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Power Moves - A Series on the Holy Spirit
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We're in a series called "Goat Volume 3," focusing on the Holy Spirit under the heading "Power Moves." The foundational belief is that Jesus is more than just a redeemer who gets us to heaven—he's a rabbi that teaches us how to live on earth. If we're going to live according to his principles, we need his power.
I have much more to say to you, more than you can bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. (John 16:12-13)
Based on these principles, the central message is simple: Let me be me. Not dysfunctional, not destructive, not arrogant—but authentic.
Have you ever found yourself in a place or with some people that wanted you to be everybody but you? You are encouraged to be you but scolded when you are not like them. You are invited to proclaim your perspective, but you are persecuted when your perspective doesn't confirm their bias.
They ask you for your opinion, but they really want your agreement. And when they do not get your agreement, they become upset, attitudinal, and irrational because you gave them what they needed and not what they wanted.
If you have existed in environments like this long enough, you can develop what I call identity claustrophobia—a condition where a person constantly surrenders to the pressure to conform, creating a self-made straight jacket that suppresses the full expression of their God-given identity.
So they find themselves in marriages where they can't breathe, in ministries where they can't breathe, at workplaces where they can't breathe. And they feel like shrinking to a place of smallness is being sensitive to those around them. But they don't realize that they are actually suffocating the God-given uniqueness that God put on the inside of them.
I pray in 2025 that God sends you people that can see and appreciate the real you. I pray that you don't have to tap dance and tiptoe around, watch everything you say, and hide everything God's doing in your life. May God send you some people that see the real you and that can handle the real you.
Because if they are for you, then you don't have to show up as an impostor to stay with them.
Just let me be me. Just let me be me. I'm too old to be performing. I'm not in a school play. I'm grown. I got bills and responsibility. Let me be me.
It took me this long to find out who I actually am. And now that I have a God-given revelation of who I am, you want me to shrink to the size of your emotional fragility? Let me be me.
And if you let me be me, I'll bless you. If you let me be me, I'll help you. If you let me be me, I'll turn your business around. If you let me be me, I'll turn this house around.
Here's where it gets interesting. Just like people can attempt to shrink us to the level of their expectation, we can unconsciously attempt to shrink God to the level of our expectation. The thing we loathe when people do to us is something we can unintentionally and regularly do to God.
We can quarantine his activity to the confines of our comfort zone. And we say unconsciously and subliminally to the Holy Spirit: I want the parts of you that make me comfortable to show up. But the parts of you I don't understand, and the parts of you that other people have made weird, and the parts of you that seem to pull me out of personal and social norms—that's the part I want to stay away. I want to keep you in your denominational prison. You stay over there.
There's a word that the Bible uses to describe believers who do this. Paul talks to believers in Thessalonica and gives them this instruction regarding the Holy Spirit:
Do not quench the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test them all; and then after you test them, hold on to what's good and reject what's evil.
The word quench literally means to extinguish—like putting out a fire. When Paul says don't quench the Spirit, he's saying:
Many of us have underestimated our contribution to quenching because we think you have to try to quench it. But we don't have to try. When we dismiss, when we disregard, when we ignore, when we become too common and too familiar with the supernatural person, presence, and power of the Holy Spirit, we're quenching.
Quenching leads to settling. All this power is available, and you're settling for cycles of perpetual loss. All this victory is available, and you're settling for seasons of perpetual loss.
But my Bible says that the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives on the inside of you. The same power that reversed the condition of a decomposing body that had been in the grave for three days is the same power that can reverse whatever is undergoing decomposition in your life.
Maybe your peace is decomposing. Maybe your joy is decomposing. Well, you've got power on the inside of you.
Let the Holy Spirit be the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is saying: If you let me be me, no weapon formed against you shall prosper. If you will let me be me, I'll open doors that no man can shut and I'll close doors that no man can open. If you let me be me.
John 16 is couched within the context of John 13-17, which is Jesus's farewell discourse—the conversation he has before his crucifixion. It's a conversation he continues after communion. They're still in that same room where they had the last supper.
Judas has left at this point. And here's the thing: there are some conversations God can't have with you until Judas leaves. Judas will undermine and Judas will sabotage God's plan.
There's some stuff God waited to bring into your life because he was waiting on Judas to get out of your life. And now that Judas is gone, get ready for God to blow your mind.
What's interesting is what Jesus says he's not saying. Look at verse 12:
I have much to say to you, but it's more than you can bear.
Jesus is communicating with consideration for your capacity. When he says you can't bear this now, he's suggesting you need to have the capacity to carry what he's getting ready to communicate. He has assessed your capacity and concluded that you don't have the capacity to handle this now. Not ever, but not now.
My silence is your gift. God is not silent because he has nothing to say. He's silent because saying more to someone who's not ready doesn't serve them—it stresses them.
God has to make sure you get to the place spiritually and emotionally where you have the perspective to handle certain levels of conversation.
You may not be ready to hear God say, "I'm going to wait until you're in your 40s before you get married so that I can use your life to show other people that waiting on me is worth it."
You're not ready for a word where God says, "I'm going to let you be like Job, and I'm going to let you obtain what you dreamed of obtaining, and then I'm going to take you through a season where you lose everything that you have just so I can take you through another season where I give it all back."
A word that stresses you in one season is a word that will stretch you in another season. God knows when a word will stress you or stretch you.
In 2 Corinthians 12, the Apostle Paul describes an unidentified issue he's dealing with called a thorn:
I got a thorn in my flesh. Concerning this thorn, I sought the Lord three times that it might be removed from me.
And the text says, "On the third time, God said, 'My grace is sufficient.'" Well, if God said that on the third time, what did he say on the first two times? Nothing.
Some people never get their answer because you can't live through the silence.
In John 11, Mary and Martha have a brother named Lazarus who's sick. They send word to Jesus and say, "Jesus, the one you love, is sick." And the Bible never says Jesus sends word back to them. He just doesn't come until he gets ready.
You're not ready for that kind of answer. When you ask God, "When are you coming?" and God says nothing—you just need to know that whenever he's ready, it's the right time. And when he comes, whatever's broken is going to be fixed.
In your eyes it's too late. But when Jesus gets there, even if Lazarus has been in the grave for four days, whatever's dead has to come back to life.
He never told Mary and Martha he wasn't coming. He said nothing. Because you're not ready for the answer to say, "I'mma let this stay dead for four days." If he would have told you that, you would have had less peace than you had by his silence. At least you were looking for him. At least you had some hope. But if he would have told you, "He's going to have to lay there for a minute. It's not like we're going in and coming right out"—you wouldn't have had that.
But you told God you wanted him to use your life. He said, "Well, this is the way I'mma use it. I'mma let that stay dead four days, and then I'mma let people come around and watch the death because the same people that watched it die are the same people I'mma keep alive so that they can see when I bring it out of the grave."
Jesus uses a number of different words to describe the person of the Holy Spirit because these different words describe the different functions of the Holy Spirit. One translation calls him a Comforter—because sometimes the ministry of the Holy Spirit doesn't fix it. He comforts you. Sometimes the Holy Spirit doesn't fix it, but he comforts you.
Now here's what's interesting. He calls himself the Spirit of truth.
The word for truth means unconcealed, unhidden, or reality as it actually is. So the Spirit of truth is the divine agent who reveals reality as it truly is according to God's perspective, not human perception.
This exposes us to an aspect of who the Holy Spirit wants to be for us.
The Holy Spirit is saying: Let me be your deliverer.
Second way Christianity only sees deliverance ministry as deliverance from dysfunction or deliverance from disease. That's not incorrect, but it's incomplete. Because the greatest deliverance you can have is deliverance from deception.
The Holy Ghost is saying, "I want to stop you from being tricked so easy. I need to stop you from getting in your own way so much. I got to stop you from thinking something is one thing when it's another. I got to give you another set of eyes—and these are not the eyes in your head. These are the eyes in your heart. I got to deliver you from deception."
You're calling him to do rescue missions on the back end, but you're not inviting him into the decision-making process on the front end. If you invite him in, he'll show you what's real and what's not. Don't you sign that contract. Don't you go there. Don't you do that.
The Holy Spirit is saying: Let me be your director.
He will guide you into all truth. (John 16:13)
The Spirit of truth wants to provide direction that cannot be obtained with the five senses. You and I are going to hit a season where you have to make a decision that requires more than the five senses.
You're going to have all the data, all the facts. You're going to text all your friends, and you're still going to sit down and say, "I don't know what to do."
You're going to open the Bible and read stuff like "bear ye one another's burdens." You're like, "Okay, I need to do it." But then you read "let each one carry his own load." Well, I guess I don't need to do it. Which one do I need to do?
You need the Spirit to give you discernment on how to apply the written word in that specific situation. This is how he keeps us from making an idol out of the Bible. God says, "Some stuff you got to come to me for because I'mma show you how to properly apply what's in the scriptures."
When I'm leading you, don't quench that. When you got a check in your spirit, don't quench that.
In Acts, when the Apostle Paul's getting on that ship, he says, "Sirs, I perceive that this is not going to end well." It wasn't like the Lord told him. He didn't have a dream. He said, "But something in my inner man is telling me." That's the director.
The Holy Spirit says, "I actually want to be your shepherd, but I lead. I don't argue. So when you're ready to stop arguing, come see me."
The Holy Spirit is saying: Let me be your distributor.
The Holy Spirit takes what belongs to Jesus and distributes it to the believer. He doesn't just deliver content. He imparts capacity.
You have natural ability—you're born with that. You have acquired skill—you learned that because you wanted to or had to. And then you have special abilities that are deposited to you by the Holy Spirit for the purpose of building the body and serving the common good.
When he gives you a gift and you quench the usage of that gift, you are robbing the body of the purpose for which he gave it.
When the Holy Spirit gives you prophetic insight and you get a nudge to share something with somebody and you keep sitting on the nudge, you are robbing the person of the word they need for the season that they're in—because you put your ego over their impact. You're so scared to be wrong that you won't say what's right.
In Mark 16:17, Jesus says:
These signs will accompany those who believe in my name. They will drive out demons and they will speak with new tongues.
This isn't the most important gift, but this is the gift that gets real weird and people get real wild, and that causes people who need it to run from it.
People get weird and wild and unbiblical with it. And then those of us who aren't attracted to that performative, theatrical expression of the gifts just dismiss the gift altogether. But it is an invaluable asset to your prayer life.
Romans 8:26 says:
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God.
Sometimes you don't know what to pray. But the Holy Ghost knows what the will of God is. When I know what to pray, I pray in my understanding. When I don't know what to pray, I pray in the Spirit.
When you pray in the Spirit, you start walking into things you didn't pray for, but the Holy Ghost in you did. He knew how to pray. When he prompts you at 3:00 in the morning and says, "Get up and pray," and you start praying in the Holy Spirit, he starts covering your children and blessing your home and opening doors.
1 Corinthians 14:2 says:
For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people, but to God. Indeed, no one understands them. They utter mysteries by the Spirit.
And 1 Corinthians 14:14-15 says:
For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, and I will also pray with my understanding. I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my understanding.
When the Holy Spirit's praying, your mind has no idea what's being said. It sounds like gibberish. It is glossolalia—unintelligible language. Some of you have been quenching that gift.
1 Corinthians 12:29 asks:
Are all apostles? No. Are all prophets? No. Are all teachers? No. Do all work miracles? No. Do all have gifts of healing? No. Do all speak with tongues? No. Do all interpret? No.
This is not to condemn you if you don't have the gift. But it is to tell those of you who do have it: stop quenching.
It's a prayer language. The Holy Ghost knows the mind of God. So when we pray in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Ghost prays the will of God into the situation. If you have it, the Holy Spirit is saying, "Let me be me."
As you open your mouth, watch him fill it. Out of your belly shall flow rivers of living water. He's getting ready to fill your mouth with a prayer language.
