Caught in the Current | Week 13

March 2015, I took a group of young adults, college age and a little older, to suffer for Jesus on the beaches of L.A. on a mission trip. I mean, someone's got to do it, people. Someone's got to do it. We were going to the L.A. Dream Center and going to do a lot of really, actually, really cool ministry. We were going to serve the poor. We were going to feed people, but the most incredible thing was we'd go down to Skid Row every night, at night, after dark, telling you Skid Row would come alive, and we would minister to people and help people that were, you know, on drugs and strung out and homeless and help them get off the streets. It was incredible, actually. But this particular trip, every morning, I would take the students to the beach because you got to go to the beach, and we would spend our quiet time in the morning with the Lord. They would always go on the sand, and I didn't want to get sand on my feet and sand in my shoes for the whole day, you know, so I'd go to the pier. And I'd walk the pier every morning. The Lord would speak to me this particular morning. I think it was the third day in. I wasn't hearing anything. I walked the pier a couple times, didn't hear anything, and thought, well, maybe it's just going to be a different type of morning. I get about halfway back on the pier, and I see this older, like, the perfect picture of a surfer. You know what I'm talking about. He's in his 50s, been surfing his whole life, long gray hair, sitting on his board out in the middle of the ocean, right kind of by the pier. All the other surfers were way out there. You could see them in the distance. They were all younger, and I thought it was very interesting.

He's over here. They're over there. He must know something. He's been surfing a long time. So I struck up a conversation with a guy. I said, hey. He looked up at me like I was crazy, because I kind of am. I said, man, it's interesting. I said, you're all the way over here, and they're all the way over there, and they seem like they're catching a whole lot more waves than you. He said, oh, yeah, they don't know what they're doing. So they're just kids. And then he began to say some stuff, and I'm telling you, the Holy Spirit just began to speak to me. He said, yeah, they're manufacturing their own energy. You could see it. Like, they were on little bitty waves. They were catching every single wave, and you could see them kind of hopping on their board. They had to keep this going in order to stay on the wave. He said, they're manufacturing their own energy. He said that you can only do that for a certain amount of time. He said, I've been surfing a long time. I'm not looking for every wave. I'm looking for the wave. He said, you can't find the wave here. You have to look out there. He said, I've been surfing long enough that I can see the wave out there, and when I see it out there, I know it's coming here, and that's the wave. He said, if I only get one wave, I'm okay with that.

He said, they're creating their own energy, and here's what he said, and I'm telling you, the Holy Spirit spoke to him. The current has enough power in itself, and here's what the Holy Spirit said. That's what it's like following my Holy Spirit. You don't have to create energy. You don't have to create power. There is enough power in the current. There's enough power in the Holy Spirit. Just catch that wave. Today I want to talk to you about being caught in the current. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for today, Lord. I thank you that your word never returns void. Your word, there's power. Your word separates the spirit from flesh, bone and marrow, so Lord, would you do your work through your word today in Jesus' name, and everybody said. Hey, would you help me in welcoming all of our campuses, our Edmond campus, our Grapevine campus, those online, we're so grateful for you. Help me honor our lead pastor, Pastor John Michel. We're so grateful for you. We love you. It's an honor to bring the word today. Last week at the Grapevine campus, Pastor John got up before the message, and he just was kind of exhorting in the moment out of worship, and he mentioned catching the wave, and I'm telling you, my mind went right back to this story. Never happened to you before someone says something. Maybe it's a song. Any music people, you hear a song, and it takes you back to that moment. For some of you pre-Jesus people, it takes you back to those. Read Jesus moments, you know what I'm saying?

You're like, I gotta get that song outta here. You hear something, and I'm telling you, he said wave, and it just took me back to that pier with that conversation, with that surfer. And so I left the room, and I went back, and the Lord just began to download this message. So for the past week, I've been studying. I know everything about currents, people. I've been studying currents. I know everything about a current except I can't surf. I just need to learn to surf now. So what I wanna do is, I took a deep dive. I nerded out on currents, so I wanna take you through my study this last week about currents. So I've got so much information. We'll be outta here by five, six o'clock. How's that sound? First thought this morning is this. The current must be followed. The current must be followed. He said the current has enough energy and power on its own. You don't have to manufacture the energy. That's what the Holy Spirit said. That's what it's like following me. And too many of my people, too many Christians are walking around creating their own energy. You see this happen in church. You can tell the Holy Spirit is not moving in that moment, but the pastor just keeps talking louder, gets this anky and just kinda trying to create a moment.

We do this in our own lives. We experience God in a certain way at a certain time, and we try to manufacture that. Can I just remind you, that was for that moment. God has something different for now. You don't have to create something. He can create something much more powerful than we can. Galatians 5.25, we've been talking about this scripture quite a bit over the past season. It says, since we live by the Spirit, help me out, say it with me, let us keep in step with the Spirit. This word step is steheo, say steheo. It means to proceed in a row as the march of a soldier to go in order, to stay in a row to march. How many of us, can we just, I wanna honor some people. How many of you have served our country? Anybody serve our country? Man, we just wanna say we're grateful for you. It's Memorial Day weekend, we are so grateful for you, so thankful for your service, and grateful for those who sacrificed their life for our country that we could have freedom. If you were in the armed forces to any degree, you know what it means to march, or maybe you're a marching band in high school. When you're marching in a row, listen, you're not the leader. You gotta pay attention to two people, the director and the person in front of you. Because if you get out of step, you mess it all up.

I think there's too many Christians marching to their own drum, doing their own things, wanting their own work, wanting their own power. We just gotta stay in line. The Holy Spirit wants to move, and he wants to use you, and you don't have to manufacture your own energy, you don't have to march to your own drum. We want the power of the Spirit, but we want self-direction oftentimes. God blessed my plans without surrendering to his ways. Movement is not the same as direction. And I would say the American culture, we have a lot of movement, too much movement. So much movement, it's hard for us to hear what the Spirit's actually doing. Maybe for you, you're in a season right now where you're just moving a lot, there's a lot going on in your life. And I get it, with kids, we have four kids, you can pray for us. I mean, between soccer practice and football and horse riding and all these things, there are things, I mean, there's a lot to do. Pastoring a church requires a lot. There's just so much happening, and if we're not careful, we can equate movement to direction, and all of a sudden, we find ourselves moving in a direction that the Holy Spirit's not even leading us. In fact, I love this scripture in Acts 16, six through 10.

This is Paul, it says, Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phishia, Phishia, Phishia, Phishia, and Galatia. And then it's interesting what the Holy Spirit begins to do, it says, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia, the Holy Spirit would actually keep from doing something, even something as good as preaching the word to some people, because listen, not every good opportunity is a God opportunity. It can't be people that just jump on every good opportunity. We have to pray and discern, is this a God opportunity? It says, when they came to the border of Messiah, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. So they passed by Messiah and went down to Troas. During the night, Paul had a vision of a man in Macedonia, standing and begging him, come over to Macedonia and help us. After Paul had seen the vision, it says this, we got up, we got ready at once to leave Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. Paul understood that movement is not direction. If Paul would have just been like many of us, Paul would have forced that door down. I'm going to Asia. I've got a great opportunity here

to preach the word to a lot of people, but we get so caught up, and I'm guilty, get so caught up and moving and stepping and stepping that I find myself off pace, and the only reason why they were able to get up and go immediately is because they were willing and ready to stop and listen. We have to be people that are listening to the direction of the Holy Spirit, because listen, listen, many times frustration in our life is a result of fighting the Spirit's leading. And if you find yourself in a season of frustration, you have to stop and say, okay, is this frustration due to me not following the Holy Spirit? Whenever I was there with that surfer that day, and after he had kind of gone off and started surfing and caught a wave, caught the wave, I remember the Holy Spirit said to me, you can swim against the current for a while, but eventually resistance will lead to exhaustion. See, what was happening that day that he didn't realize is he was using, the Holy Spirit was using an old surfer to speak to me because I was in a season of exhaustion. I was tired. I was at the Edmond Campus, Pastor John was still the campus pastor there. I was the associate pastor, I was the missions pastor, I was the circles pastor, I was the young adults pastor, I was the email Wade.Smith at victory.church if you don't like the church pastor,

I was the kind of the, I wore every hat, and I found myself exhausted. You ever been there before? Maybe today you find yourself sitting in your house online right now and you're so tired you can't even make it to church, you're that exhausted. Maybe the only thing you could do today is to get to church today, but the thought of doing anything else, you're just so tired. And I'm not suggesting that every reason that you're tired is fighting the current, but you have to ask yourself, if you find yourself in that season, is there something I'm doing that's forcing something where the Holy Spirit would say, no, if you'll just do it with me, you'll have grace. There are seasons that I go through, I've just been on the tail end of a long, busy, crazy busy season, it's been going on for a couple of years of helping plant the Grapevine campus, and there's some things happening right now, but God has graced me for that season. So there's seasons where you have to run, there's seasons where it's like you have to go and there's a lot of movement, but listen, in those seasons, if you're doing it with the Holy Spirit, you're graced for it. You can carry the pace, you can carry the momentum, you can, you're not overly, you got tired,

but you're not overly exhausted, you're not depleted. There's a difference between being tired and depleted. If you find yourself depleted, you have to ask yourself, am I forcing doors open? Am I chasing the wrong opportunities? Am I making fear-based decisions? Am I resisting surrender? Am I trying to control outcomes? Those things will lead to exhaustion. So once we begin to follow the current, then we begin to understand that the current has a rhythm. That's my second point. The current has a rhythm. I love, in my study time, it was really, I had a lot of fun with this part. I started to study the difference between wave pools and oceans. How many of you guys have been in a wave pool, right? How many of you guys have actually been on those wave machines that you can body surf or surf? Anybody been on one of those? You crazy people. Wild people. I started studying the difference between a wave pool and an ocean. You know what a wave pool? It's really. Really cool, the difference here. A wave pool, every wave is predictable. In an ocean, you must discern the current.

In a wave pool, the timing is controlled. In an ocean, you have to wait. In a wave pool, the wave is manufactured. In the ocean, you have to read the water. In a wave pool, you already know where it's coming from. In an ocean, you have to adapt. In a wave pool, there's little need to read the tides, the wind, the current, the shifting conditions. In an ocean, you must surrender to something bigger than yourself. And I read this, and this really stuck to me. It says this, surfers say that wave pools teach technique, but oceans teach awareness and relationship with the water. Whew. You know, you can look like you're just hearing from the Lord. You can look like you got it all figured out. You know the right Christian things to say. You even know Christianese. You know when to pray, you know when to raise your voice, you know when to lay hands, you know when to do all the things, you can look like you got it all figured out but listen, that's technique. There's a difference between really being aware of the Holy Spirit and having a relationship with him. There's a difference. When you have an awareness and relationship with the Holy Spirit, you're able to move when he says move and wait when he says wait, go when he says go and stop when he says stop.

Correct your path when you've made a little bit of a outside step, because we all do. It's learning to discern how to move with the Holy Spirit, to stay in rhythm with the Spirit. Listen, we have to slow down. We have too much movement. I love this picture in Luke 5, 15 through 16 because it shows how Jesus would begin to move in the way, the pace that he took. It says, yet the news about him had spread all the more. There's a growing, there's the crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sickness. You get this picture, word is spreading. You start a ministry. You start doing some things at your work and word starts spreading, so people start coming to you and all these needs start growing, crowds start growing, needs are everywhere, momentum is building and here's the way Jesus would respond. He says, but Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. If Jesus needed to get away from the crowds and get away from the momentum when there's needs everywhere, I mean, if I'm Jesus, I'm like, I've only got so much time here while I'm on earth, I gotta do everything. He's like, no, I've only gotta do the things that the Spirit leads me to do. And so he knew when it was time to get away. Storms would come and he'd sleep through the storm.

Lazarus, his friend, died and it says he waited one more day to go see him. He carried a pace and I think this is, it's interesting. We gotta understand the rhythm of the Spirit. It's not always go. There's times to wait, there's times to stop, there's times to withhold. You cannot experience the peace of the Spirit while resisting the rhythm of the Spirit. Colossians 3.15 says, and let the peace that comes with Christ rule in your hearts. This word rule literally means to act as an umpire. Now I'm not a baseball guy, I didn't grow up as a baseball guy, do you baseball people in the house? An umpire doesn't make the rules, he just calls the play. And I think this is really interesting if you think about the Holy Spirit at peace leading as an umpire in our lives. It can call the shot. Too many times we're operating without peace. We wanna move and then peace follow us. No, no, no, no, no, we move when we have peace. The Holy Spirit will always lead you into more peace and when he has you move, the direction that he has you move will promote and give you more and more peace, even if it's a difficult, even if it's busy. You'll have peace in the midst of it. The very first time I ever experienced this, my dad's here right now and him and I

took a trip to Oral Press University. I was a soccer player and so at this time I was graduating high school and I had an opportunity to, I was getting a scholarship. opportunities all around both coasts and one day got a call from Orr Roberts and I I didn't know where Orr Roberts was. That's how pre-christ I was. Never heard of Orr Roberts University. Happened to be in my backyard in Tulsa. Coach calls us and comes to my Allstate. I went made the Allstate. So I gotta brag for just a minute, okay? I don't have a whole lot going on for me, okay? People just just bear with me. I scored three goals in that Allstate game, by the way. Hat trick. He was there. Yeah, he saw it. He thought it was awesome. More awesome than you thinking right now because you're not acting like it's very awesome. So my dad. Yeah, exactly. Golf clap. It's a real awesome way. That was 20 years ago. My dad and I load up in the car. I only went because I got Tuesday off of school. I was like, I'm not going to Orr Roberts University. I don't even know where it's at, what it is. So we load up. We drive to Orr Roberts and if you don't know of Orr Roberts, there's a couple things you probably at least know of. There's some praying hands in the Mabee Center and so we drive into the parking lot of the Mabee Center. I'm not following Christ this time. My family's not going to church. We're not being led by, you know, the Spirit in this moment in our life. But I get out of the car, out of the passenger seat. My dad gets out of the driver's seat. It's like it was yesterday and he looks over at me and says, what do you think? And I go, I think this is where I'm going. For the first time I felt the drawing of the Holy Spirit being umpired by peace and I made the decision before knowing that they were a terrible team at that time. By the time we left, two conference championships, went to the NCAA tournament. I mean it was awesome but before that it was terrible. I didn't know you had to wear a tie to class every day. The coach left that out of the recruiting visit. I showed up the very first day and I'm walking out the room and they're like, oh you gotta wear a tie to class. I was like, you gotta be what? Had someone else tie the tie

on them and I put it on. It didn't even fit me. It's like way too short, you know. I know nothing about any of this stuff. All I knew is I had peace. That's all I knew. We don't need to know everything. You don't need to know why or if you don't have peace, don't go. And if you do have peace, do. Every decision I've made where I've been outside of following the Holy Spirit and I believe made some mistakes, it's been when I've been rushed. And I get it. I mean some of you run businesses and you got people that depend on you. Your parents, kids depend on you, your teachers. You got a lot to happen in a school. Work jobs, you got to take people places. The decisions and the busyness can mount up and you could just begin to move and move and move but you have to remember movement is not direction. And we have to move when the Holy Spirit directs us. So what do you do if you find yourself far from God and you find yourself and you're saying to yourself, wait I get it, that's great, but I've drifted. My favorite part about my study time this week is this. It's thought three. If you've drifted, the current can carry you back. Anybody heard of a riptide? And riptides are kind of a scary thing. All the moms know like if you take young kids, my wife like draws out the diagram sends us 20,000 videos of what a riptide is to make sure my kids don't end up in a riptide. I know you moms are like that. My kids were well prepared for riptides. They can tell you what a riptide is. A riptide will, if you get caught in it, it's a dangerous thing. And most people think that a riptide will drag you down. A riptide doesn't drag you down. A riptide drags you out. It's fear that drags you down. You start to panic and you can't swim and you can't get back. You're trying. You're forcing it. I just gotta get back. I gotta get back. You know that's not the way the Holy Spirit works. It's not gonna be on you anyways. He draws you. All you have to do is get out of the riptide. Begin to swim parallel with the with the shore. See the shore. It's like putting your eyes on God. I'm just gonna put my eyes on God and I'm just gonna begin to just just allow the Holy Spirit to draw me. And for some of you, you're so tired. You're so worn out. You know, you've drifted. And it's not, and the thing about a riptide is it's not instant.

It's not like it's like crazy, it's just slowly but surely. All of a sudden, you're like, whoa, I'm way away from shore. It's like that's not life, right? It's like one decision here, I get busy here, I compromise here, a little distracted here, I'm disappointed and it's caused me to doubt and I've had some pain and I've just been busy. That's the dangerous part is it's not instantaneous because we can avoid that, it's slow. If you find yourself in that spot, it's been a slow drift. The best news you can hear is that God still draws you, never leaves you nor abandons you. He's not disappointed in you. He's not mad about the decisions you've made. He cares about you, He loves you. You're still a son, you're still a daughter and by the Holy Spirit, He still wants to draw you to Him. You just have to say, yes, I'm gonna follow. I'm gonna follow. He says, my sheep hear my voice and they know my voice. Begin to listen to Him, begin to be drawn. Maybe He's gonna draw you back to praying like you never prayed in a long time. Draw you back to journaling, like you haven't journaled in a while. Draw you back to spending time with Him, getting away, stopping. Maybe for you, you just need to say,

I'm just gonna, today, I'm just gonna get away from the distractions today. I'm just gonna pause for just a bit. I'm just gonna listen. I'm not gonna say anything. I'm not gonna say a word. I'm just gonna listen. Maybe for some of you, you're just gonna say, listen, I just want you to rest. Well, you just rest, just stop. You don't have to do that. You don't have to make that dinner. You don't have to go to that place. Can you just, you just need to sit back and you just need to rest. Israel was scattered, exhausted, far from home, exiled, made a lot of bad decisions. And in Jeremiah 31, the Lord says something to them. Verses two through four, He says, this is what the Lord says. The people who survive the sword will find favor in the wilderness. Those who are still here, they'll find favor. Who needs favor? Eben, I need favor. Elan, you may need some favor in your life right now. We'll find favor in the wilderness. I will come to give rest to Israel. The Lord appeared to us in the past saying, and this is what He's saying to you.

I have loved you with an everlasting love. I have drawn you with unfailing kindness. I will build you up again. And you, virgin Israel, will be rebuilt. Again, you will take up your timbrels and go out and dance with the joyful. I don't know who needs to hear this today, but I'm just, I'm proclaiming that you're gonna be rebuilt. You may have drifted. You may feel far from God. Guess what? God can rebuild you better than you were before. Marriages can be restored better than before. Listen, you may be facing an illness or something right now. Listen, I believe God can heal you. I believe your mind can be restored. Your family relationships can be restored. Your children can come back. God is a God who rebuilds. And for you, maybe that's what you need. So here's what I wanna do. At every location, a pastor's coming to the stage. What I wanna do is have a moment of prayer. And I wanna pray for people in the room that you feel like you're distant, you feel like you're tired, you feel like you're weary, you feel like you're broken.

You may even feel like you're too far gone. Guess what? God can rebuild. You're never too far gone from God. So would you close your eyes for just a moment at every location? And if any of that resonates with you, would you just lift your hand and say, that's me? Yeah, many hands all over the room. Keep them up. And as a fact of proclamation, I'm gonna read this scripture back over you again. I want you to put your hands in a posture. Could you just kind of put them out in front of you like you're receiving something? I wanna read this over you. And I want you to receive this. The people who survive this storm will find favor in the wilderness. I will come and give rest. I pray for rest over people right now in the name of Jesus who are tired, who are weary. Rest. I will give rest to Israel. The Lord appeared to us in the past saying, I have loved you. Here's what he's saying to you. I love you with an everlasting love. I draw you with an unfailing kindness. I will build you up again.

And you will be rebuilt, rebuilt, rebuilt people right now in the name of Jesus. Again, you will take up. your timbrels, and go out to dance with the joyful. I pray for joy to be restored. I pray for peace to be restored. I pray for peace to be an umpire in our life. And I thank you for rebuilding to taking place. If you're in here today, you say, I just need a relationship with Jesus. I've drifted so far that I just need to come back to Jesus. I want a relationship with Jesus. Or maybe you've never prayed that prayer. I want you to know that God loves you so very much he sent his son, Jesus, to die on a cross for you, to walk into a tomb and defeat sin and death, and walk out so you could have life, and what we like to say is life to the full here at Victory Church. If that's you at any location, I'm gonna count to three, and I'm gonna ask you to raise your hand. Ready, one, two, three. If that's you, would you raise your hand and say, that's me today? We're so grateful that you joined us today. At Victory, we pray big prayers to a big God, and we expect big results. If you would like to receive prayer, you can submit a prayer request by visiting victory.church slash pray.

If this message or any of our messages have impacted your life, and you would like to partner with us through giving, you can do so at victory.church slash give. Thank you again for joining us. At Victory Church, we live life to the full. Thank you.