in front of others, even in front of you, Lord, not to be hypocritical, but it isn't the marriage that comes from being filled with the Holy Spirit. And if you've been trying, husband and wife, to have a good marriage where you get along with each other and say, Jesus, we want you to be here, but it hasn't come through the Holy Spirit filling you and filling your spouse and making you one, then I hope that at least from today you will make that the burning desire of your heart.

It's become mine. I don't want just a good marriage. I don't want just a marriage that makes it up to a certain point in time and say, oh, we've been married for so many years.

Even the worldly people can say that. There are people in the world who have nothing, who deny Christ, who live together as a married couple. But is that your goal? Is that your destination? Is that your ambition? Make it your ambition, dear brothers, dear sisters, and dear children, to have the oneness that can only come through the Holy Spirit.

And so you see here for the very first time that they had one mind. And as the Lord was adding to their number day by day, those who were being saved, He was adding them in a way that He could add them to this one mind that God wants us to have. And so I hope that you will make it your prayer as it has been mine now for some time.

Lord, I want to have one mind with my wife. I don't want just to have a good marriage where I'm learning how to get along with her and learn. Yes, it involves learning how to get along with her, learning to understand her, 1 Peter chapter 3. Husbands, unless you learn to live with your wives in an understanding way, you could pray all day and all night and fast for 40 days and your prayers will mean nothing.

The Holy Spirit is very clear. You must learn to live with your wife in an understanding way. But what is the purpose of that? Is it that you just kind of become a better? Well, she's got her quirks and all that, but I've kind of learned to just deal with it.

That's not a spiritual marriage. The spiritual marriage is where the two are becoming one and God gives them one mind. What about in the church? God doesn't want us to become a part of this church where more people are added and we kind of learn, oh, that person, yeah, they've got their quirks.

I've kind of learned how to deal with them. And that other person, they've got their little personality and their temperament. I learned to adjust to that.

And you kind of learn this little which eggshells to walk around, which are Lego pieces to step around like, okay, I don't want to get hurt. So, oh, yeah, I learned how to adjust in the church. That's not the church.

In the body, in the body of Christ, we have one mind. What is characteristic about my body, your body? They're all submitted to the head. There's one mind.

It's not that the finger has a mind of its own and this finger has a mind of its own and they're all doing their own thing. And every now and then when they're near each other, it's like, okay, let's just get along. And then the rest of the time, I'm still thinking for myself.

I still have my own ideas and my own ambitions. But yeah, I'm part of RLCF, so let's just learn to kind of get along. Let's not fight.

We used to fight, but let's learn not to fight. Is that how your body is built? Is that how your hands are composed? Like they've got their own mind, they do their own thing. But whenever they come together on Sunday, they're just kind of like, okay, let's just be at peace.

Or whenever we interact with each other. But the rest of the time, I've got my own mind. True unity in every circumstance, whether it's a marriage, in the home, or in the church comes from having one mind.

What makes our bodies function is the fact that we have one mind. If you had two minds, that's schizophrenia, like they say. The mind is just like two personalities, split personality and other things.

And I'm not here to mock that. It's a mental illness. And it's sad when some people are afflicted by that.

But a healthy body, and certainly the spiritual body of Christ has one mind. And I hope you know, and I hope you see here that that can only come through being filled with the Holy Spirit. The things that God is pulling back the covers on for me that I'm trying to share with us as a church as well are where the baptism of the Holy Spirit doesn't just become this add-on where I'm born again, I'm baptized, and I'm seeking to be a disciple.

And then, oh, yeah, you know, as an icing on top of the cake, you can have the fullness of the Holy Spirit. For me, the baptism of the Holy Spirit and a life of being continually full of the Holy Spirit is the cake itself. This is it.

This is how you find Jesus. It's not an option anymore. And forgive me, family, if in any way our preaching in this church in the years that you've been here has somehow presented it in such a way that, you know what, you should be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Consider it, take time to think about it. And I hope that through the thrust of our messages, recently you're saying, Lord, this is not something that I can live without. I'm living off icing now and you have something far greater, a life of being filled with the Holy Spirit, a life where that fullness of the Holy Spirit dictates everything I do.

It dictates the way I think. It dictates how I do my job. It dictates how I interact with my wife, with your husband, with my children, how I drive on the street, how I interact with families in the church.

It is everything because it makes Christ everything. He makes Christ everything. Why is the life of being filled with the Holy Spirit so everything? Why am I making it seem like that? Because when you're filled with the Holy Spirit, Christ truly becomes everything.

We've heard in this church often and we sing often about making Christ everything, Christ being everything to us. But I'll tell you honestly, brothers and sisters and children, that it's very easy to try to do that in your own strength. Oh, I want Christ to be exalted.

I want Christ to be preeminent. We use that word. That means He's the first place and the only place.

He's got all the glory and all the shining is His. We say that, but you can often try to do that in your own strength. The only way Christ can be everything to you and be preeminent and fill your heart with all His glory is through being filled with the Holy Spirit.

That's the only way. And if you've been trying to make Christ bigger and more exalted in a way that hasn't come through being filled with the Holy Spirit, it's no wonder that the things of this world still have a pull on you. So God wants to fill us with the Holy Spirit and this oneness that comes as a result of that begins by being made one with God.

We are made one with Christ. Let's turn to John chapter 17. John 17, we read one of the last prayers that Jesus prayed.

Perhaps the last public prayer that Jesus prayed. And at the end of that, he says in John 17 verse 22, the glory which you... He's praying to the Father now. The glory which you have given me, I have given to them.

Pause there for a moment, brothers, sisters. Did you know, have you seen this? I'm sure you've read this verse. We've heard it in this church before.

But have you seen that? The glory... Did you know that there is a glory that the Father gave Jesus which he has given to you? The God who says, I am God, I will share my glory with no other. There's something about the glory... There was some aspect of that glory that the Father gave Jesus for him to give to you and I. The glory which you have given me, I have given to them. There is most of the glory of God you can never partake of.

His being God and the adoration and the glory that you deserve all the glory and the honor, that can never be ours. No flesh can ever take that. Even redeemed flesh.

Even in our resurrected bodies, we can never take any of that glory from God. But there is some of the glory of God that he wants you to have. I mean, is it in your Bible or is it only in mine? The glory which you have given me, I've given to them.

Did you receive it when you came to Jesus? Or somehow the devil blinded you from it? You got forgiveness. You got healing perhaps sometimes. You got a Savior who's helping you save you from sins.

But you didn't get the glory that the Father gave Jesus which he wanted to give to you as well. And what is that glory? It's the glory of oneness. You see it? There is a glory that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit have experienced from before time.

The fact that they are three but one. And it's something that people have tried to understand for years. They've tried to explain it using addition and multiplication and all kinds of other things.

And I'll tell you, some of those can help us understand a little bit. But ultimately, you cannot understand how three persons can be one. One God, three persons.

We can never fully describe it or explain it. And yet, there's a glory behind it. That's why it's so difficult to understand.

It's a mystery and it's a glory. And yet, that glory of how three persons could be one is the glory that He gave to you and I. So that you, husband and wife, could experience the glory of God in your home. Not as two people learning to get along, but as two people being one.

Do you see that the mystery of the Trinity is something that God wants you to experience in your home? Not the same Trinity. Please understand, I want to be very reverential and respectful in what I'm saying. Because there is an aspect of the glory of God that we can never touch.

And we dare not behold lightly. But there is a part of the glory of God that we are called not only to see and behold, but to experience and partake of. The glory of His oneness.

Do you want that, dear brother, dear sister? I mean, the devil tried to take the glory of God, to take his position. I want to be like God and have that glory. And here today, the Father sent Jesus down to this earth to offer to you and I not just forgiveness of sins, not just baptism in water, but a baptism of the Holy Spirit that allows us to partake of His glory that makes us one.

And for years perhaps, you and I have sat in marriages as two people, husband and wife, learning to get along and saying, Oh Lord, we've been married for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years. And He says, Oh, that you could see I had something far greater than that. God is more delighted, I believe, in a newlywed couple that is one with all their things that they have to work through.

Or let's say, let's maybe newlywed is like, well, they haven't really seen each other's, you know, quirks and things like that. Okay, God is more delighted, I'll say in a couple that's been married for two years that is seeking to be one than another couple that's been married for 30 years that is just content that they've learned to get along after 30 years. If after 20 years of being married, you're less one, but you've just learned how to get along with your spouse, you've missed it, brother, your sister.

Don't waste another day pursuing something else that God doesn't want you to pursue. He wants you to be one. And I've said this before, I'll say it again, God stops counting at one.

You know, a lot of churches say, oh, we went from 10 to 100 and we went from 100 to 1000. This is the mark of God's blessing. You'll never read that in the Bible.

Yes, God does want to add to churches. God does want this church to grow and He has caused this church to grow. But it must be a growth in that oneness.

That means that people are being added in a way that they are being added into the oneness. And I'll tell you this, I'm ashamed to say it, that if anybody wants to come and be a part of this church in a way that they're not being united in the one mind that God wants us to have through the power of the Holy Spirit, then I'd say, brother, sister, there's plenty of other churches where you can be yourself and have your own mind and they will glory in the fact that one more person is now sitting in that building. That's not what we want at RLCF.

We're seeking to be made one. We're seeking to be united in mind, the mind of Christ. And we don't all see that perfectly, but we're trying to grow.

We're trying to learn His heart. We're trying to be filled with the Spirit who searches the hearts of God and makes us so that we can have the mind of Christ. I'll show you that.

In fact, let's just go there and see it. But let's finish reading this verse. The glory which you have given me, I have given to them that they may be one, just as we are one.

We three are one. It's a mystery. Theologians have tried to explain it and they've tried to use this analogy and that analogy and some just flat out deny it.

There's only one God. He's just different manifestations. But Jesus said, We are one.

And that can only happen through the Spirit of God. That can only happen. And He wants to give you that, husband, wife, in your marriage.

He wants to give us that in this church, that we're not whatever number we are. You know, so many churches glory in the fact that they've had more. And it's like I was saying that I think Jesus, the head says, Man, what kind of body is this? They think I'm a part of them.

They're part of my body. But you've got a hand that's got its own mind. Then you've got a toe that you've got its own mind and a leg that's got its own mind and a shoulder that's got its own mind.

And all these people that have their own mind, that's not my body. And you can glory in the fact that there's a hundred or a thousand people sitting in a building, calling themselves a church with a thousand different minds. And Jesus says, I stopped counting at one.

The moment you went from one to two, it was over. I was no longer connected to that body. And if you became three, it just compounded the problem.

And if you became 10 and 30 and 100 and 300, it just made the problem worse. I was trying to get you to go the other way, to be one. If you're married and you went from one to two, God's plan in bringing you husband and wife together was that you would become one.

And if God gave you children, according to His will, some He does, some He doesn't. But if He gave you children, God's plan was that you and that first child of yours, now that you're three would become one. You see, children, why it's so important to obey your parents and how to seek for the power of the Holy Spirit, children? Pay attention to me for a minute.

God wants you to be filled with the Holy Spirit so that in your home, there with your daddy and mommy, you can be one. As many as you are. That's why it doesn't matter how many children.

God is in charge of how many children you have or don't have. But are you one? There are many conservative families that glory in the fact that they have a lot of children, 10 children, 15 children. Okay, that's wonderful.

But are they one? God doesn't glory in large families. I think it's wonderful. You know, Psalm 120 says, blessed is the one whose quiver is full.

And I think of quiver being full simply being that you're one. You're full of the Spirit of God. And if God has given you the grace to have more children, praise the Lord for that.

If he's given you grace to have a smaller family, grace, praise the Lord for that. But God stopped counting at one. And really, the bigger problem is that when you have more children, it may be more difficult to be one.

God will give you grace according to the need, but seek to be one. He wants us to be one. Let's turn to, before we go to that verse in second Corinthians, I just want to show you a verse in Ephesians chapter one.

Ephesians chapter one. No, chapter two. Ephesians two verse 13.

Now, he's talking about our relationship in the church between, he uses the examples of Jews and Gentiles. And back in those days, you couldn't pick a more opposite group than Jews and Gentiles. They were the exact opposite of the spectrum, Jews and Gentiles.

As far apart as you could possibly be. Because the Jews, they knew that they were God's chosen people and the Gentiles was everybody else. And there was, if you really were to obey God, there was a clear separation between Jew and Gentile.

You weren't allowed to mix. Read the Old Testament. It's full of, don't mix this, don't mix this.

It's like oil and water. It's two completely different things. And then we read in Ephesians two verse 13.

When Jesus came, now in Christ, Ephesians two verse 13. In Christ Jesus, you who formerly were far off, have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Why did God now bring the Gentiles into this by the blood of Christ? Verse 14.

For because he himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall by abolishing in his flesh the enmity, which is the law of commandments contained in ordinances. So that in himself, he says it again, in Christ Jesus, in this head, in Christ as the head of his body, he might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace. I don't think I could do that verse justice.

There's so much there. Husbands and wives, will you make a commitment that each of us individually and all of us really, not just for husband and wife, but all of us, because you all, I think most if not all of you are members of this local church. Will you say, Lord, I want to experience Ephesians 2 verse 15 in my life.

I want this. Verse 16. Also might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross by it having put to death the enmity.

I want you to establish peace in my life and in my marriage and in my home and in this church. The peace that comes from Ephesians 2 verses 13 through 16, the enmity and them becoming one. How will you be a peacemaker? How will you have peace in your home? It's not through adjusting to each other's quirks and each other's temperaments and each other's personalities.

It can only come through being made one. Now let's look at this verse in 2nd Corinthians. No, sorry, 1st Corinthians chapter 2. God has wonderful plans for your life, dear brother, dear sister.

God has wonderful plans for your marriage. The sky is the limit, as they say, for what God can do in your marriage. I think many of you, many of us are blessed with God, with godly marriages and God has done a work in helping us grow and to love each other.

And God has done a wonderful thing in this church, even in teaching us love, sacrificial love. But the sky is the limit. I hope we're not satisfied with what God has done in knitting our hearts together in this body.

There's so much more He wants to do. Here's what He says about it. 1st Corinthians chapter 2, verse 9. Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for your marriage, for your home, for your children, for this church, for those who love Him.

Things that eye has not seen, ear has not heard, you can't even imagine, even if you tried, you couldn't imagine what God has prepared for your marriage, what God has prepared for you in your home, with your children and for this church. Okay, you couldn't even imagine. So then what do I do? Do I just kind of hope that somehow I can see it? And then he goes on to say verse 10.

But to us, God revealed them through the Holy Spirit. And you see why? He's like, I don't know what my marriage is going to look like 10 years from now. I say, well, you need to be filled with the Holy Spirit and God will show you not 10 years from now because that will come.

But today, Lord, today you have an experience in my marriage that I could not even have imagined yesterday. Is that how you want to go into this week, brother, sister, in your marriage, in your relationship with your children, in your relationship with your workplace, in your relationship with your neighbors? Do you want to go into that with like, wow, man, I'm experiencing something in my walk with my wife, with my husband, with my children, with others in the church that I couldn't even have imagined yesterday. How did that happen? Through the Holy Spirit.

To us, God revealed them through the Holy Spirit because the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. So here's the picture I'm getting that I hope you'll see as well, that somewhere deep in God the depths that are God is God's wonderful plan for Santosh in his life today. Whether you're single, whether you're married, whether you're a child, you're a young person, whatever it might be, somewhere hidden in the depths of God, deep in the ocean that is God, is God's wonderful plan for your life today.

And I hope that when you know that, you think, well, I would love to know that. You mean 10,000, 20,000 leagues under the sea is something special for Santosh for November 11th, 2024. Of course, I want to know that.

And he says, if you'll come and be filled with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit that searches the depths of God will reveal them to you. For to us, God revealed them through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.

For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? So he's using the example of man. Only you know what you're thinking. God has so ordained it that your thoughts are your own.

Nobody, not even the person who knows you the best, they may be able to figure out what you're thinking by watching your response to, to, you know, maybe your wife or your husband has studied you enough that they know what you're thinking. They can read your mind because of how you, what's on your face or, you know, Megan often tells me, like, I know what you're thinking because I can see it's all over your face. What are you thinking about? Now, but that's different.

What I'm actually thinking about, if I was to guard my facial expression, if I could, you could never know. Nobody could ever know. And God says in the same way, do you want to know the thoughts of God? You can never know it.

You could never know it unless the spirit of God who knows the thoughts of God reveals it to you. Let's continue reading. Verse 11.

Who among men knows the thoughts of man except the spirit of man which is in him? Or if I could make it an affirmative statement, no one knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him. Even so, verse 12. Oh, no, the middle of verse 11.

The thoughts of God, which is what? The wonderful things he has prepared for you, plans for you, how he's going to bless you today, how he's going to fill your life today with more of himself. The thoughts of God for you, no one knows except the spirit of God. And then you say, Lord, I want to be filled with your Holy Spirit.

Baptize me, Lord, with your spirit, because it's no wonder that I go about my day so full of anxiety and fear and trouble and my head's hanging down. I'm like, oh, this problem is just going to go from bad to worse. You need to be filled with the Holy Spirit, brother, sister.

And he will reveal to you that little gem, that little precious treasure that is hidden 20,000 leagues deep into the heart of God. And he'll reveal it to you. And then your response will be, wow, I don't need to be worried anymore.

You see how the fullness of the Holy Spirit, the spirit of God that searches the plans of God for your life set us free. Now, verse 12, we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. For a number of weeks, I've been judging myself, family, I don't say this to like, just really convicted, really, about how I preach and how I used to preach.

And I've been examining areas in which that preaching has come from. What here is described as words taught by human wisdom. We speak not in words taught by human wisdom.

And I fear, I just have a godly, healthy, reverential fear, lest I ever speak again any word that's taught by human wisdom. Some cute idea, some application of my intellect, something I read in some other book that some other writer put really well, or something else I heard in a sermon somewhere. I'm like, I'm just going to repeat that out.

Words taught by human wisdom. And I want to teach and speak only those things taught by the spirit. Combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.

Now that's just not for me as a preacher and a teacher of God's word. For you fathers, or let's start husbands, what are the words that you speak to your wife at home? Oh, we should have this kind of marriage. I don't think that's a good idea.

We shouldn't watch that movie, or we shouldn't allow our children to watch this. Is it taught by human wisdom? Maybe you read it in a book somewhere, or you have an idea of what conservative life should look like, and you avoid these sorts of things, and you take your stance on these particular issues. Or is it words taught by the Holy Spirit? Have you been trying to lead your wife and guide her into a how to live your life without the fullness of the Holy Spirit? Then it's words taught by human wisdom.

Have you been trying to teach your children not being filled with the Holy Spirit out of a life that's not full of the Holy Spirit? Then what you've taught them, please understand, I'm not trying to condemn anybody here, or to beat you up, or I was tempted to beat myself up. I said, Lord, have I really been teaching this church, or teaching my children, or teaching others words taught by human wisdom? I repent, Lord, if it's ever been there, and I never want to go there again. Will you fill me with your Holy Spirit so that every word I speak, whether it's to my wife, or to my children, or in this church, or anywhere else, is words taught by the Spirit.

Spiritual thoughts combined with spiritual words. I don't want even a single human word to creep in. You know, Peter says, let everyone who speaks, speaks as the mouthpiece of God, of the oracles of God.

We realize that husband, God wants you to speak as his mouth. Then it'll bring a greater fear, it'll bring a greater dependence, and it'll bring a falling on your face, and laying yourself on the altar before God every night and every morning. Say, Lord, I cannot get up tomorrow morning, and be the husband you want me to be, the wife you want me to be, the mother, the father, the child, the brother, the sister, the child, the disciple of Jesus that you want me to be, unless you fill me with your Spirit.

And I tell you brothers and sisters, if you pray for that reason, and pray that way, with that kind of a desperation, will you repent and say, Lord, forgive me for how I have spoken human words. Words start with human wisdom, and yes, they're good. Everybody else in the world say, man, you have got a good family, you seem to be raising them well, but you know it came, didn't come from the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

And then we're done with trying to impress people with the families we have, and how well behaved they are, and how they speak respectfully and all that. And we say, Lord, I want, we want our lives, and our marriages, and our homes, and this church to be characterized by a fullness of the Holy Spirit. Verse 14, A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually apprised.

But he who is spiritual, or I would say spirit filled, appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one, for who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. How is it that you and I, in our homes and in this church, are going to have one mind? The mind of Christ is through the fullness of the Holy Spirit. When we seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit, He takes us and makes us one.

Here's a picture that I remember my dad speaking in a message years ago that has really helped me, and I want to share that with you. You think about two pieces of metal. Think of you and your wife, you and your husband, or you and another brother or sister in the church, like two pieces of metal that God says, okay, I want you to come together in a marriage, you and your children.

Now you've got two pieces and maybe two or three other pieces of metal. That's a home. And you put them in a bag.

He's called us into a church and think there's this big bag, RLCF, a bunch of individual pieces of metal clinking around the bag. Every time you walk, you hear the clinking of the metal pieces banging each other. Would you say that they're one? Yes, they're in one bag, but they're not one.

Yes, your marriage, there's two pieces, but they're knocking against each other. Give it a little bit of a shake and you'll hear the clinking. You hear that there's still two.

Yeah, maybe it's become a little bit softer and you're learning to avoid her when she's in a bad mood or you're learning to avoid him when he's in a bad mood and you learn to tread lightly. That's not one. How do you make those two pieces of metal one? How do you make those five pieces of metal one? How do you make a hundred pieces of metal one? You put them into the fire.

And when those two pieces are dipped into the fire of the Holy Spirit, that's what God did. It started with fire. The one mind didn't come before the fire.

It came with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And there's a lot of churches that are trying to say, this is our vision, this is our mission statement, align with us, align with us according to the leader's vision of what kind of church they should be. And may we be a church that has one mind because we're filled with the Holy Spirit.

We have the mind of Christ. And I'll tell you this, brother and sister, I believe this with all my heart that if any of us doesn't come or isn't seeking to be filled with the Holy Spirit and to truly have the mind of Christ, you could sit here for year after year after year and you will never be one. You could check the box and say, where's your church membership? Oh, RLCF.

But that means nothing from eternity standpoint. It means nothing from God's perspective. He's got one body.

A one body that's characterized by the mind of Christ. We have the mind of Christ. What a beautiful picture we're given here.

How do we have the mind of Christ? Let's turn to Philippians chapter two. Yes, it comes through being filled with the Holy Spirit. But why is it then that you would say, well, Santosh, I've been asking for the fullness of the Holy Spirit, but he doesn't seem to come and I don't seem to be filled.

Keep seeking, brother, sister, child. Keep seeking. Don't ever stop asking.

But God looks for... There are certain conditions that He looks for us to fulfill. And the most important condition along with thirst is humility. If you are not humble, God can never fill you with His Holy Spirit.

He's given us a picture of that in the universe. That a place, that water will always flow from a higher place to a lower place. If you have the top of the mountain and you've got water there, as the snow melts, there's something within the snow that's turned into water that's going to automatically seek to go down.

And if you're up there at the top, you think yourself is better than your wife, better than your husband, better than your children, then you'll find that you don't experience the fullness of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit bypasses you, flows on past you to somebody else a little bit lower than you. And the person who will receive most of God's Spirit today is the one that is lowest in this room.

I'm listening to this. The person who is truly lowest, God knows who that is. But the person who is truly the lowest will receive the most of the fullness of God.

Everybody else will get the Spirit from me and then he moved on to somebody else. Do you want that? You got a touch of the Holy Spirit and then he went on to the person sitting next to you because that person was lower. And then that person had a little bit of a thought, well, yeah, oh, I've got the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

I've got some gifts. And then the Holy Spirit says, sorry, I can't, now I got to move on to somebody else who's a little bit lower. Find the lowest place in every situation, dear brother, dear sister, and you will, the Holy Spirit will come rushing in and fill you.

Philippians 2 verse 5, have this attitude, this mind, you can say, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself. You see the lowering. So Jesus was God.

He didn't have to, he's always been God. He didn't have to leave that place, but he wanted to show us how we could have his mind, how we could have the spirit of God in us. And he says, let me show you there's a mystery about having my partaking of my glory of oneness that you don't understand.

The devil tried to understand it and he become that highest archangel tried to understand it and he became the devil. I want you to understand it. Jesus is saying, God is saying, Santosh, I want you to understand it.

I want you to experience it. Let me show you how you can experience it. It's not by climbing up and saying, I will be like God.

I will be a good husband. I will love my wife as Christ loved the church. Do you see the spirit of the devil in that? When you read Ephesians 5, husband that says, you must love your wives as Christ loved the church.

You say, OK, by hook or by crook, I'm going to love my wife as Christ loved the church. That's the devil. I will be like Christ and love my wife.

Jesus says, let me show you how you're going to love your wife, how you can love your wife as I love the church. Lower yourself. Empty yourself.

He emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of man. He went lower and lower and lower. Verse 8, being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death.

Are you being obedient, husband? Are you being obedient? You might think, well, children, you're supposed to obey. You know, you want to be Christ-like? You want to have the mind of Christ? Learn to be obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Now let's go back and he says, Christ showed you this example for what? So that you, husband, wife, brother, sister, child, could follow his example.

Verse 1, therefore, if there's any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship that comes through the Holy Spirit. Do you want fellowship in your marriage or just a good marriage? Do you want fellowship that can only come through the Holy Spirit? Do you want fellowship in the church? Or is it just the last part of our name, River of Life Christian Fellowship? Even that word has become so played now, so ordinary. Fellowship is a precious thing.

You cannot have fellowship unless you're filled with the Holy Spirit. It's not by being in each other's home and me inviting you to my house and you inviting me to your house and let's get together and have potluck lunch afterwards and let's have conversation. That's just two pieces of metal learning how to fit better together.

That's not oneness. Fellowship comes through being filled with the Holy Spirit. If there's any fellowship of the Holy Spirit, any affection and compassion make my joy complete by being of the same mind.

And he just showed us what that mind was. Being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. And what is that mind? It's the mind of humility.

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, regard one another as more important than yourselves. Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others because this is the mind that Jesus had. The mind of humility.

And in every situation, brother, sister, if you're looking and say, Lord, I want to be filled with the Holy Spirit, so help me to think of myself as less important than my wife. Help me to think of myself as less important than my children. Help me to think of myself as less important than everybody else in this church.

They're more important, their preferences, their importance, their convenience. And then we start to understand the mind of Christ. We start to have the mind of Christ.

There's a lot more I could say on that, but let me just close with this. In Ephesians chapter 5, this is the kind of home, this is the kind of church God wants us to have, this is the kind of individual life God wants us to have. For those of you that aren't married, I know I've spoken a lot of marriage because that's where a lot of that friction tends to come up, but it'll come up in different circumstances in your life.

It could be with siblings, it could be with parents, even as an adult child, it could be with children, if your children are grown up. Wherever it is, in Ephesians chapter 5, you know, after he talks about being filled with the Holy Spirit, verse 18, be being filled with the Holy Spirit, he immediately goes on to say, yes, sing to each other and all that, but he says, now listen, here's where it really matters. Verse 21, learn to be subject to one another.

Learn to be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. You can only do that if you're filled with the Holy Spirit. Be submissive to one another, to everybody.

There's a sense in which you and I must be submitted to everybody around us. Be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. Meditate on the verse, Ephesians 5, verse 21, especially husbands, because you're about to hear in verse 22, how the wives must be subject to their husbands.

But before that he says, all of you be subject to one another. Then he says, wives be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord. Husbands, verse 25, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church.

Which do you think is more difficult, to be subject to your own husbands or to love as Christ loved the church? They're both impossible, I tell you that, unless you're filled with the Holy Spirit. And a lot of husbands who are preaching to their wives that they should be submitted to them, haven't seen verse 25 where he says, listen, the standard of love is not just you're nice to your wife, it is as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. But I want to get to verse 28.

So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. You see, husbands and wives, it's not about you versus her or you versus him. When you really come to this oneness, you realize that it's you versus yourself.

That in that situation where you're trying to prove that your wife was wrong or trying to prove that your husband was wrong, you're harming yourself. It's like going ahead and sticking a dagger into your own thigh and thinking, well, I won this fight. And you didn't realize you stuck it into your own leg.

How is that a win? How is it a win, husband, when you finally get your way and your wife just yielded? She was done fighting. Did you win? You just stuck a knife into your own body. How is it getting your way, wife, when you're like, oh, no, I refuse to submit.

I wanted my way. And your husband yields according to Ephesians 5 verse 21 and lets you have your way. And you're like, I won.

I got what I wanted. You stuck a knife. So husbands and wives ought to love their own spouses as their own bodies.

He who loves his own wife loves himself. It's your own self that you're hurting in that marriage conflict. Now, do you want to be done with it? Are you going to drag on that fight another hour, another day, another week, another month? Verse 29, for no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it.

I mean, if somebody came to try to stick a knife in your leg, you would fight it. You would protect it. The moment a little thorn goes in before it becomes a knife, if a little thorn went into your flesh, pluck it out, take it out.

But nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ also does the church because we are members of his body. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife and the two shall become one. Well, it's not us versus me versus her, me versus him.

And I realize I'm one now. If I allow that conflict, if I refuse to forgive my spouse, I'm hurting myself. You're not hurting her.

You're not hurting him. If you hold on to that grudge and that bitterness, you're not hurting him, you're not hurting her, you're hurting yourself. If you hold on to that grudge and that bitterness towards your brother, and that's why we also... I'll touch on the body briefly.

The local expression of the body of Christ, why is that important? Because I'll tell you what, I'm not tested in this oneness with my brother in South America and my brother in Asia and my brother in Africa and Europe or in Canada or anywhere else. I'm tested with you all, brothers and sisters. Even the other brother who is my brother in Christ attending that other church down the road, he never tests me.

I think I love him a lot. But I can't prove that. I know that I have the love of Christ when I have to love you, my brothers and my sisters.

And when you have to love me, with all my quirks and my temperaments and my ways of doing things, and you have to love me and you see how now God wants to make you one and he wants to make the two one. This is the glory that the Father gave Jesus that he wants to give you and I in his church, that we as a local expression of his body are being made one. They will know you are my disciples when you have love for one another, Jesus said.

What is that? Oh wow, this church, they seem to like each other. That's not it. Everybody else may think that we are united, but you know whether you are or not in the way you think.

Six years ago, people thought we were a united church and then God blew open the covers and showed what people were thinking in their minds. How do you think about your brother and your sister in the church? One day it will be manifest. And I pray that God manifests it here so that we can say, Lord, I'm sorry.

I thought I was one with my brother, but you showed me. I was full of carnal self-interest and self-love and self-motivation. Thank you, Lord, for showing it to me.

I want to have one mind. I want to unite myself with your mind and for you to unite my brother, my sister, my wife, my husband, my children into that same mind and for us to have unity there. And that's the church against which the devil has no foothold and the gates of hell cannot stand against this church that Jesus is building.

Dear brother, dear sister, this is the church that Jesus is building. I believe he's doing it here. But it's up to you and I in the thoughts of whether you're being aligned in this humility of mind.

Anytime a boastful thought exalts itself against Christ, like you read in 2 Corinthians 10, any speculative thought, any exalting thought that lifts itself up, destroy it. Say, Lord, help me to pick the lower place. Help me to pick the place of humility that I can have the mind of Christ that your Holy Spirit can come rushing in and fill me so that I can have the mind of Christ, so that I can know the things that you've prepared.

Dear family, God has a wonderful year ahead, 2025. I'm already jumping ahead, maybe a little bit. He has wonderful a week ahead for us as a family, in your marriage, in your family and in the church.

He has a wonderful month, the rest of November, December 2025. He has a wonderful future planned for us. There's only one way that you and I can experience that.

It's not by learning to get along. It's by humility, having the mind of Christ and being filled with His Holy Spirit that makes us one. Let's pray.

Father, I pray that you will make us one. Make us one, Lord. Make us one.

Holy Spirit, come and make us one. Let your love flow through us that the world will know we are one. Not many, but we're one.

Do it, Lord. We're incapable of doing it in ourselves. Let them see oneness in our marriages.

Let them see oneness in our homes. Let them see oneness in this church, a oneness that you have accomplished, and we believe you'll preserve us in that until your coming. Thank you, in Jesus' name.

Amen. Amen.