ACTS 9 SPIRIT FILLED HIGHS AND LOWS2020 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Acts 9 Spirit Filled Highs And Lows

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2020. Here in Acts chapter 9, as we see the events that happen immediately after Paul's or Saul's conversion, I'm going to continually reverse the names and I apologize about that. Um,

But after we see these events, I've titled the message as we consider this passage together, Spirit-Filled Highs and Lows. Spirit-Filled Highs and Lows. Now, talking about Spirit-Filled, because that's really what we're seeing throughout the book of Acts. It's the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the beginnings of the church, and the working of the Holy Spirit through the church. And so we see

He's been filled with the Holy Spirit. And now we see the events that happen in his life. And I find it interesting. And I like to point these kinds of things out when I see them, not because I want to focus on, you know, hard things or gloomy things.

But it's interesting to note and observe the events that happen in Paul's life as he is now a believer and filled with the Holy Spirit and God is working in his life and called him to ministry, that the road is a bit bumpy. And there's high points for sure, and there's also low points in his journey, in his travel.

And I think it's important to observe this because sometimes we get weird ideas in our heads and we can develop in our heads expectations that are not realistic expectations.

expectations that, you know, we kind of look at some of the highlights of the biblical accounts and then think that all of our lives and every day is supposed to be like that. You know, we see some of the glorious things and some of the mountaintop experiences, and we can, in our lives, sometimes kind of be let down or disappointed because we don't always experience those things. And we certainly have those highs, but at the same time, life is a journey. And

And a spiritual life is a journey, and especially when it comes to the things of God, sometimes we are not prepared for the realistic, kind of the natural part of things, the reality of highs and lows. You know, hey, if God spoke to me about something, well, therefore, I'm going to expect success. I'm going to expect victory. I'm going to expect things to go smooth and things to be amazing.

And this kind of idea often gets us to measure things by results. So, you know, if I tried something, I thought the Lord was in it, I thought the Lord put that on my heart, and I tried it, and then it didn't go so well, then I figure, hey, the results weren't good, probably the Lord wasn't in it, you know, I misheard, I misunderstood. And we measure things by the results, but as we look at the totality of Scripture and the way that God works, we measure things by the results.

we can find that that's not a wise thing to do. Sometimes God's working in the midst of the lows even more than he's working in the midst of the lows.

the highs. And so I thought God told me, but it didn't work, so that must not have been from God. It's not a way that we should approach evaluating these things. Spiritual life is a long journey, and there's still many parts of normal life. And again, the highs and the lows that come along with that. And it's not so much about the victories or the successes, but the work that God is doing within us along the way. And so spirit-filled highs and

It reminded me of this really important and powerful song that you need to consider. Every town has its ups and downs. Well, I guess I'll just have to sing it now. This is from Robin Hood. And it goes along the lines of... Every town has its ups and downs. Sometimes the ups are number of the downs. But not in naughty hands. Not a silly song. But the...

That song was in my head as I was thinking about these things because, hey, Nottingham goes through some tough times, but there's some highlights as well. And similarly in our lives, as we're filled with the Spirit, as we're seeking to walk with the Lord, we can expect there to be highs and amazing things, but

but we can also prepare ourselves for the realities of the lows. And there's going to be challenges that we face and difficulties. And so we're going to focus on some of these things that Paul experiences here. Again, it's immediately after his conversion. He's filled with the Holy Spirit. And so what does he encounter? What does the Holy Spirit lead him to do? Well, the first thing that we'll consider in verse 23 is spirit-filled solitude. Spirit-filled solitude. It tells us in verse 23 that,

After many days were passed, the Jews plotted to kill him. After many days were passed, the Jews plotted against Saul to kill him. Now we're jumping kind of into the middle of the account, as you can tell. And so just before that, you can see in verse 22 that Saul was increasing in strength. He was preaching the gospel. He was confounding the Jews and proving that Jesus is the Christ. And so it was upsetting to them. And so now they begin to plot against

But there's this interesting phrase that says here in verse 23, And those many days are what I would ask you to consider in regards to spirit-filled solitude. Because we have Paul's account of this period of time in his life also in Galatians chapter 1.

And in Galatians chapter 1, he describes the situation a little bit differently. He does, you know, he is there in Damascus, he gets saved. But then he tells us in Galatians chapter 1, verse 16, he says that he did not immediately confer with flesh and blood. He didn't go up to Jerusalem, he says.

He didn't go down to the apostles to learn of them the gospel message. Instead, he says, I went to Arabia. I went out into the desert and then came back to Damascus. And then he says, it was after three years, I went up to Jerusalem. And we're going to see his journey to Jerusalem here in the next few verses. But so here Paul is describing this time in his life and it ends up looking like this. He gets saved there in Damascus.

Ananias goes and prays for him. He's baptized. He's filled with the Holy Spirit. And then he goes out into the desert for three years to be on his own. And there he's having his own private Bible college with the Lord. And God is...

retraining him. Really, he's known the scriptures since he was really young. He's known them well and thoroughly, but now he's re-understanding them in the light of Jesus Christ being the Messiah. And so he's having a whole new education in the things that he's been taught in and trained in and knows so well, but it's this time that he has with him and the Lord.

And so the Lord has appointed for Paul this time of solitude, this time alone,

where he is just there with him and the Father, the Son, the Spirit, that the Lord is ministering to him and retraining him, reteaching him the things that he thought he knew. Now, for some people, you could think about solitude and three years in the wilderness would maybe be a glorious thing. And, you know, the recent events and the

safer at home type of, you know, approaches that have been taken have kind of revealed this to people, right? Some people love to just stay at home and not see anybody, and some people really miss that, and then I need to be around people. I need to be back in the office or back with friends or back in church. In my workplace, we just recently moved to a new building down the street, and my particular office, we have about six people in

in the office, maybe five, I can't remember. But there's a little closet like that's right there in our office too. And we were talking a little bit today about maybe moving my desk into the closet because I would love, you know, a nice dark cave to work in. I am just that kind of person. I would love that glorious solitude that's

nice and appealing to me, but for some that would be challenging. And yet we can see here the Lord had appointed this, that this is a time away. And you could think about the anointing of the Apostle Paul. You could think about his gifting, his training, what he would later on go to do. And you could think, man, those three years could have been filled with more ministry. And sometimes we can be caught up in, you know,

trying to fill our schedule, fill our time with more stuff to do. But perhaps the leading of the Holy Spirit would be different for us, and that is that He just wants you to have some time alone between you and the Father. Just between you and God, that you would have some time by yourself, that the Holy Spirit would fill you to be alone with Him. That's part of the work that God will do in our lives. Well, moving on to verse 24 and 25,

Here we want to look at spirit-filled running away. And I like that worded that way. Originally, I had it spirit-filled retreat, but then that sounds like you're going to a mountaintop experience, you know, in our lingo of going on a retreat. But running away. Here we get to see Saul run away. Verse 24, it says,

And they watched the gates day and night to kill him. Then the disciples took him by night and let him down through the wall in a large basket. And so here Saul runs for his life. The Jews are plotting to kill him. And so as soon as he finds out, he gets out of town. He flees. It says their plot became known to Saul. And then it goes on to say, so Saul hatched a plan to fight back.

No, that's not what it says, right? So Saul bought some weapons to defend himself. That's not what it says either. So Saul took them to court to, you know, fight for his rights. No, that's not what it says. Now, in other situations, you might see the Lord speak in those ways and lead in those ways. And the Lord says, hatch a plan, buy some weapons, you know, fight for your rights. There is cases and times where the Lord will lead in that way. But here,

As Saul is working down his journey of walking with the Lord, as he finds out their plan, he goes into hiding. Notice it says in verse 24, they watch the gates day and night.

So it wasn't immediately that he heard about the plan and he jumped out the window. He heard about the plan and he goes into hiding. And, you know, probably with the disciples there, they're assessing the situation and they're trying to figure out a plan. They're trying to figure out how to handle it, what the Lord wants them to do. And so immediately he goes into hiding and they're watching the gates day and night. They're on the lookout for him. And so here is Paul hiding in the spirit.

You've heard of, you know, speaking in tongues. You've heard of laughing in the spirit. Perhaps have you ever heard of hiding in the spirit, right? He's hiding in the spirit. Being led by the Lord, he hides away during this time of them seeking his life. Then verse 25, the disciples took him by night and let him down through the wall in a large basket. And so they figure out what the Lord wants and they push him out the window.

And they let him out through a large basket. He escapes out the wall that way. Now, you can imagine Saul, right? He came into Damascus, well, on the way, right? He's breathing murderous threats. He's, you know, full of pride and rage against Christ. But then the Lord meets him. He's led into Damascus blind, right?

And he leaves Damascus, escaping for his life, out the window, being let down the wall through a basket. Pastor David Guzik says, Saul would indeed know divine protection in the midst of persecution, but he would also learn that God's deliverance often comes in humble ways. There is nothing triumphant about sneaking out of a city by night, hiding in a large basket.

It's a different picture than we might picture when we think about the Apostle Paul. In the face of adversity and difficulty, he runs away. Led by the Lord, no doubt. Filled with the Holy Spirit, for sure. And he will know divine protection is what Pastor David Guzik is pointing out. But sometimes divine protection isn't, you know, walking with angels around you in the midst of the crowd that wants to murder you. Sometimes divine protection is, here's a window, go out that way.

And the Lord can lead in that way. And that can be difficult for us in our pride, and it can be difficult for us in perhaps, you know, fighting against the things that we wanted to see happen. The Lord can lead in both ways.

But we need to understand that sometimes the Lord leads in the running away, and spirit-filled running away is something that we need to do from time to time when the Lord leads and allow for him to speak to us and lead us in that direction. Well, continuing on into verse 26, we get the third thing to consider this evening, and that is spirit-filled caution. Spirit-filled caution. Verse 26, and when Saul had come to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but he was

but they were all afraid of him and did not believe that he was a disciple. Saul now escapes Damascus. He makes his way down, probably remembering off the top of my head, so the numbers might not be totally accurate, but I think it's about 500 miles from Jerusalem to Damascus. So he makes the way down. It's a different, a difficult, not a difficult, but a lengthy journey. He gets to Jerusalem and

And there he tries to join the disciples. Now, trying to join the disciples is the right thing to do. Here is a believer who now has moved to a new location. And so he tries to join up with the other believers in the area. And this is something that God has called us to as believers, that we gather together.

And we'll see at the end of the passage this evening in verse 31 how the churches throughout this various region, how they were doing well and everything. And there's all these churches, right? And so you have the body of Christ, which is the universal body of Christ, which all believers belong to. But then you have all these individual little bodies that join together by region and by proximity. And so here is Saul now. He is in Jerusalem.

And so now it's appropriate for him to hook up with, to join together with other believers. And so he tries to join the disciples.

Now, the way this is worded indicates that this was not a, you know, like he tried one time to join the disciples, but he was making attempts. It was an ongoing, repeated thing. He was attempting, you know, he attempted this group and maybe attempted that group and he's reaching out in different ways and everywhere he turns, every time he tries, the door is being shut and people are not willing to listen.

to let him in to be part of their fellowship. It says that they were all afraid of him. Could you blame them, right? This is the guy who tortured Christians to blaspheme the name of Christ, to turn away and renounce Christ. This is the guy who the Bible describes, he wreaked havoc upon the church. And they're in Jerusalem. So he's back, you know, in the place of

where just a few years ago, he had tortured people. And so he's trying to be amongst the group of people that he had come against and done so much damage within their midst. Can you blame them when it says that they were afraid of him? But then it also says that they did not believe that he was a disciple. So,

Imagine the disciples from their perspective, right? They're just thinking, Saul's changed his tactics. Instead of an outright attack like he was before, just chasing us with whips, he's

Now he's trying to go the covert route. He's sneaking in, pretending he's a Christian, finding out who all we are so that then he can exploit that information and then destroy us. Like that was what they were perceiving or that's what they were thinking about Saul. They did not believe that he really was a disciple. They thought that he was faking it so that he could get in and take advantage of them. And so they were all deceived.

afraid of them. They're cautious. They are not quick to accept the idea that Saul was a Christian. Now, in just the next verse, we'll see that Barnabas is a little bit different. He reaches out to Saul. He gets to know Saul. He brings Saul into the midst. And so it's not a stubborn caution where they aren't willing to change, but just their initial reaction is they're cautious. They're

And this is a group of people. There's Peter and James here in Jerusalem. The apostles are there. The disciples are there. The Christians are there. This is a group of people who are seeking the Lord, who know the Lord, who are walking with the Lord. And yet they are not able to discern. It's like, you can maybe think about it like, does nobody have the gift of discernment in Jerusalem? Like what's going on here? Why are they not believing him? Why are they not accepting him when his conversion was genuine? Right?

But they were cautious and they were afraid. And again, this is important to note because sometimes we can experience fear and immediately begin to use that to...

beat ourselves up and think that we must not be trusting God and we must not be filled with the Spirit and we must not be led by the Lord. And, you know, because I have this fear or I'm hesitant or I'm cautious that it's now not a work of God that I'm experiencing. And yet here we see the church afraid. And the church is cautious to bring him into their fold. I always like the testimony of Pastor Raul Ruiz.

Pastor Rall, he had a crazy life. If you're not familiar with his testimony, he went to war, came back crazy, was crazy in war. He came back and he was married to his wife, Sharon, and he was about to kill her.

and then kill himself. That was his plan. And he was waiting for her to get home. He kicked the TV. Pastor Chuck, you know, the TV turned on, and Pastor Chuck was there on the TV sharing the gospel, and he gets saved. Then later, his wife comes home, and she's, you know, they've been having some issues, obviously, right? And so he comes to her, and he says, look, I'm a Christian now. You know, everything's changed, and she didn't believe him.

And if I remember his telling of the testimony correctly, it took about a year of him living a new life in Christ for her to really see that God had changed him, that it was a genuine thing, that it wasn't something fake. It was something that she could rest in and trust in, that he had been born again. There was a new life in him.

And I think that's a good example that there is appropriate amount of caution. Now, that doesn't mean we're stubbornly cautious when the Lord wants us to embrace somebody and bring someone into the fold or be friends with or fellowship with somebody. It doesn't mean that's always the case.

But at the same time, it also doesn't mean that we should always just bring anybody in, but there is room for there to be caution. There's room for us to work through fear and work through doubt and allow the time to prove the reality of conversions and repentances and other things that may come up as we're walking with the Lord. And so spirit-filled caution. You know, as we

face the days that we face. There's a lot of things happening around us that are quite crazy and lots of dispute and lots of conversations between people about, you know, what we're supposed to do as Christians, as churches and all of that. And so, you know, is it cautious? Is it spear-filled caution to wear a face covering? You know, some people say it's, no, it's just a full lack of faith. You don't trust God.

You know, if you trust God, you won't get the coronavirus. There's, you know, all kinds of takes. But what I would encourage you to do is just let the Lord lead you. Be filled with the Holy Spirit. And perhaps the Holy Spirit's going to lead you to caution. Perhaps he's going to lead you in a different path. But caution is one of the paths that the Lord uses in our lives for sure. Well, moving on to verse 27 and 28. Here we consider spirit-filled fellowship.

In verse 27, it says, Here as we continue on,

Saul is trying to get into one of the church fellowships, one of the home Bible studies. He's trying to get in amongst the believers and having a rough time of it. But it tells us here Barnabas steps in. And Barnabas was this kind of guy. He was a guy who was continually reaching out and encouraging people and connecting people. This just seemed to be a big part of the way that the Lord used Barnabas throughout his life.

Barnabas is not actually his name. His name is Joses. And you can see this in Acts chapter 4, verse 36. It tells us, So his name was Joses.

But he was such an encourager. He was the kind of guy who would just come up and give you strength and build you up and help you along. And he was so helpful. That was such a part of his character and personality that the apostles, right? He became known to the apostles and the apostles nicknamed him.

Oh, here comes Barnabas, right? This is the guy who is just so encouraging to be around. This is the guy who builds you up and, boy, you leave, you know, some time with him and you just feel like you can conquer the world by the Lord, you know, that there's just this great encouragement. And this was a ministry that you see patterned throughout the life of Barnabas. And so when nobody else wanted to reach out to Saul, when nobody else wanted to fellowship with Saul,

Barnabas does. Now, it says that he takes him and he declares to the apostles how he had seen the Lord on the way and how he had preached boldly at Damascus. We don't really know how Barnabas knew all of this.

Perhaps Barnabas was one of those who was there in Damascus, and so he came down also and was able to make those connections. Perhaps it was simply through Barnabas reaching out personally to Saul and spending some time with him, having a cup of coffee and learning about his testimony and getting to understand what the Lord was doing in his life. We don't know how Barnabas came about this information, but he sought it out.

He sought Saul out, and then he went out of his way to make this connection and to introduce him to the believers, the disciples there in Jerusalem. And then see the result in verse 28. It says, So he was with them at Jerusalem, coming in and going out. Saul stayed with them in Jerusalem, and he continued fellowship. Once he got in the door, once he was able to be connected with the disciples, he

Then he stayed connected to the disciples. He would come and go. He would, you know, meet with them. And of course, they would, you know, go about their lives. And then they would come back together just like we do in our gatherings as well. And so this is what it's describing here, that Saul was maintaining this closeness, this fellowship with the believers there in Jerusalem.

Now, you can learn a lot about the Apostle Paul because he's the one who wrote the majority of the New Testament, starting in the book of Romans. You know, you can work your way through the letters of the Apostle Paul. And you learn a lot about him and you can, you know, build up this idea in your mind that, you know, he is a strong man of God. And you can imagine perhaps that he doesn't need fellowship or he doesn't need people. He doesn't, you know, he's ungrateful.

okay on his own in the desert for three years, that's no problem. And yet we see him here engaged in fellowship within the body. He's coming and going. He's in and out. He's connecting with them. He's walking with them, working together with them, worshiping with them. He's part of the body of Christ there in Jerusalem. It's one of the ways that the Holy Spirit will lead us. Again, there's those times of solitude.

And that can be spirit-filled and a move of the Spirit, and then it can also be a move of rebellion where I just want to be alone and I don't care what the Lord wants.

But then there can also be the times of fellowship that is filled with the Holy Spirit and Spirit-led. And then there can also be the times of rebellion where, you know, I don't want to be alone. I don't want to be by myself. I just want to hang around with people. And it's much easier to walk with the Lord when I'm around people. But perhaps the Holy Spirit would lead towards solitude or all of the above in various times. Again, it's a walk. It's a journey. It's a highs and lows of the spiritual life that God has set before us.

And so spirit-filled fellowship is another aspect of living a life that is spirit-filled. Well, moving on to verse 29 and 30, here we consider spirit-filled rejection. Verse 29 says, So now in Jerusalem, Saul attempts again to

to bring forth the message of Christ to the people who need to hear it. He spoke boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus. Again, Paul is filled with the Holy Spirit. Boldness is one of those characteristics that is promised, that goes along with being filled with the Holy Spirit. And here he is speaking boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus. It's interesting to consider who he was speaking to. It says that he disputed against the Hellenists.

These were the Jewish people who had the Greek culture and background. And it's the group of people that

Stephen, the first martyr, was disputing with and ministering to. It's that group of people that actually put Stephen to death. And we read about him in chapter 6 and 7 here of Acts over this past week. And so this same group that Stephen was ministering to, now Saul is ministering to. Now you remember, when the Jews stoned Stephen, they laid their clothes at

And so here he is. That was an instrumental part of his life, watching this. It made an impact on him, even though it spurred him on to wrecking havoc against the church and his fight against accepting the Lord. But he was still a Christian.

Now as he comes back, now he begins to minister to the very people he was alongside with in the martyring of Stephen. And so he's seeking to share the gospel and bring them to an understanding and acceptance of Jesus Christ. But they didn't receive it. Instead, it says in verse 29, they attempted to kill him. And so Saul is very early in his Christian life now. He's, you know, been a believer for a little over three years.

And already he's had two attempts to kill him as a result of the ministry. He is gung-ho for serving the Lord and for sharing the truth, but so far not getting great results. Now, we have a little bit further insight to this piece of Paul's life in Acts chapter 22 as he's retelling the story of the early part of his Christian life. In Acts chapter 22 and verse 17 says,

It says, Now it happened when I returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple that I was in a trance and saw him saying to me, Make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly, for they will not receive your testimony concerning me. The Lord appears. Saul has a vision. And again, God tells him to run away. He says, They will not receive your testimony. You're going to be rejected, Saul. They are not going to accept this. Now, again, here you have Jesus.

Saul, or Paul the Apostle, and you look at his Jewish background, and he was a Pharisee of Pharisees, he seems like the ideal person to reach the Jewish people, especially the Hellenists, because those are Jews who come from a Greek culture and Greek background. That was Saul. He was not raised in Jerusalem. He was raised in Tarsus, up north, and he was from that same background. You would think this is the ideal person

situation, ministering to his own people. He can understand them. They can understand him. So here he comes with the gospel. He's filled with the Holy Spirit. He's got a passion for the Lord and a determination to share the gospel. And you can add all those things up and have an expectation. This is going to go great, right? But that's not the way that things work out all the time. Sometimes the Lord has other plans.

And we can see that as you continue on in the book of Acts, that Peter is going to have his primary ministry amongst the Jewish people, and Paul is going to have his primary ministry amongst the Gentiles. It's a whole different calling than we would put together. But as Saul is heading down this road of ministry and seeking to fulfill, God told him when he was converted that he was going to be used by him to be a witness to him.

And so as he's attempting to work that out, to live that out, again, you might expect, you might look for success and victory and for smooth things, but instead the Lord sends him away and says, not here, not now. This is not the time. This is not the place. This is not the people for you to minister to. They will not receive your testimony concerning me.

And so Saul has this vision. The people are trying to kill him. In verse 30, it tells us when the rest of the believers around him found out, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him out to Tarsus. They send Saul home. Go back home, Saul. Go spend some time there and see what the Lord has for you because here you're gonna be put to death. Well, that brings us to the last part

thought to consider this morning or this evening in verse 31, spirit-filled obscurity. In verse 31, then the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were multiplied. Here, what we see happen is good things are happening in the church. Saul moves on, right? They send Saul home and

And then the churches in all the area had peace, were edified. They were walking in the fear of the Lord. They were comforted by the Holy Spirit and they were multiplying. Meanwhile, Saul has nothing to do with it, right? He's out of the picture and all of this good stuff is going on. He is instead not heard from for some time. He's in obscurity. The word obscurity, it means being unknown, inconspicuous or unimportant.

Now Saul is really none of these things, but in this account, right, he has no part of it. And it would be easy for Saul to feel that he is in obscurity. Meanwhile, all of these things are happening, right? This is where the church is. This is where all the ministry is really taking place. But Saul is far apart from it. And the church is doing well. They're blessed. They have peace. They're growing. They're being strengthened.

Pastor David Guzik says, There was this great persecution back in Acts 8, verse 1.

Great persecution broke out and people were scattered and spread out all over as a result. But the Lord was still at work. The Lord's work wasn't defeated. The work there in Jerusalem, in Galilee, in Samaria, the Lord is developing his followers. He's growing the church. He's establishing his people. Things are progressing according to the Lord's plan. But Saul's not in the picture. He's not part of it.

I don't know if that was hard for him or if he cared or if that bothered him, but I understand when it's like, you know, things go well when I'm not there, right? Things go well when I'm out of the picture. And that can be a little bit disappointing, right? Or a little bit hard to deal with and hard to understand. We won't see Saul again until Acts chapter 11, right?

And again, it's going to be Barnabas who seeks him out when he is in Antioch, and there's a work happening there, and it tells us in Acts 11, verse 25 and 26 that Barnabas leaves Antioch to go find Saul, and then he comes back

bringing Saul with him to minister at the church of Antioch. And then they continue really the ministry there. They're first called Christians there. We'll see them called out together, Paul and Barnabas, to go on the first missionary journey in Acts chapter 13. And the gospel is going to progress. But in between Acts chapter 9 and chapter 11, we don't see what happens with Saul. And there's several years that pass.

It's hard to say exactly. It's probably about seven years that pass between Acts chapter 9 and Acts chapter 11. And so there's seven years of obscurity. Seven years of not much happening. Seven years of, for sure, knowing the Lord. We don't have to think that Saul was just sitting there on the couch doing nothing. But as far as the record is concerned here in the Scriptures, he was in obscurity. There was nothing happening.

that was going on. He was growing, he was developing, he was still walking with the Lord. I'm sure there was ministry that was taking place. Maybe he started a home Bible study, you know, maybe he planted churches. We don't know, but in many ways there was this time of obscurity where he was just simply serving the Lord in his hometown where he was at while things, you know, in the main center, the main hub, Jerusalem continued on as usual.

And so there is this place for the Holy Spirit to move us in a way that we can minister. Being filled with the Holy Spirit doesn't mean that we're going to be in the spotlight. It doesn't mean that we're going to be the center of attention. It doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to be the talk of the town. Being filled with the Holy Spirit might mean that we're at home serving the Lord in a way that nobody knows about. And that is part of the work of the Lord in our lives.

And maybe it's for a season, maybe it's, you know, the primary ministry and calling that he's given to us, but it's one of the ways that we can see our lives being lived out

filled with the Holy Spirit. And so some things to consider. Again, highs and lows in our Christian life. Things that we would really celebrate and things that we would, you know, not want to experience, but at the same time, things that the Lord could do and work and lead us into for each of us. Solitude, running away, caution, fellowship, rejection, obscurity. Now, you know, this isn't the only word

work and the only list. There's mostly lows here if you kind of look at it that way. And so not talking so much about the highs, but there's also the highs, right? The boldness and the walk with the Lord and the relationship with the Lord, the victories that God accomplishes through us. There's all those things too, but sometimes we can focus so much on those things that we fail to see and fail to remember the reality that there are also these other times in our lives. And it's not

Here's why it's important. Because sometimes we can interpret these things, oh, it's a time of solitude, I have to run away, as failure, and I failed the Lord, or the Lord's failed me, he's abandoned me, or I've abandoned him, that we can interpret it incorrectly, because we have this bad expectation, this false idea in our head. And it's important for you to know that the Spirit-filled life is going to be filled with highs and lows.

There's going to be times of solitude and times of great fellowship. There's going to be times of running away and times of fighting. There's going to be times of defeats and times of victories. There's going to be times of caution and times of boldness. The Spirit-filled life is filled with all of these things. And so we can't measure the results by, you know, what we think and try to determine where we're at. We really need to be connected to the Lord.

We really need to be filled with the Holy Spirit to let him lead and be embracing the life that he has set before us, the path that he has been set before us. If he calls us into a time of solitude, there's a purpose, there's a reason, there's a work that God is going to do through it. Don't fight against it. Be filled with the Holy Spirit and go through and learn to enjoy that solitude with the Lord.

The Lord may lead you to run away or to run towards. He may pull you into obscurity or set you on the spotlight. He may do a variety of different things, but it's up to Him. It's His will that matters. He wants what's best for us. He knows what's best for us. And so let's trust Him, be filled with the Holy Spirit, and allow Him to have His way in our lives. Let's pray. Lord, we thank You for Your Word and the encouragement that it gives and that

Lord, when we deem ourselves as failures, you don't have the same perspective. When we're frustrated with the things at hand and what seems like obstacles, Lord, you're not frustrated. You're using all of those things in our lives and you're working in every moment, even in those challenging times. And so Lord, help us not to evaluate things based on our perspective. Lord, help us instead to focus on you. Lord, would you fill us with your Holy Spirit

that we might be empowered, Lord, that we might be drawn near to you, that we might be strengthened, and that we might be led in the path that you have for us. And Lord, I pray that you would help us as you lead us, as you guide us, whether it's through speaking to our hearts or the circumstances that unfold around us. Lord, help us to accept and embrace your plan, not to fight against it or to run from it. Lord, may we be led by you.

May we walk with you and allow you to work in us and through us the way that you desire to. Give us great patience, Lord, and understanding as we look toward you and what you have in store for us. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. We pray you have been blessed by this Bible teaching. The power of God to change a life is found in the daily reading of his word. Visit ferventword.com to find more teachings and Bible study resources.