Episode 76 - Spiritual Basics #2

Every word and event is intentional in Scripture to allow us to know Gods Love for us and His character 

Genesis 11 ; 1-9

Acts 2 : 1-11

Transcript

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This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine. Hello and welcome to Shine. I'm your host, Nicole Florence. As you may notice, there are no birds, there's no symphony of sound behind me because alas today I am recording from my closet. Anywho, you'll have to um, I don't know, act like they are behind me. Or perhaps you're listening on your patio with your birds. So we were talking a little bit about the spiritual basics, and you know, I talked a little bit about just how essential prayer is, and today I want to talk a little bit about knowing the word. Now, of course, I've talked about this throughout this podcast, and I believe I don't know, episode 60, early 60s, I talk about knowing. Um, but of course, knowing scripture we know is essential. And as I've also spoken to you about, I I consider myself Christian, I consider myself kind of non-denominational, I grew up in a black church, and I currently attend a Catholic church with my husband. No, I don't take communion, I get it. I haven't taken the sacrament, so I'm not quote unquote allowed to. Yeah, that'll be a whole other podcast. However, um, this is where he is at, and this is what he is comfortable with, and there's a certain level of reverence and obedience and faith that definitely keeps him anchored. So we attend um a Catholic Mass. And for many of you that attend Mass, you know that there's a book that basically gives the whole year of what your service is going to be, right? This is how predictable the Catholic Mass is, that you pretty much know on any given Sunday what the readings are going to be from the Old Testament, um, what your song of psalm is going to be, and of course, bringing it into the New Testament and the Gospels. Like I can look at the third Sunday in September of this year, and I know what the service is going to be. Um, I think you know that for some people they they are into that, and that level of routine I think is comforting. Um the thing that I enjoy is I know during the Pentecost um one of my favorite sermons, of course, was this past Sunday. So, of course, I'm super excited because um I'm always looking forward to learning something new, and I just love the connection of Old Testament to uh new. And so this story, which I'm super excited about to talk to you, is the one about the Tower of Babel, and it starts out right in Genesis chapter 11. We know that God's people, um, we are all of one uh tribe, so to speak. We all speak the same language, we all um have one God, we have, you know, survived the flood. And our purpose, of course, is to not only love our God and worship him, praise him, revere him, fear him, um, but also for us to kind of multiply and spread um mankind across the earth with the hopes of also um spreading the word about um God. So, of course, what do we do? Human nature, we're full of arrogance, we're full of pride, and uh all of them get together. This is Genesis chapter 11, and they decide hey, we don't necessarily have to do that. What if we build this spectacular tower, kind of a skyscraper, so to speak, because we feel that we can reach the heavens, we want to reach God, not necessarily to be closer to him, but to be like him and to have his um omniscience and his power, right? And so all the people get together and they start building this tower. So what's incredible about this is okay, first off, God has to come down, right? Clearly, this is not a very high tower. You're nowhere near being close to God in the heavens if more than likely he can barely see it. He has to bring himself down to your level, right? And clearly, God says or professes, hey, like this is not acceptable. And all of you people who speak the same language and have all this knowledge and this energy and um this purpose, you are not using it in the way that I have purposed you for. Um you are being filled with pride and arrogance and um a desire for power, and this is gonna be your downfall. So, what does God do? He separates us from language, he basically comes down and says, I'm gonna make it so you all cannot communicate with each other, therefore you cannot come together for this um level of power and knowledge that is going to be the fall for mankind. Does this in any way sound familiar to you all right now? So that was when he came down, and of course, we all were split by our languages and we could not communicate. So, fast forward now to Acts chapter 2, um, within the Pentecost, which is one of my favorite chapters as well. That when the Pentecost arrived, suddenly, right, there was this violent rushing of wind, which we know was the Holy Spirit, came down from heaven, and where the um disciples were staying, um, tongues like flames of fire separated and rested on each of them. Then they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues as the Spirit enabled them. As we read on, we find that people were astounded and amazed, right? All of a sudden, these Galileans people could understand what they were saying. So, where before God had separated us from language, all of a sudden we were able to understand each other through the spirit. So, yes, we're gonna take this literally in terms of language, so it kind of reminds me of having like a uh a translator. So when you were speaking to someone in Egypt, when you were speaking to someone in parts of um Asia, uh Mesopotamia, what would happen is if I was speaking, for instance, in English, they would all of a sudden they would be able to understand everything I was saying just plainly. And all of a sudden, what was separating us and our language and our communication to protect us from our downfall, all of a sudden that gap was closed, and through the Holy Spirit we were all able to hear the story of Jesus, to hear the gospel through the Spirit and communicate with each other for our new purpose of knowledge, understanding, wisdom, discernment to spread the gospel of Jesus. I mean, I mean, is your mind blow? I my mind is just absolutely blown every time I go from Genesis chapter 11 to Acts chapter 2. Because it's not just um breaking that language barrier and then reforming it so we can all understand each other. There's also this level of the universal language of the Holy Spirit. I'm not just talking about words, I'm not talking about the comprehension of language, but what I'm talking about is that quintessential language of the fruit of the spirit, right? Of love, of gentleness, of patience, of forgiveness, of faith, of kindness, of self-control. Um to the point where we don't even have to understand each other's language, but you can know and see and feel the Holy Spirit within another person without even understanding uh uh truly what they're saying. Right? That is a language barrier that if we are all walking within the spirit, we do not have. It is that universal language that where at one time God said, Hey, humanity, this is gonna be your downfall. I'm not gonna allow you to um use your pride and your arrogance and your desire for power. But uh and he had the sovereignty, the omniscience to know that he was gonna change that someday. That he was protecting us from ourselves until the day of Jesus' death and resurrection of our salvation where we were then protected from ourselves. I I just when I think about how the knowledge of scripture, the knowledge of the word, and understanding that allows me to truly understand God's character and his faithful love for us, and how yes, much to my misunderstanding, he protects me, protects me from myself. He protects us from each other, and even though I may not fully understand it, I know that he has a plan, much like the Tower of Babel, all the way to Acts chapter 2. So I apologize, it went a little longer today, but man, that just really hits home on the importance of us truly understanding God's character through the word. So I hope you'll go back and read those chapters. I hope you'll be set on fire like I was, um, and have a better understanding of why we truly need to know the word. Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.