Michael Koulianos emphasizes the importance of the Holy Spirit in cultivating a deep, loving relationship with Jesus, likening it to the bond between a bride and bridegroom. He discusses the significance of abiding in Christ to bear the fruit of the Spirit, particularly love, and stresses that true discipleship is about quality over quantity in our spiritual lives. Koulianos encourages believers to trust in the Lord and immerse themselves in Scripture, which leads to spiritual growth and a deeper communion with the Holy Spirit. He warns against seeking validation through gifts rather than through a genuine relationship with God, highlighting that our value comes from the sacrifice of Jesus. Ultimately, the sermon calls for unity in the Spirit and living a life marked by peace and love.

All right, you ready to talk about the Holy Spirit again? Okay, all right. Help me, Joel. Lord Jesus, come on, lift your hands to heaven. Let's get in. Just, let's just get right in the river. And all of you watching at home, just, just lift your hands to heaven, and let's love on the Lord here. Holy Spirit, we want to know you because we want to walk with Jesus like a bridegroom and a bride. And so I pray that the scriptures would be so unlocked and broken that we would gaze upon the beauty of Jesus' face in your Word. Do it in us, and bless your people in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thanks, Joel. Isn't he wonderful? All right, last, yeah, you can give him praise. Go ahead and give him praise one more time. Last week we stopped, we finished in 2 Corinthians, 13, 14, and talked about what the fellowship of the Holy Spirit looks like, what it means to walk in fellowship with the Holy Spirit. And again, that word in certain translations in the King James, in 2 Corinthians 13, 14, that word for fellowship is also communion. So it can read the communion of the Holy Spirit. I also want to say, if you will trust the Lord in this season, just felt to say this to you, if you will trust the Lord in this season and let the Word go deep, you will grow in glory to glory, and you will continue to strengthen in the Lord. You know, if you think about different universities around the world, I've had this convo with our staff and then other people who lead ministry schools. One of the great traps is to build the biggest environment you know to build. And if that becomes your focus, you will lose quality. You know, like there are huge universities all around us, and we have some of the biggest in the country. It doesn't necessarily mean a degree from those universities are the most prestigious. Are you with me? So some of the most prestigious degrees you can get are from some pretty small environments. And it's not to say the Lord doesn't have a desire to see as many people saved as possible. I'm not talking about that. I'm actually talking about discipleship and what it looks like to follow Jesus. The Lord is super into quality. And while there's a lot of stuff we could do here to really rise up the experience, it would be smoke and mirrors without His presence. And what I've learned over the last, oh man, long time. I don't want to get depressed, but a long time, since 1989, I've peeked behind the veil. I've been in the green rooms. I've been in the houses. I've had the joy of knowing amazing people and then other people who shocked me to the core because peeking behind the veil was actually depressing to see that they were not as close to Jesus in their real life as they were portraying on the platform. So I've seen both ends of the spectrum. And what I've learned is this. That it is the Word of the Lord feasting on Jesus through the Scriptures that builds a life of longevity in the presence of God. And that's what I'm after. I'm after a people who are going to finish more in love with Jesus than when they begin. And so one of the ways of doing that is to blow up all the bridges around us and be left with something minimal and simple. I just went on a golf trip with a bunch of preachers. Some of the guys from Upper Room are there, and Ben Fitz, and John Bevere, a bunch of them. And we have this event every year called the King's Cup. And we all go smiling, but at the end of the day, we want to win. I know I do. I want to win every time. I want to win. If we had a Bible speed reading contest, I would train for it. I'm like, if we had potato sack races at a picnic, a yearly one, I would train for it. So I would. It's just in my nature. So I went there happy. Some are probably watching right now laughing, but most of us were in the ministry. I wanted to win. My son Theo went. I know he wanted to win. And one of the things you do, and I actually told the guys because they were jawing early, I said, hey, right now I'm happy. I play worse when I'm happy. If you keep talking, you're going to give me something to work with, and I'm going to destroy you in front of all your friends. I'm going to actually and keep destroying you until we leave, even if we've already won. I want you to bleed until I get on the plane. That's what's going to happen here. So please, it's going to work out better for you if you just shut up. I literally told them that. You're talking too much. It's not going to work out for you. I'm trying to help you right now. I'm a preacher. I want what's best for you. Don't talk so much. You shouldn't be doing this. And for me, that's the way it works. If I can grab something to work with, then it helps me. But even in those moments, even when you're most nervous, you kind of do the same thing over and over and over again. When life gets the most complicated and the heat is on the most, whether it's sports or business or ministry, you go back to what you do, and you do it better than anyone, and you do it again and again and again and again and again and again and again. Rex Humbart told me you will never be dynamic until you become specific. For those of you who don't know who Rex is, he gave Katharine Kuhlman her first tent and really started Christian television and helped dedicate Oral Roberts University, one of the greatest preachers on planet earth in his day, and will go down as a general and a legend forever. Discipleship, following Jesus is very similar to that. You don't have to do 100 things. You need to do like three or four things really well. And ultimately, you're doing one thing really well, communing with the Lord. Does that make sense to you? So me teaching you the Word consistently, while it may not seem exciting at times, I promise you, you give it a year, and you'll be closer to Jesus than when you walked in these doors. I'm telling you. And bondage will fall off you. You'll be planted. There's something beautiful about being planted in the house of God and sitting under the Word. Remember, if something is required to draw you, that will be required forever to keep you. So I have to come up with a strategy to get you in the building and then keep you here, whether it's marketing or lights or whatever, and then calling it wisdom, which maybe we'll have a church conference and I can teach more on that. But calling that wisdom, what I don't realize I'm doing is I'm actually signing up to do that forever. But if we can come into His presence and sit under the Scriptures, if that's the way in, that's a simple way to live life. And we can do that forever without killing the marriages of our team and stressing them to the core. Do you understand? There's actually a way to do this. So just trust me. Plant down, sit under, let the roots go deep in the Scriptures. Amen? All right. Galatians 5, verse 22. Galatians 5, 22. But the fruit… It's not fruits, by the way. It's fruit. Well, I can talk about that some time, but we could go down a rabbit trail. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy. Oh, say amen. It's okay to be happy. Peace. You don't have to get your identity in stress. Some people do. Some people don't know what to do with relaxing. You can live in peace. Patience. Oh, my. Kindness. Wouldn't the world be a better place if everybody was just nice? Goodness. That means righteous lifestyle and living. And faithfulness. Do you know there's a blessing for the loyal? There's a blessing for the faithful. What does it mean to be faithful? To be filled with faith. The faithful one. Any great leader is not going to elevate gift set above faithfulness. They're not. It doesn't matter. And I'll never forget me talking to Stephanie Gretzinger. We love you, Steph, if you're watching. If she doesn't watch it live, she's always catching up watching. We just had the joy of being with her for the last two or three days up in Tennessee. It was wonderful. And we had wonderful times together. And Steph was crying this one time we were speaking about how we are slow to put people on the platform. And she was thanking me. She was thanking me for loving our people more than I love their gifts. Understanding what the platform can do and the dynamic that is instantly presented with notoriety. So any great leader is going to elevate faithfulness above gifting. You know purity is more piercing than gifting. I have never once had anyone stop me, and it happens all over the world now, because of the Lord and the way you all worship the Lord. It happens all over the world. They will stop me and talk about how they're being changed through the live stream or whether or not they've been here. And not one of them have said it's the giftings on all the people. They have all said it's the purity in their eyes. Does that make sense to you? So faithfulness to the Lord and to His assignment in your life births a life of purity. It's not the only thing that births the life of purity, but it certainly speaks to purity and faithfulness. So it is the fruit of the Spirit. Here's a question. Well let's go to John 15, because I want to show you how this works. Are you happy today? All right. John 15 1. I am the vine and my Father is the vinedresser. This is Jesus speaking. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit He takes away. I know that sounds pretty rough, but let's read the next line here. And you're going to go, oh my. And every branch that bears fruit He prunes. Uh-oh, that's you too. That it may bear more fruit. Have you ever felt cut back or pruned or invisible? Anybody? Raise your hand. God has something up His sleeve. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. That word clean is directly related to the word pruning. So Jesus is using almost the same word there, pruning and clean. Does that make sense? So He's saying the way I clean you is through the word. The way I prune you is through the word. The word is meant to be challenging to us. Listen carefully. The word is meant to bring us to the end of our own capabilities and challenge us to the core. Not only meant to bring us to the end of our capabilities, but to the end of our own will. You read the word long enough, you're going to figure out God's talking to you. The whole time. It just takes us two hours to go, oh, this is for me. Bro, the whole thing was for you. But that's what the Holy Spirit does. Until we're in the Spirit, we're just like, oh cool, great devotion. That's good, that's good. I've got a rhema word. In the Spirit, it's all rhema. It's all alive. It's all living. Does that make sense to you? So when you get into the word, the word begins to challenge you. And God will ask you to do something you don't want to do. Typically when He does that, you'll discover in the natural, you don't have the capability to do what He's asking you to do. That's one of the ways the Lord prunes you, because you can't go any further with Him until you say yes. And guess what? Guess what? He's been around a long time, and you can't outlast Him or outweigh Him. He's not going to change the subject. You can just go, I know what I'll do. I'm going to confuse Him and throw Him a curveball and go to that conference. Hopefully when I'm done after the conference, He won't ask. No, He's going to literally sit there and not let you draw any closer until you say okay. It might mean emptying your bank account. It might mean going somewhere. It might mean coming to school. I've heard all these. It might mean that. It might mean saying yes, laying one career down and taking up another one. Whatever that looks like, God will not move until you say okay. And His Word prunes us, listen, and cuts off the dead branches of self. All right, now let's keep reading. Verse 4. Abide in me and I in you. As the branch, and that word abide does not mean visit. You see, we all claim Psalm 91. I cannot believe a plague came near my dwelling. God made a mistake in that chapter. I have stubbed my toe. Oh my gosh, He said I would never even trip over a rock. I've been ensnared. I've been attacked in the day. I've felt the terrors. Was God lying? No, it's just we didn't meet the condition. Those who abide, those who dwell shall abide. So Jesus here says you have to abide in me. I've told you this many times. God is not under the obligation to manifest in curiosity. He does not make His home with the curious. He makes His home with the diligent. He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. So abide means to live in. And Jesus here says live in me and I in you. As the branch, listen carefully, cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine. Neither can you unless you abide in me. So back to the fruit of the Spirit here. Galatians 5, the fruit of the Spirit is love. We're still talking about the love of the Holy Spirit. How do I experience the love of the Spirit? And how do I become a vessel of the love of the Spirit through abiding? Have you ever heard a tree scream to generate fruit? No. Is it good for a tree? Let's say it's living in healthy soil. Does it or does it not stress the tree to get it up and move it? I just bought these bougainvilleas. The guy's like, don't plant it right away. You're going to shock it. Keep it in its massive pot and then plant it in about a week. What most Christians do is they found the most exciting environment. They go there or they find an environment that, you ready for this one? We've all heard it, uses their gifts. All right. Since when is church about our gifts? Since when is church about us shining? If you don't know what shine means, just, I don't know, you're a little old. I don't mean spiritually shining. What am I trying to say? It's not, it's not about your moment to be noticed. Church should never be about that. It's not about us feeling valued enough according to our gift set. Now, there might be a place for that in certain environments, but church is not that. Church is about coming together under the glory of Jesus as one body so He shines in our midst. Does that make sense? And so what a lot of people do is they look for a gift in someone even if the character is not there to sustain the gift and they'll say, here, there's a spot for you here. Do that. Tell me that doesn't happen. The person feels valued not knowing there's a whole scheme behind it to get you to join the church because I am forming my identity in what I'm doing. Well, they put me on the prayer team. I just feel valued there. Since when does assignment and value have anything to do with one another? Your value is not determined by your assignment. Your value is determined by the blood of Jesus. How expensive was the blood? So expensive. There's no other more precious substance. Substance. There's nothing more precious. So when we can die to that and just come in and go, I'm here for Him. He's beautiful. He saved my soul. If I'm used, great. If not, I'm still singing. I'm still happy. See, there's something about being planted, listen carefully, so the sap in the vine can flow. If you uproot, if you pull something up by the roots, your life, your family, and you just jump around. I even see this in ministry school environments. There are people who are professional ministry school attenders. They go from one school to another school to another school. Fifteen years later, they're at another school, another school, another school, and that happens in church. One church, I didn't get used there. I'm going to the next church. I got used there. I didn't get used the way I wanted to. They didn't greet me. I didn't get to meet the pastor. He didn't look me in the eye. Oh, my God. You have to determine who are my people, who is my tribe, and go in. I'm not trying to get more people. I'm trying to teach you how to bear fruit. You're going to have to trust me. I have seen the lives of our staff, our team, our students completely changed because they hunker in and go, it may not be perfect, but you sent me here. I'm going to feast here. So you'll never see a plant like an orange tree. The golf course I grew up playing and practicing as a kid was through the orange groves, and I've never heard a tree trunk scream at the branch and say, orange, come on, grow. Have you ever heard an apple scream at the fruit and say, you're not big enough, grow faster? It's not the way it works. Bearing fruit is not a matter of strenuous activity. It is a matter of abiding, abiding, living in the presence of the Lord. Okay, so that's the way you live in the fruit of the Spirit. You don't create the fruit of the Spirit. You can try to be more kind all you want. If you don't feast on the Spirit and the Scriptures, you're not going to be. You're going to be nice for like 20 minutes. We've all been there. Let's be real. I'm not going to be grumpy anymore. Okay. Until your roommate has the bathroom when you want it. Right? Or until you don't get your coffee on time. You're grumpy every morning until you get your... It's not about that. It's about abiding. And that love, the love of the Spirit, is the fruit of the Spirit. Listen carefully. Not the fruit of us. Okay, let me help you with something. Outside the Spirit, we have no love to give God. Let me help you with that. Let me say it another way. It is the love of the Spirit that God receives through us. So John says it like this. I love Him, John the Beloved, it's in his epistle, because He first loved us. We love Him. Now this is why. Because He first loved us. John is saying, I'm giving back to Him the love He first gave me. And that is why the great commandment must fuel the great commission. See, we teach people, go, go, go to the nations, go, go on outreach, go, go, and all that's good. But if you don't learn to abide, you're going alone. So we came up with these terminologies like missions. Missions are great. I'm not trying to nitpick. I'm just trying to teach you to see something. It should really be called commissions. Because Jesus never said go on the great mission. In fact, He never even called it the great commission, though it is a great commission. What He said is, I will go with you. And Mark 16 says the Lord went with them, working wonders through them. You don't want to go alone. It's horrible. You're going to discover how lame our capabilities really are outside the Spirit. People don't want to listen. They don't want to hear about Jesus. When the Holy Spirit comes, begins to work through us, hearts are softened. They see things in the Scriptures that they never saw before. The Word lands with power. That's what happens in the Spirit. Does that make sense to you? So John the Beloved says, we love Him because He first loved us. That means I can't love Him until I experience His love. And then loving Him back just looks like me taking the love He's given me and aiming it at His beautiful heart. And He receives it. Does that make sense to you? So the best way to get an angry person, a grumpy old soul, to be loving is not screaming at them to be loving. It's exposing them to the love of God. And then teaching them to abide so that they can walk in that love. Amen? All right. Ephesians 4.3. You enjoying this? You awake? All right. Don't go radio silent on me. Someone's got to talk back to me a little bit. Ephesians 4.3. Listen to this. Being diligent to preserve. You ready? The unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Oh my gosh. Am I going to ruffle some feathers now? The Lord is. So don't blame me. As I said earlier, there is no Christian unity outside the presence of the Spirit. Look down at the verse. Look down at the verse. Being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit. When the Holy Spirit, listen carefully, and His presence becomes the preeminent pursuit, everything starts to matter including the way we treat people, including the way we talk to people. If you want to learn to apologize very quickly, learn to steward the presence of the Holy Spirit. Because when there is a rift you feel the breakdown in the relationship experientially. It is not like the Lord leaves. But there is a breakdown there. I am not feasting. I am not enjoying His presence like I should be. And the Lord won't move. And He says, you go make that right if you want more. But if making it right is more preeminent than the Spirit, you will just make it right the way you want to and when you want to. Does that make sense? So Jesus says this. He says, look, if you come to the altar of the Lord, which is the holiest moment for a Jew in those days, you come to the altar with your sacrifice, with the dead animal, and you present it to the priest. And do you know how long the walk would take from Galilee to Jerusalem during the feast? Two weeks. Two weeks traveling with animals and kids before the bugaboos came out. You got them strapped on. If you had more than one kid, they were probably on both shoulders like ninjas. They are just going all the way to Jerusalem from Galilee. If you walk for two weeks and then spend your wages on the blameless sacrifice, if you get to the altar and it is ready to be sacrificed and you feel there is an ought, leave the sacrifice at the altar, Jesus said. Run all the way back home. Two weeks. Make it right with your brother and then come back to the altar. All right. That, my friends, is how you learn to apologize properly and quickly. It has nothing to do with creating our own way of doing that. It is a spirit issue. So for instance, if we divided over politics in this church, that would be a spirit issue. If there was a plague of unforgiveness or gossip, I tell our school the best way to glow in the dark at Jesus Image is to bring division. If you do something stupid, if you go out and do something dumb, I would rather deal with that, you slipping up on many levels, I would rather deal with that and walk you through it. If you are broken, I will walk you through it. But if you bring division and gossip and don't repent, you are out. You are out. You will literally, as Paul says, mark those who cause division among you and have nothing to do with them. I would rather work with the kid who can't stop smoking or doing other dumb stuff. He is downtown every week, but he is like, look, I am in. I am locked in. I am struggling. I am in process here. Help me. I can work with that. I can work with the adulterous woman who is repentant more easily than I can work with the person who brings division. Paul says have nothing to do with them. We talk about that first week of school every year. If you divide here, you are going to glow and you need to go find another place. Does that make sense to you? So the love of the Spirit, which is the peace of, I should say the unity of the Spirit leads me into something. The bond of peace. It is right there in the Word. The bond of peace. Alright, don't forget this. Hang out with peacemakers, not drama kings and drama queens. Hang out with peacemakers. Do not hang out with gossipers who spiritualize their gossip. Well, I just feel led. No, you are joining the serpent's cause. You voted for the serpent. You are on his team right now. So Jesus said, blessed are the, for they will be called sons of God or children of the Lord. Peacemakers actually scream without knowing I belong to Jesus. So the Spirit, listen, the love of the Spirit, the unity of the Spirit causes me to live a life of peace. And that peace becomes a bond. It is a bond. It is where we get the word covenant. Let me take it a step further. Do not covenant with people who love chaos. Don't do it. You will inherit their chaos. Can I give you two more? Alright, are you enjoying this? Are you grateful? Alright, hopefully you do it. You will thank me. Let me stay on this for a second because this is important. Then I will go on to the next verse. If someone comes up to you and goes, I am just discerning that so-and-so is so lustful. I am just discerning that so-and-so is a Jezebel. Side note, if you hear more about Jezebel than Jesus, don't hang out with the person. They may be the one who has the Jezebel spirit. It is true. I am serious. I don't care how close they are to you. There are people who are extremely close to me, but I don't hang out with them. You know, people you are supposed to be close with. If they go there, I don't kick it with them, even if they are family. Don't do it. Like you can go in and eat and do that, but you have got to have boundaries. Like if you are at Thanksgiving, Greeks eat lamb on every holiday. I know. But you are eating your turkey and your lamb. That is cool. But the moment they pipe up and they go, I have joined the serpent's team. The moment they start talking, that is where you shut down. If you have to get up and walk away or just sit there and shut up, do it. But sometimes silence is a vote in their direction. You have got to be careful, especially if you are called to the work of the ministry. The devil will throw every side curveball you can imagine. Dig in. Be somebody who walks in the bond of peace and understands the unity of the Holy Spirit. If we can be a united church in the Spirit, we are going to give hell a really bad day. Okay? All right. Now let me keep going. That was for free. We will pass the tray in a moment. All right. Philippians 2.1. Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship, listen carefully, or communion of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion. So here we see again the communing nature of the Holy Spirit. I want you to close your eyes and say this out loud. Say this. The Holy Spirit wants me to walk in deep friendship, in deep love, in deep connection, and in deep affection with Him. Amen. Wow. All right. This one is going to crush you in the best way. James 4 verse 5. You are all going to be cross-eyed for three seconds when I read you this verse in the most holy way. Don't try it, kids. Your eyes could stay that way, as your parents tell you all the time. All right. James 4.5. This is amazing. Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose? Listen to this. He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us. Who is the He? Say the Father. Look at that verse now. He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us. What does this mean? This is all about love. This is what Paul articulated when he talked about the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Or another example is the Spirit and the bride saying come. What is going on there? The Trinity, the perfectly united Trinity has decided that we be indwelt by the Spirit. And there is this longing because the Spirit is here on earth. There is this longing that Jesus receive His full reward and that everything go heavenward. So we have the Holy Spirit in us, and the Father is jealously desiring that communion with the Spirit. But the Spirit is dwelling here in Hosea. And Hosea starts feeling this pull. He thinks it is just because He is so wonderful. And He is a wonderful young man. But it is deeper than that. It is that the Father has gifted the church with the Holy Spirit. And now the Father is jealously desiring that which He has given her, the church. And so we get caught up in what Paul, or I should say the writer of John in the book of Revelation, what John writes and describes it as this, Maranatha. Come Lord Jesus, come. That whole thing is bridal. The whole thing. It is not that they are not one, three in one. It is just we have been literally filled with the Holy Spirit and now we are caught up in the affection of God. So yes, the Holy Spirit loves us. But I have news for you. The Holy Spirit loves the Father and the Holy Spirit loves Jesus. You are getting caught up in what that all sounds like and feels like. So Paul writes this, I press on toward the upward call in Christ Jesus. That means this. Listen carefully. Forward in God is always up toward God. Talking about the heart. People are like, I am going to achieve great things. I am going to do this. I need to keep it moving forward. The only way to move forward is for the heart to go up. The most productive people in God's eyes are those who are most addicted to God. So Paul tells us what it looks like to move forward in God. It is not all about assignment. It is about intimacy. And Paul says, I move on toward the upward call. And so James writes it this way. That he jealously desires the Spirit that He has given to dwell in us. How many of you have ever been in worship? Help me there Joel. How many of you have ever been in worship and you have just been so caught up like you are in your room and you don't know how to express what you are feeling? You don't know how to put words to it. You couldn't write it. You can't say it. You try to say it and you just scream. Have you ever done that? Or screaming wouldn't do. So you just sit there quietly and you feel like you are going to erupt. So there is an old saying. Some of us are silent because we have nothing to say to God. But some of us are silent because we have too much to say to God. What is going on there? It is the move of the Spirit within us and we start beaming with His love and we are caught up in the very affections of the Lord Himself. Think about this. The Bible teaches that the Father loves you with the same love He loves Jesus with. Now if there were a way to not have that one just pass on by, I would do just about anything right now. The Father loves you with the same love that He loves Jesus with. So Jesus said this, As the Father sent me, so I send you. How did the Father send Jesus? With arrogance, with a mere command, like a boss? Go get the job done. Or did He offer Him in humility and in love? Even in descending there is intimacy lathered in it. So prayer for instance, if you are trying to pray, the best advice I can give you is to stop trying and to just sit there. People ask me what do you do when you pray? My most consistent answer is this, hopefully nothing. Because if I am not busy with my own strength, the Spirit will do the work and then I am caught up into what He is doing, into that wind, into that river and I go with the flow. And He moves me and before you know it, two or three hours have gone by and it wasn't work. It was delightful. It was wonderful.