Holy Spirit I : Shadow Kingdoms and Warrior Siblings | Elijah Lamb

Join us as we begin our sermon series on the Holy Spirit. In this compelling message, we explore the transformative power of the Spirit, bridging the pivotal event of Christ's crucifixion to the living, active presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives today.

Dive deep into the scriptures with us, as we unravel Colossians 1 and Acts 2, examining the cosmic role of the Church as God's instrument for reconciling all things through Christ. Discover what it means to be part of a "Warrior Siblings" community, tasked with dismantling the shadow kingdom of Babylon and building a kingdom of light and life.

This message challenges us to reflect on our allegiances and embrace the Spirit's renewing work, leading us into Christ-like character and ministry. Are you ready to align with the true Kingdom? Tune in and be inspired to fulfill the divine mission entrusted to us in this dynamic and uplifting message.

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Transcript

 So we have started a series at Cathedral on the Holy Spirit.

Pastor Jake began last week by bridging the gap between Divine Portrait, which is a series we're in for a long time, reflecting on the self-revelation of God in the crucifixion and how that's the pivotal moment of God's

 revealing of himself to us and his demonstration of what he's really like and how it's the central event in the human story and and bridging that gap to the holy spirit and the way that he has come to apply that to spread that message and to help us to reap the benefits of what christ accomplished on the cross as we build toward holy spirit conference which is like our big family weekend so you're gonna hear me say that one more time you have to be there

 God changed my life at Holy Spirit Conference.

I really mean that.

And so I'm excited to be in a season of our church where we are building together, getting excited about what the Holy Spirit intends to do in our community and in our church.

I'm pretty amped about that.

Are you guys excited?

All right.

All right.

My goal this morning is to help us understand the kind of people.

 the kind of church that the Holy Spirit intends to create.

And I'll give you a spoiler.

So when I name my sermons, I have a really hard time with naming things.

It's probably the hardest thing in the world.

I always want to do like a really long Midwest emo, really sarcastic title, you know, that has nothing to do with the message.

Three dudes who grew up really sad got that.

You know, like I want like a modern baseball title on my sermon, but you can't do that.

So what I do instead is like a pop punk album title name.

And so my message this morning is,

 is Shadow Kingdoms and Warrior Siblings, and we're all blessed with the right ear of Wesley Shimako's face.

That's my boy!

That's my boy, that's his ear!

Let's go!

Okay, anyway, so...

 I wish you got his whole side profile.

He's such a handsome fellow.

Anyway, so my message this morning is shadow kingdoms and warrior siblings.

And I think that is my warrior siblings with the dash.

I love it with the dash.

It's my favorite way to describe what the Holy Spirit is trying to make the church into.

That's what we're meant to be.

And so I want to describe that by describing the two kingdoms.

 that are laid out as being in conflict from beginning to the end of the Bible.

I want to preach to you a message about Pentecost.

You guys know Pentecost?

Normally you don't emphasize the T in Pentecost.

I said it differently both times.

That felt uncomfortable.

Pentecost is the story of the Holy Spirit coming on the church in Acts chapter 2, beginning the church and the ministry of Jesus going out through the disciples.

It's a very, very pivotal moment, especially for Pentecostals.

That's what we're trying to be.

We're doing our best.

And so it's a really, really pivotal story.

And it's got a lot of really...

 massive biblical significance, and I want to build there.

But we're going to go a bunch of other places first so that it really lands when we get to the moment of Pentecost.

Sound good?

Okay, so we're going to turn first to Colossians chapter 1.

The book of Colossians...

 bible was written by the apostle paul and the reason he wrote this letter was because the colossians were getting into some funky stuff okay so they started with something called the proto-gnostic heresy like it's you forget about that who cares it doesn't exist anymore it's proto for a reason it's forget forget about it okay so they were just teaching weird stuff they were teaching weird spiritual things like the worship of angels and that was getting really funky and crazy and then they were like we need to do like we just need to starve ourselves for a very very long time and we need to add to the sacrifice of jesus and so they were legalists and they were

 doing borderline witchcraft.

It was like a weird combination of things.

And so Paul writes the book of Colossians to establish the finality of the cross and the cosmic supreme significance of Jesus, to make clear that we are a faith that is practiced around Christ, that he's at the center of what we're doing and what he does.

 To make that clear, he imports an early Christian hymn.

At least that's what most scholars think it is.

So right in the first chapter of Colossians, he copies in an early song, an early worship song that Christians would have been singing about Jesus.

And it's really cool.

And so we're going to establish some things about Christ as we go through it.

So here's Colossians chapter 1, verses 15 through 20.

It says, He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

For everything was created by him in heaven and on earth

 the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.

All things have been created through him and for him.

He is before all things, and by him all things hold together.

He is also the head of the body of the church.

He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him

 to reconcile everything to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross.

So there's a lot going on here.

There's like a lot happening and it'd be impossible to explain all of it in the amount of time that I need to do it so that we can get to the rest of the sermon.

So I'm just going to make some like really cool literary observations about what's happening in this song because it's crafted really brilliantly.

So verses 15 through 17 and verses 19 through 20, my night school champs are just like, I can't wait for this.

I've already noticed it.

 form something called an inclusio, okay?

Basically, they're brackets.

They're bookends that mirror each other.

So you have 15 through 17 and 19 through 20 who form the, like, the ends of this.

And what they signal to us is that the thing in the middle is the most important, okay?

Does that make sense?

 So they're pointing us to the center.

15 through 17 are about Christ's role, his cosmic role in creating the world, okay?

So all things were created through him and for him and are held together by him.

It's about Christ's role in making the world.

Then you have verses 19 through 20, which are about Christ reconciling the world, remaking the world, and putting things back to the way that they should be and his role in that process, okay?

Are you with me?

 They form an inclusio because there's two central phrases that get repeated.

The phrase everything or all things.

All things were created through him.

He comes to reconcile all things.

So that's all things created through him, all things reconciled by him.

That's what's framing this.

We're talking about creation and recreation, and they're being built together.

The other thing that the song does at the beginning, it says in verse 17, that everything was created by him in heaven and on earth.

And then in verse 20,

 It says that he came to reconcile everything to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven.

Heaven, earth, earth, heaven.

Do you see that repetition?

Do you see what happens?

So they're forming this sort of circle and these parentheses that we need to look into the middle to figure out, okay?

So these verses are talking about the supremacy and the preeminence of Christ as the creator, upholder, and remaker of the world.

They establish that he has a cosmic role to make all things and to remake all things.

He is...

 The image of the invisible God who comes into our world to remake you and I into the image of God through his blood shed on the cross.

Okay, that's what those verses are surrounding.

Creation, recreation.

But so we need to look in the middle, at the center of this circle, the picture that's being painted, because that verse, whatever's communicated there is the heartbeat of this song that the Christians were singing.

It's like the real most significant part.

It's where all...

 of the meaning it's packed into, of what this song is really about.

Here's Colossians 1.18 again.

Listen.

He is also the head of the body, the church.

He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.

So this is actually a song about the fact that Jesus founded the church.

 the thing that holds these two revelations together christ the thing the person that all things are created through and for and the person who is bringing all things back together forming everything into newness and into his image again remaking the world the maker and remaker of the world the reality that holds those two things together is the church

 the church that he founded.

So, spoiler alert, Christ's cosmic supremacy in the universe is displayed and established through his church.

He has come to bring a kingdom, and he reigns through that kingdom through his church.

Through the effort of his church, Jesus intends to reconcile all things to himself.

 This song is, it's not only elevating Jesus, but it helps to see our picture in the story of God.

That God is the maker and remaker of all things, and the means by which He intends to do that is the church, the church that He created by dying and rising again.

You get what I'm saying?

So that we make little of the gospel when we fail to see this picture, and we make, oh, Jesus died so that I could go to heaven and not hell when I die.

 That's true.

That's true.

But in the whole biblical story, it's a very small piece of what's actually being accomplished on the cross.

It's really important.

In fact, it has eternal significance.

And God does care about your soul.

And absolutely, that's a part of the picture.

But if we minimize it to Jesus died so you could go to a good place when you die instead of a bad place, it's like, wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

What Colossians says, what the Christians were singing in the earliest part of the church was he came to reconcile all things.

 Whether things in heaven or things on earth.

Jesus came to remake everything and to bring heaven and earth back together.

That's really significant.

And so for you and I, what we get from that is that God is doing that through His church.

Christ, in being the firstborn from the dead, He created a kingdom of resurrected citizens.

 who are with Jesus.

He's the firstborn from the dead, which means that other people are going to be born from the dead.

He paves that path and we walk in His footsteps as His children.

So we go about life with Christ, bringing about life instead of death.

With God, bringing about light instead of darkness, beauty instead of ashes, and glory instead of shame.

God is using His church at the center of everything to reverse the curse.

 To reconcile all things to Himself.

We are the means by which God intends to do that.

We are the means by which God intends to establish His cosmic, preeminent supremacy and reign.

That's like a huge deal.

You know?

That's much bigger than just like...

 Be good.

You know what I'm saying?

There's a much bigger, more insane picture that's happening here.

And what I think the messages of the last few months, Pastor Jake has made it really clear, is that that same mission was the mission of Adam.

Last week, remember the circles?

Adam's goal from God is to make the whole world like Eden.

You know?

The world outside is chaotic.

Eden is ordered.

God gives Adam the mission of going and ordering the whole world into beauty like Eden.

You remember?

You were here last week.

Yeah, you remember what I'm talking about?

And what's communicated in the Old Testament is that God gives that same mission to Israel.

 For the Old Testament, people have that same mission.

 And the issue is that they really, really fail on that.

Adam fails.

It's kind of the whole reason this is happening, you know.

Adam really blew that one.

And then the Israelites are entrusted with that same mission, and they blow it.

And long story short, it's because they compromise on almost every front.

They abandon Yahweh so that they can worship false gods.

They rely on foreign militaries to protect them instead of God.

They shatter the law.

They make a mess of the ceremonial law of the temple.

And they are deeply socially unjust, oppressing the poor people.

 the widow and the orphan, and they live utterly unethical lives.

And so because of that, the commission from God for them was, here was their mission to be a light to the nations.

And instead they embody and reflect the darkness around them.

The darkness gets in and they actually, Ezekiel does this really controversial thing where he's like, you're worse than the nations.

Israel, Israel set aside, chosen by God to reflect his glory and bring his beauty to the ends of the earth.

You're worse than everybody around you.

 That's a really, really massive failure.

It's not like they kind of blew it.

It's like, no, they did the actual opposite thing.

And so, and this, what I'm about to tell you is really central for the rest of this message to make sense.

The Lord judges them.

The Lord judges the people.

Not just any way.

They go into exile.

But they're exiled by a particular nation.

They're exiled by Babylon and by Assyria.

That kingdom, and I'm going to show this to you in the Old Testament.

Babylon is depicted to us as a shadow kingdom of the real one.

It's the evil twin of Israel.

You know, like Zack and Cody.

 There's that episode on Suite Life on deck with the evil versions.

You guys know what I'm talking about.

No, Spy Kids.

You know the first one where they meet Robot Junie and Carmen?

Okay.

You're with me.

We got this.

We're doing this together.

That's what's happening there.

It's that they're face to face with the evil twin, which is what Babylon is.

 is a dark parody of israel so i really love michael jackson i also had an affinity for weird al as a kid i didn't it's hard for me to understand what was happening there i didn't get parody so i'm like what's why is this guy always stealing michael jackson's song and making him about food and stuff he's so weird and i watched a lot of michael jackson youtube videos as a kid how many other guys had that phase thank you sam praise god i so much so much anyway babylon is a dark parody is a weird al yankovic version of israel and so i want to show you what i mean the way that this is described in the prophets are you ready

 Okay, Jeremiah chapter 27, verses 6 through 7.

I'm going to show you the way that the prophets mock the nation of Israel and demonstrate that in Babylon, you have these figures who are parodies of the key promises and saints in the Old Testament.

Okay, so just prepare yourself for that.

Jeremiah 27, 6 through 7.

So now I have placed all these lands under the authority of my servant, Nebuchadnezzar.

Crazy name, by the way.

 Nobody knows if we're saying it right.

Nobody knows.

We read the Neb and the Zer and we just fill in the rest.

That's true.

My whole life, I never read those letters and tried to figure out like a syllable by syllable.

Come on.

You know what I'm talking about.

King of Babylon, I have given him the wild animals to serve him.

All nations will serve him, his sons.

 and his grandson until the time for his own land comes, and then many nations and great kings will enslave him.

Okay, so what's happening here?

Why is this text on the screen?

Two things that stand out.

God says that Nebuchadnezzar is his servant.

He says, my servant, Nebuchadnezzar.

Okay, that really stands out to any ancient Jewish person who is hearing this prophecy from Jeremiah because that's the language that God uses characteristically to describe David and the Messiah that is going to come and be like David.

 So you have David the king and then you have like the coming Davidic ruler.

And David and the Messiah are described with that language over and over again.

My servant.

My servant.

My servant.

Nobody is referred to with the language my servant more than David and the coming next David.

Called my servant.

So for Nebuchadnezzar to be called my servant, you see that's the twisting.

It's the parody.

Right?

Israel has to look into the face of Nebuchadnezzar, this ruthless emperor who is being called my servant.

He's being described with Davidic messianic language.

 That's confrontational.

That's a lot.

He also says that all nations will serve him and his son.

That is, again, a dark twisting of the promise that God gives to David in 2 Samuel 7, that all nations will serve you and your son and his son to many, many generations.

Now, the Babylonians, their time is cut short.

Just son, grandson, and then he's judged eventually.

So there's not an eternal reigning for the Babylonians.

But the Israelites are judged by a nation who share similar promise, the dark version of the promises that they hold on to as a people.

 That's a really big deal.

So Babylon has an anti-David.

Babylon has a David.

That's very dark, and it's super apparent for any Israelite hearing the message, and it would be incredibly offensive to them for Jeremiah to say something like that.

It keeps going.

Let me show you Habakkuk.

Have you ever read Habakkuk?

No, of course you haven't.

Nobody reads Habakkuk.

Habakkuk is a lovely little book.

It takes seven minutes to read if you've never read it.

 Listen to it on the drive home.

You'll still have time to listen to music afterward because it's so short.

It's so good.

Habakkuk gets in a debate with God and he loses.

It's incredible.

Habakkuk chapter 1.

Listen, this is what God says about the Babylonians.

Look, I am raising up the Chaldeans.

That's just another word for Babylonians.

That bitter, impetuous nation that marches across the earth's open spaces to seize territories not its own.

And then listen to this in verse 9.

All of them come to do violence.

Their faces are set in determination.

They gather prisoners like sand.

 I don't like sand.

It's rough and coarse.

Sorry.

Go ahead.

Let me give you a spoiler on this one.

This verse is communicating to us that Babylon has an anti-Abraham.

Okay, so when God comes to Abraham, he comes and he promises to bless him and to multiply his descendants as numerous, he says in Genesis 22, as the stars of the sky and the...

 of the seashore.

Okay, so when Habakkuk says that, that's not an accident.

That's not just like, no, sand is in the key imagery of the promise that God is carrying out for the children of Abraham.

This is really, really significant.

That's not, that didn't just like find its way in there by accident.

That's an intentional promise

 parodying and twisting of the people that god intended to create they're gonna have sand in the seashore and i think but it's like like abraham abraham has promised children like sand the babylonians they take captives prisoners like sand you see they're forced to face the dark version of themselves they were meant to bring about life that would be numerous and the babylonians are bringing up numerous death prisoners captivity you know what i'm saying it's the dark version

 Yeah?

Are you with me?

Okay, let me give you another one.

This is the last one.

Daniel chapter 2, verses 37 through 38.

It says, Daniel prophesying again to Nebuchadnezzar.

He says, Your majesty, you are king of kings.

I don't like hearing him described that way, you know?

The God of the heavens has given you sovereignty, power, strength, and glory.

Wherever people live, or wild animals, or birds of the sky, he has handed them over to you and made you ruler over them all.

Listen to Genesis chapter 2, 19.

God describing Adam.

 The Lord God formed out of the ground every wild animal and every bird of the sky.

It's the exact same Hebrew language that's being used.

And brought each to the man to see what he would call it.

And whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.

Adam was invited by God to co-rule over creation.

This is offensive to the Israelite mind because now Nebuchadnezzar is a new Adam being invited to co-rule with God.

 It's like, I don't like that language.

And it gets even more like we understand through the Old Testament that Israel is described as this new Adam.

They're brought into the promised land and they're meant to proliferate the goodness and life of God, the beauty of God, make the world around them like Eden and redo what Adam failed in.

So this is bad because now Nebuchadnezzar is being described with the language that only Israel should be described with.

That's extremely offensive for them.

And it goes even further.

The prophet Joel says this about the enemies opposed to Israel, a fire devours in front of them.

 behind them a flame blazes the land in front of them is like the garden of eden but behind them it is like a desert wasteland there is no escape from them see if you remember the the circles from last week with pastor jake if you have eden which is beautiful and you have the rest of the world that adam is entrusted to make like eden this is the opposite description the babylonians instead of being at eden and making everything else beautiful eden is in front of them and what's behind them is wilderness and destruction they're doing the opposite thing of israel

 I want you to get, Israel is not just some random more powerful nation that's doing their thing.

They're being judged by a nation that in every way according to God is their exact evil opposite.

I have an image to describe what I mean.

I've gone through so many references already, but I just want to nail this down, what's happening here.

So can you just put up this?

Well, before you do it, who grew up watching Fairly Oddparents?

Okay, swag.

Throw the picture up.

So that's Babylon.

This is Babylon.

Babylon.

 This is the anti-fairies.

They're like vampires, and they're like recurring bad guys in the show, and they're exact copies of the other bad guys.

It's kind of like also Empire Strikes Back, back to Star Wars.

You know when Yoda, like Luke has to go into that cave, and Yoda's like, don't bring your lightsaber.

He's like, I'm going to bring my lightsaber, dude.

And then Darth Vader's in there, and he chops his face off, and the helmet goes, and it's Luke's face inside of the Darth Vader helmet.

So when an Israelite is reading Jeremiah, Habakkuk, and Daniel come down on them like this, it's like, oh my gosh, that's what Darth Vader is.

It's me.

 It's me.

It's me.

It's a twisting, a dark twisting of what I'm supposed to be.

It's the anti-fairy.

It's, it's, it's, it's vampire Cosmo.

Remember he was like really smart and Cosmo in the show is really stupid.

It's like exact, exact opposites.

So with this in mind, with all of that in mind of what Babylon is in the Old Testament and the way that God describes them, Babylon becomes a type in the Bible.

 So it's recurring imagery that goes on throughout the scriptures.

So long after the Babylonian Empire is gone, things and people are still continually described as being from Babel or Babylonian.

So Babylon in the Bible is, but also is not, just a Semitic empire from 2,500 years ago.

The imagery is carried forward into the New Testament.

Babylon becomes emblematic of the dark, prideful kingdom of men and the devil.

A kingdom that is defined by its opposition to God and to people.

 specifically to God's people.

Babylon is symbolic of the world's kingdom that reigns through ruthlessness, vanity, deceit, and destruction.

Or as the apostle John says in 1 John, he says, everything in the world is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

That's his description.

He says, don't love the world because this is what the world is like.

 There's that two kingdom language is being established.

The Babylonian kingdom is a thing.

Long after Nebuchadnezzar dies and Persia takes over and then the Greeks and then the Romans.

It's like, no, forget about all of that.

That kingdom still exists.

It's a spiritual kingdom founded by the enemy, founded by the devil, that has its work carried out by evil men.

And all people, the Bible begins to describe, are in one of these two kingdoms.

There's a kingdom that reigns through lust, greed, envy, and pride.

That's Babylon in the scriptures.

 And God has an answer to Babylon.

He has an answer to that kind of kingdom, to the dark spiritual kingdom of the world.

And that answer hasn't changed.

The answer that he gives to the Israelites is the same that he gives to us.

First and foremost, he promises in the book of Joel to restore them, to restore them, to bring them back to flourishing, to heal them.

 And then, secondly, and most importantly, to get them back on track with their ultimate purpose of being a light to the nations and making the world like Eden, accomplishing God's will in the world.

So I think it's a helpful model for what we see that God does today through his church.

God gives his people in the Old Testament and today a promise of inward transformation.

 And God promises the same thing for you and I. God intends, this is the will of God, to fill you with abundant life.

All your life you've been stolen from, killed, and destroyed, according to John chapter 10.

But Jesus came so that we might have life and have it in abundance.

God intends to fill you with abundant life and undo the work of the destroyer and his role in your story.

To redeem and reclaim and re-beautify what has been made dirty, messy, and broken.

Jesus comes to change you.

Listen to his description to the people in Joel.

The Lord answered his people, look...

 I'm about to send you grain, new wine, and fresh oil.

There's that crop, garden, flourishing, harvesting imagery.

Like you're going to flourish again.

You'll be satiated with them.

You'll be satisfied.

This isn't just about plants and oil and wine.

It's like I'm going to spiritually renew you.

And you'll be satisfied with me and what I give you.

And I will no longer make you a disgrace among the nations.

You'll stand out again.

I will drive.

This is so awesome.

I will drive the northerner far from you.

There's this awesome exodus violent language that God is about to use.

And banish him to a dry and desolate land.

 His front ranks into the Dead Sea and his rear guard into the Mediterranean Sea.

So the Egyptians, when they were chasing the Israelites in the book of Exodus, they got one sea drowning situation.

Israel's real enemy, the Babylonians, they're going to be double drowned in the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean Sea.

That's a lot.

This is a big army and there's a lot of water happening.

And this is awesome.

His stench will rise.

Love it.

Yes, his rotten smell will rise.

For he has done an astonishing thing.

It's a promise for God to redeem you and rescue you from the enemy's captivity.

 To be rescued out of the enemy's camp and brought to flourishing life.

For the devil has been opposed to you all your life.

Like you've been engaged, whether you knew it or not, in a spiritual war.

And like what Jesus says in John chapter 10, the thief comes to steal and kill and destroy.

And whether you knew it or not, there's been experiences in your life where you've been stolen from, killed and destroyed by the enemy.

By the devil who is opposed to you and all those who bear the image of God.

And he promises to defeat that guy.

 In your life.

And what we know in the New Testament is that he accomplishes that through the cross and through your decision to bear your cross with him.

It's kind of a whole thing.

Listen, Isaiah makes it even clearer.

Isaiah 51, 3.

For the Lord will comfort Zion.

He will comfort all her waste places and he will make her wilderness like Eden and her desert like the garden of the Lord.

Joy and gladness will be found in her.

Thanksgiving and melodious song.

It's beautiful, right?

God's first promise to Israel is I'm going to make home like Eden again.

 I'm going to establish you, that center, that base.

And this is what God intends to do in you and I. The promise of Jesus in John chapter 7 is that all of his people would have streams of living water flowing deep within us.

 And he was very passionate about that fact.

John 7 is like the only time that anybody ever describes Jesus' volume when he's speaking.

He cries aloud to the whole temple.

If any of you is thirsty, come to me and drink.

And you will have rivers of living water flowing from deep within you.

And John commentates on that and says that he was speaking of the Holy Spirit.

Christ, through his Holy Spirit, intends to tend the garden in you.

And in Paul's language, very simply, to make you the kind of people who live lives worthy of the gospel.

 What Jesus promises in John chapter 16, after two chapters of talking about the Holy Spirit, is that he has overcome the world.

He has freed us from spiritual exile, taken us out of Babylon and brought us back to Jerusalem, to the place of life and flourishing.

But we don't just like build borders around ourselves, wall up and hide.

No, this necessarily must go outward.

God's promise to Israel is not just to restore them, but then to help them get back on track in their mission to redeem all creation.

 And so Joel, he establishes that restoration.

Then he goes, after this, more distantly, here's what God is going to do.

Here is what God is going to do to get you back on track, to reverse you so that everything in front of you is wilderness and everything behind you is Eden.

Reversing what the Babylonians have done, what the kingdom of the world intends to do with God's creation.

Joel chapter 2, verse 28.

This is huge.

After this, I will pour out my spirit on all humanity.

 And then your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your old men will have dreams, and your young men will see visions.

In the Old Testament, this is not how things are typically described.

Normally, the Spirit comes on a few people, a handful of selected individuals.

This promise to the people is like, hey, you know those incredible leaders you've had who have my Spirit?

Everyone.

There's coming a time when everyone is going to have my Spirit.

I'll pour out my Spirit on all flesh, on all humanity.

 no one of my people will be exempt for god's people to not fail in their purpose in the future this time he has to pour out his spirit on all humanity it's the same way ezekiel promises god's going to take your heart of flesh and give you a heart of stone why because you need inward restoration and also because the people of god in the old testament keep failing and failing and failing and being what god intended them to be and he recognizes you need a new heart you need a new heart to accomplish what i'm trying to do through you and you know else you need you need the spirit

 You need the Spirit to fill you and dwell in you and make this possible.

The Holy Spirit needs to be poured out on all flesh.

And the wonderful, really great news is that this is a fulfilled prophecy.

This has already happened.

 So Jesus dies, resurrects.

He hangs out with the disciples for like 40 days, teleporting and whatnot, the whole thing.

And then he ascends into heaven.

He floats away, and he's like, yo, you guys got this.

I love you so much.

I'm coming back, though.

Don't worry.

And so he begins the church.

Problem is, there's no Holy Spirit at first, okay?

So they lock themselves in somebody's attic for a while, and they're just kind of like praying and being sad and being scared, okay?

It's like, this is...

 What are we going to do?

If the Holy Spirit doesn't come, this is going to be bad.

If something doesn't happen, it's not a good situation.

And then the Holy Spirit comes.

There's fire, and then it says tongues of fire.

I've always wondered what that looked like.

Why the word tongue with the fire?

I don't know.

It kind of splits off, I guess, and lands on everybody.

And that's like an insane interaction.

And then the very, very first thing that they do, Acts chapter 2, verse 4.

Then they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.

And this is the first thing that happens.

They began to speak in different tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

 Now there were Jews staying in Jerusalem, devout people from every nation under heaven.

When this sound occurred, a crowd came together and was confused because each one heard them speaking in his own language.

The gift of speaking in tongues is real.

Paul talks about it in 1 Corinthians 14.

It's incredible.

It's necessary.

It beautifies the bride.

It builds up the individual.

It's incredible.

But the point of this story is not just, look, the spiritual gifts are here now.

No, no, there's something like more.

There's something bigger actually happening there.

And so I want to describe to you the significance of this event.

 Acts chapter 2, the moment of Pentecost where the apostles come out of the attic and they begin to speak in every language so that people from every nation under heaven come and they hear them speaking.

This is an exact inversion of the story of the Tower of Babel.

You guys know about the Tower of Babel?

Genesis chapter 11.

 Dudes come together, they're like, yo, what if we got famous?

I got an idea.

We're going to build a tower to God.

We're going to build a tower, and it's going to go so tall, it's going to go to God.

You're like, okay, that's a pretty awesome idea, guys.

And God is like, I don't think so, actually.

So you're confused now.

 And so now they all start speaking different languages.

And you can't work together when you don't talk the same language.

It's just very hard apparently.

And so it didn't work.

No interpreter is possible.

It just wasn't going to happen.

So they split up.

What is communicated by that story is that humans together in our pride, we do horrible, terrible things.

And so God has scattered us so that humans cannot work together.

It's like an intentional judgment.

 on humanity.

And in Pentecost, we see a reversal of what happened there.

It's clear in the language.

In the book of Genesis 11, the language of scattered is used three times.

God scattered them, scattered them.

Three times it says scattered.

What do we see in Acts chapter 2?

When this sound occurred, a crowd...

 came together that's the opposite of being scattered we see a reversal of the events and more obviously in the languages they all begin to speak the languages of so that everyone from all these places the acts is very clear about how many places they were all from it's like everything it's the reversal of the tower of babel the holy spirit comes and the first thing he does is not a random display of spiritual gifts is an intentional reversal of what happened in genesis 11 and it's sort of like okay to

 I guess.

What's the connection happening there?

And the people in the crowd, they didn't quite get it right at first either.

They say in Acts chapter 2 verse 12, they were all astounded and perplexed, saying to one another, what does this mean?

I'll tell you right now what this means.

Acts chapter 2 signals the end of Babylon's reign.

The dark spiritual forces and kingdom of men ruled by the enemy.

It's the cosmic sign of a wicked kingdom toppling over.

The tower of Babel has crumbled.

 In John chapter 16, when Jesus prophesies and talks about the coming of the Holy Spirit.

He says, the Spirit is going to come.

And He's going to convict the world concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment.

He says, why judgment?

Why judgment?

Why?

Because the ruler of this world has been judged.

And so the very first thing the Holy Spirit does when He fills the church is testifies of that fact.

That the ruler of this world has been judged.

It's important to understand that the project that Jesus started, the Jesus project and the Holy Spirit project are the same.

The very first words of Jesus in Matthew and Mark is, there's a kingdom here.

Right.

 I'm establishing a kingdom.

Repent, for the kingdom of God is near.

Repent, for the kingdom of God is near.

The parables, this is what the kingdom is like.

Everything is about the establishment of God's kingdom in the world, of the restoring of God's reign over humanity.

And so the Holy Spirit's very loud, clear proclamation is the other kingdom is over.

The other kingdom is done.

The Tower of Babel has toppled.

When we look at Babel, men came together.

Oh, oh, I forgot something important.

 This is important.

Oh my gosh, I almost forgot this.

Babel and Babylon, same word in the Hebrew.

Same word.

So every time the Bible says Babylon, the word is actually just Babel in Hebrew.

It's the same word.

So there's an association between the people in Genesis 11 and the nation of Babylon.

Whatever Babel is like, Babylon is like that.

And that's why the imagery is carried forward.

Because it's talking about that Genesis 11, men building their prideful way to God.

And then the ruthless reigning of the Babylonians, which are an inversion of the Israelite kingdom and how that's carried forward through the New Testament.

The world, the devil's kingdom is the Babel, Babylonian people.

And so men come together at Babel.

 to make a name for themselves.

The church does something different.

The church comes together to make known the name of Jesus.

Men came together at Babel to build their way to God.

The church was founded by a God who made His way to them, who came down to us and invites us to build with Him instead of toward Him.

 At Pentecost, men are united again.

For the very first time, they are trusted by God.

People of all nations and tongues and tribes to build together because we have a holy project that God has promised to collaborate with us on.

And in so doing, in God uniting us and entrusting us this, He makes us a family.

A family of sibling warriors.

Think like Luke and Leah versus the Empire.

Last one, last one.

 And, yeah, really, there should be more, you know?

And, look, that's the reality.

God comes to make us a family.

A family of warrior siblings who are fighting.

 the darkness, and gathering in light together.

If you remove either of those pieces, you either get a fan club, or you get a bunch of rogue weirdos.

But when you have warrior siblings, and it's a family who fights, not inwardly, but outwardly, that's why when Satan comes to sow seeds of discord and disunity, that's his whole point.

He's trying to get the church to stop being the church.

The church is supposed to be fighting outside of its walls.

If he can get us to fight inside of our walls, he reverses our purpose.

We become Babylonians.

It's not a good picture.

 So we're trusted by God to go to war together.

And that's why we have to gather.

When we come together, we meet at the Lord's table.

This is a family table.

Communion is a family occasion.

If you're not in Christ, amazing.

If you are, that is not actually amazing.

You should repent of your sins and believe the gospel.

But if you are, this is a family moment.

We're coming around a table that our Father has established.

Right?

That's a really big deal.

That's a family moment.

Holy Spirit Conference is a family moment.

 Two years ago, I mean this, God changed my life at Holy Spirit Conference.

I had a revelation from the Holy Spirit concerning the church.

I found out from God that 90% of the chaos that was in my life was because of my relationship with the church.

That's what the Holy Spirit... And it changed my life once I got this.

That I was trying to be a warrior with no siblinghood.

I was trying to be a warrior orphan.

And God was not interested in that kind of life for me.

So maybe you're falling into one of two traps.

You're either trying to be a sibling with no fighting...

 or a fighter with no ceiling.

It's like, no, this is God's vision for the church.

Get in my house, be with my people, have peace with men, and go to war with the kingdom of darkness.

Paul uses this description, this language in Ephesians chapter 2 to describe the

 The separation between the Jews and the Gentiles.

And he says that because of Christ, in Ephesians chapter 2, the dividing wall of hostility has fallen.

When we look at the cross, remember, Colossians says that Christ came to reconcile all things to himself.

 So even as the veil is torn in the temple and the thing that divided men from God is shredded, simultaneously the wall of hostility between men is also broken down.

God came to reconcile us to himself and to one another.

They're a simultaneous action.

That is the application of the cross.

Not just that you're right with God, but that you're right with your fellow man and woman.

That you're brought into a family and you're united and you're trusted by God to build again into a brand new kingdom.

A family kingdom.

It's incredible.

 In the words of Jesus, this is the kingdom of heaven.

Side note on this.

When the role of the Holy Spirit...

 in big fancy theological terms.

The Father plans redemption, Christ accomplishes redemption, and the Holy Spirit applies redemption.

So the project that Jesus began, the Holy Spirit is applying across the face of the earth.

So whatever the Holy Spirit does through you and in you is an application of Christ's work.

When you're transformed inwardly and you begin to bear the fruit of the Spirit, you're becoming like Jesus.

You're being sanctified.

Jesus' intention was to teach us how to live like Him and to be like our Father in Heaven.

Be holy as your Father in Heaven is holy.

That's the teaching of Jesus.

 The Holy Spirit enables us to do that.

The Holy Spirit also, when we have the gifts of the Spirit, that's not just like the Holy Spirit being like, this would be fun, wouldn't it?

No, it's the application of Christ's blood shed for you and His body broken for you.

It's the application of the redemption purchased and made possible by the cross.

The spiritual gifts are a cosmic evidence of the fact that you and I and God have one mission.

And that we're actually aligned with God again.

When you participate in the spiritual gifts, when you lay hands,

 When you see the sick healed, when you prophesy, when you, if you teach, I'm teaching, that's what's happening right now.

When you administer, when you lead, when you serve, that is your participation in what the Holy Spirit is doing to reconcile all things.

Something so much more important than we give credit for.

When we minister to those who are lost and to those who are broken, we are inviting people out of Babylon, out of the clutches of Babylon and into the kingdom of God.

 That's a really, really big deal.

Anyway, I'm going to make this happen quick.

The problem with Acts chapter 2 is that the world that we live in has not given up on the Babylonian project.

The project of self-elevation and self-love and self-servitude and self-worship, they've not given up on that.

On that leading to flourishing and to goodness and to life.

They still think that that is where it's going.

Humans have held tightly, it's very easy to observe, they've held tightly onto life as a parody instead of true human purpose.

 People who don't know what life could really be like.

The abundant life that Christ offers and are instead living in an ironic satire.

A parody of what life is actually supposed to be like.

Of human nature.

That's insane.

And so what that's done is it's created a very harsh divide in our world.

Colossians 1.13 says, He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the son he loves.

We're challenged by scriptures like this to live one kind of life.

To stop deceiving ourselves into thinking that the line between these kingdoms can be blurred.

 No, there are very definite borders because these places are opposites.

Opposites.

In fact, the one kingdom is a poor, broken, demonic imitation of the other.

It's a demonic, evil mirroring of the other.

The line can't be blurred.

In all that we do, according to the scripture, we are declaring our allegiance either to the kingdom of Jesus or to Babylon.

And nothing gets to be exempt from that.

All that you think, feel, say, and do is an implicit declaration of allegiance to somebody.

 And that's basically what the book of Revelation is about.

A lot of people avoid the book of Revelation because it is actually confusing.

But there's this very climactic moment in Revelation 18.

And with all of this in mind, I want you to just consider the power of this language.

John says in Revelation 18.1, After this, I saw another angel with a great authority coming down from heaven, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor.

He called out in a mighty voice, It has fallen.

Babylon the great has fallen.

 Listen to this in verse 4.

Then I heard another voice from heaven.

Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins or receive any of her plagues.

For her sins are piled up to heaven.

Does that sound familiar?

Building of a tower and God has remembered her crimes.

The Spirit intends to challenge us with the book of Revelation with a very simple question.

Which kingdom has your allegiance?

The apostle Peter in his first epistle, he describes us and all Christians in the very opening of his book as exiles.

 In Peter's mindset, we are like exiles living in Babylon.

And so what the Spirit is saying through the book of Revelation is you exiles, you people surrounded by Babylon, do not assimilate with the kingdom of the world.

Do not get used to this.

 That's why it talks about us as like aliens in a foreign nation who are just sort of passing through.

There's this transient nature of the Christian life.

We're sojourners in another land.

Don't get used to this.

Don't get settled.

Don't adjust.

Don't emulate the kingdom that surrounds you because you're from another kingdom.

Listen to this quote from Dr. Craig Koster.

He says, When the heavenly voice cries, Come out of her, my people.

Speaking of Revelation 18.

It speaks especially to readers who are being lulled into complacency by their prosperity.

 or who find compromising the integrity of their faith to be a reasonable price to pay for the favors offered by the empire.

The call is not meant as a physical departure from any actual city.

John's readers live in Asia Minor, not in Babylon or Rome.

The angelic voice beckons them to dissociate themselves from the infidelity and materialism that were the hallmarks of the great city's trade, following instead in the ways of the Lamb.

The scripture forces us to consider Revelation 18.

 How have you, if you have, how have you compromised with Babylon?

And what areas of your life have you assimilated to the ways of the dark evil twin kingdom?

There's a cosmic war happening between these two armies.

And the Holy Spirit's intention is to get you all the way on the right side of this battle.

You and I cannot go on pretending as though it's merely a difference of opinion or preference.

 The Spirit is actively carrying out the project of Jesus.

He is toppling the shadow kingdom and building the true people of God.

And your decision, the decision that we're all pressed with as followers of Jesus, is whether or not we're going to get on board.

Listen to the Apostle Paul, 2 Corinthians 5.

For the love of Christ compels us, since we have reached this conclusion, that one died for all, and therefore all died.

 and he died for all.

So that, listen, Paul's telling us why Jesus died.

Jesus died so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died and was raised.

Jesus was motivated to go to a cross for many reasons.

The cross accomplishes many things, but according to Paul here, it's so that you could be freed from living for yourself.

It's so that you could be liberated from Babylon.

St.

Augustine writes in the

 400s a book called the city of God and I'll give it to you really briefly He says that in the world there are two cities There's a city of God and there's a city of men and they're characterized by two opposite things the city of men is characterized by love for self to the contempt of God and The city of God is characterized by love for God to the contempt of self One city is characterized by self elevation

 to the contempt of honoring the crucifixion of Jesus, of loving God, of belonging to God, of living for God.

It's all about me.

The other kingdom is about Jesus.

It's about elevating and exalting Jesus to the extent that you stop taking yourself into account.

It's these two cities.

The cities that are either building the kingdom of self, the Babylonian kingdom, or the kingdom of Christ.

Jesus died so you can stop living for yourself.

 so that you could stop living for yourself and instead live for the one who died for them and was raised.

God thinks it's better for you to live for him than for yourself.

God thinks the kingdom that he's established is better for you than the kingdom that we are constantly retreating back to.

2 Corinthians 5, 18-20, this is the way that we respond.

Everything is from God, Paul says, who has reconciled, remember that word?

Reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.

 That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he has committed the message of reconciliation to us.

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ.

Since God is making his appeal through us, we plead on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God.

The song of the Christians.

 Jesus came to reconcile all things to himself.

The ministry, the administration of that message and of that power, of that reconciliation has been entrusted to the church.

We are ambassadors for Christ.

We have the ministry and the message of reconciliation.

You're entrusted to preach the truth that men can be reunited with God.

And you're entrusted to administer to others so that they can be reunited into a family.

So that they can be adopted.

 Christ has a new creative purpose, and it will be accomplished by His church.

As you and I, a family of warrior siblings, bring the kingdom of life, the kingdom of the Son, to the ends of the earth.

So I want to leave you with these two very simple questions.

Are you actively being shaped by the Spirit into Christ-like character?

And are you being led by the Spirit into a Christ-like ministry?

 Are you being shaped by the Spirit into Christ-like character?

And are you being led by the Spirit into Christ-like ministry?

It's really important questions.

More simply, do you love God?

And do you love the things that God loves?

That's what the Holy Spirit's trying to bring about.

It says in Romans 5 that He pours out the love of the Father into our hearts.

Why?

So that that love comes out of us.

So that we carry with us the flame of God's love everywhere that we go.

Very simple question.

Which kingdom will you live for?

 Who has your allegiance?

Babylon is very convincing.

Babylon imitates transformation.

Babylon imitates purpose and meaning.

Babylon imitates family.

But it's all phony and a parody.

And so long as you seek to gain those things from the kingdom of the world, the kingdom of darkness, you'll never actually find them.

There's a promise in the kingdom of God.

You can come and you can stop being dry and dead.

You can flourish.

And you can be free from the kingdom of self.

 You can be free from pride, which has ruined you, destroyed your relationships, made a mess of your mind and of your heart.

You can be free from the love for self, from living for you.

You can be free from that and you don't have to be an orphan anymore.

You don't have to be rogue.

You don't have to go solo.

You don't have to seek to be impressive.

You don't have to be alone in this.

You're invited into a family, a real family.

And so I'll leave you with, if you detect a mixture,

 devotions in yourself some allegiance to babylon some allegiance to christ i implore you to consider these words from the book of joel here's how he says we should respond if we want to if we want god to pour out his spirit on us he says to them tear your hearts tear your hearts and not just your clothes don't do any outward demonstrations of of repentance tear your hearts tear your hearts open and return to the lord for he is gracious and compassionate

 slow to anger, and abounding in faithful love.

In the words of Paul, be reconciled to God.