Talk

AUDEE VILLARAZA :

We just studied Jonah. In the next three weeks, we’re going to do something special . We’re taking a break from our usual series. And we’re going to study a mini-series we titled Awaken.

We’re going to talk about the power of the Holy Spirit . Because, you know, this is a beautiful time when we are celebrating the Coming of the Holy Spirit — Pentecost Sunday. The title of the talk today is so good. And I do hope and pray that the Holy Spirit will use this message to convict you, to change you.

Our message today is this: Reject the sin.

We are celebrating, like I said, one of the most significant events that happened in a Christian’s life. And we’re talking about the Coming of the Holy Spirit. You know that 2000 years ago the Holy Spirit came. But if you are a Jesus follower, you know that this event was not just a random event that happened to a bunch of people back then. But it’s an event that’s still happening today. And it’s an event that will continue to happen for years to come– until the end of our days.

How many of you want to live an abundant life?

I need you to know this: That there’s more to life than just working on a 9:00 to 5:00 job. There’s more to life than just waiting for that next big paycheck. There’s more to life than just waiting for that next breakthrough, or that next milestone.

God wants you to live life. And not just life — but life to the full. But how are going to do that?

You need to stop sleeping through life. Some of us are sleeping through life. Some of us are alive but we’re not really fully alive. Like, you do certain things but there’s no purpose, there’s no significance. God wants to wake you up from your slumber. He wants to wake you up to His Presence. If you live through life sleeping, you are not going to know that the Holy Spirit is actually moving in your life. God wants you to know that He wants to work in your life.

Novena to God’s Love

First, let’s come to the Presence of the Lord.

In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Practical, Powerful Message

We take a page from the book of Acts where we read that the apostles had received the Holy Spirit — and this is amazing.

Peter was talking to the disciples . Let’s read Acts 2:38:

Here’s the message:

Let’s pray:

Thank You, Father, for Your Word. We pray that it would come alive in the moments that we’re still here, listening, and breathing, and seeking Your wisdom. We pray that there will be a resurgence of wisdom that will be so practical,

so powerful, but above all, will be so personal– so that each one of us will know and say, “It’s me that You’re speaking to. Thank You, Jesus. I give you the glory in advance because I know that you are going to bless me and You are going

to change me today.” And all of us pray this in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path!

What Scares You?

I want to ask somebody here: How many of you remember the first scary movie that you ever watched?

You know– when either you were young or somebody here might not be too young, and you don’t like watching scary movies.

Do you remember the first scary movie you watched?

Liza: The Grudge      Jude: Exorcism Emily   Rose Amy: Dracula

I remember, the very first scary movie that I watched – I was about 6 or 8 years old—was a movie that completely changed me– and was not good for my life. It’s scarred me.

The movie was The Exorcist—the one starring Linda Blair. I remember my Dad made us watch it because he had fun scaring us for whatever reason.

And I remember watching it in the second-floor bedroom of our home —with my brother and sister. And our parents were downstairs.

I’m telling you, this was the first time that I cried, I screamed, I puked, and I peed — and all at the same time.

This movie was terrible. And my Dad regretted his decision.

Not the moment I watched it, but a month later, when he got the ut ility bill . Because for a whole month, I kept the bathroom and bedroom lights open. So, he regretted letting us see that scary movie — when he got the utility bill.

Evil Is Everywhere

You know, when you’re young, somehow, you’re scared of the dark, of things lurking in the dark — so many uncertainties.

How many of you did this?

The first time you ever slept in your own room and you had to turn off the lights by yourself, what did you do?

You had to have a little countdown – 3-2- 1. The moment you hit 1, you run straight to the bed.

Did you ever do that?

Because you wanted to avoid all the imaginary monsters…

On my bed, I had about six pillows —not because I was preparing for the global pillow fight or anything like that. I had six pillows on the bed … I had a pillow here on the side, here on the other side, here on top, at the bottom. Why?

Because this was my thinking: When a ghost would come, the ghost would say, “Ah, puno na pala dito, doon na lang ako sa kapitbahay—Ah, this bed is already filled up. I’ll just go to the neighbor’s bed.”

You felt protected because of all those pillows — but it doesn’t really make sense.

But why am I sharing this?

Because evil is everywhere. That’s what we think.

But let me just speak to you the truth: The evil that we think of usually does not come in the form of monsters, or of ghosts. I t doesn’t come in the form of manananggal, or white ladies. Evil does not always come in the form of aswang.

But there is evil that is so dangerous — in our world and in our life — that it will destroy you. What is that evil called?

It’s called sin. Sin is real. And let me tell you: sin is very scary. What’s scary about sin is that when you look at sin the first time, it’s not usually scary.

The enemy has devious ways of packaging and presenting sin as though it is not threatening. Sometimes, it’s even attractive.

Sin Is Attractive…

Let me give you examples:

Example No. 1: A few P100,000 in a brown envelope—given to you in secrecy, in the dark of night without any witness, without any receipt. To some, that’s not scary, right? To some, that’s joyful — to receive money in that sense.

But you don’t know where it’s coming from.

Example No. 2: A late-night conversation with a married person– that’s turning a little bit romantic. To some people, it’s not scary. Some are like, “Hmm, that’s exciting, that’s exhilarating, that’s adventurous. But that’s sin.

Example No. 3: A quiet time spent by yourself in the bedroom, or in the bathroom, watching pornography. To some, it’s not scary. It’s arousing, it’s titillating.

Because sin, sometimes, when it’s presented to you, is not really threatening.

But when you look at it up close, that’s when you see the danger.

Two Reasons Sin Can Be Dangerous

When you live with sin long enough, it can steal your soul. Little by little. You don’t notice it at first. When you live with sin long enough, it will corrupt you, it will destroy you — everything that you hold dear. You don’t know that all of a sudden, the things that you hold precious, you’re already giving them away. The Bible says this:

You might be winning in life right now. But a t what cost? What expense? Could it be possible that you are giving up your purity, your principles, your priorities—all the good stuff that God wants you to protect — just because you want to get a reward—just like Judas who traded Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. What does it profit for you to gain the who le world, to have a good life—but at what expense? You might be selling your soul.

The flow of God’s grace is unable to work in your life. Why? Because of sin.

How many of you lost somebody during this Coronavirus Pandemic?

During that time, we saw death coming so close to our home. For the first ti me ever, we were seeing death.

So, what happened? We got scared of death. I’m scared of death.

But you know, one thing that I’m more scared of?

I’m scared of Hell. Whether you like it or not, my friends, Hell is real.

What is Hell? Hell is a place where you are completely separated from your God.

Remember this: When God created you and me, He created us to be in union with Him. And so, Hell is

that place where you choose – where you are the one choosing– to separate yourself from your God. That’s what Hell is.

And Hell doesn’t have to be a place where you go — after your life here on Earth.

Hell can happen now. If you’re disconnected from the Lord, it feels like it’s Hell. So, two reasons: First, sin makes you lose your soul; and Second, sin disconnects you completely from God.

And I don’t know about you, but that to me is scary.

How many of you also know this: That you want the goodness and mercy to follow you everywhere you go. You want that? Do you want to know that you will dwell in the house of the Lord forever?

That’s what we want: To have life with God. Because the truth is , my friends, right now, we are in a spiritual battle, a supernatural battle.

What I s the Battle?

The battle between good and evil. And right now, this is very relevant—especially what’s happening in our country today.

You know, we are battling good versus evil.

And this is how we operated in the last few weeks during the elections. Y ou voted for a candidate. Why? Because you think that candidate is good. Am I correct? Of course. Why would you vote for somebody who’s bad? You vote for somebody who’s good.

But here’s the thing: The moment you put in your mind, “I’m voting for this candidate because this candidate is good…” unconsciously, you are treating the other candidates or maybe, you know, just a few candidates, as not so good.

So, now you have a distinction: This is good, and this is bad. So, what’s happening is that you are creating division in the middle. And wherever there is division, there is always hostility. That’s why now, all of a sudden, it’s become

I versus they. Us versus them. Good versus evil.

In our last Feast Talk series on Jonah, we saw how Jonah treated the Ninevites as evi l and then he as good. How many of us do that all the time? You know, we see ourselves as good and we see other people as bad.

But here’s the truth:

In the book of Matthew, there’s a beautiful parable by Jesus: The Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds.

In this parable, Jesus says that the Kingdom of God is like this:

The Servant tells the Master: “Master, there are a few weeds growing in the garden where we planted good stuff. What do we do?”

The Master says, “Leave them there.”

The Servant says, “Shouldn’t we pull the weeds out? Because the weeds are bad.”

And the Master says, “If you pull them out right now while they’re still young, you know what’s going to happen? You also are going to pull out the good stuff. You’re going to pull out the wheat.”

And then what did the Master say?

“Let’s wait until harvest time, and then you pull the wheat and the weeds out– and I’ll be the one to segregate what is good from what is bad.”

Whose Job Is It?

Now, how many can relate this to what’s happening? In our life today, there is good and then there is evil.

Because that’s what the Bible is saying: good and evil co-exist. The wheat and the weeds have to co-exist.

But here’s where the mistake happens:

Some of us, we try so hard to uproot the evil.

So, we’re canceling people, we’re rejecting people. We’re letting go of relationships.

But this is what Jesus is saying: “That’s my job. Your job is to love people, to cultivate relationships. And when you are done, I’ll be the one to harvest and segregate what is good from what is evil.”

It’s not our job. It’s the job of Jesus to do that. What is your job? Your job is to love God and others the best way that you can.

So, you might be asking, “Does this mean, Bro. Audee, that I stop fighting for the good fight? I stop —being the voice for the voiceless .

Is that what it means?”

No. Continue to fight the good fight. But after you fight the good fight and it doesn’t win your way, surrender it to the Lord. Because that’s His job. A time will come when Jesus will be the one to harvest what is good from what is bad. It’s not your job.

Good and evil co-exist in this world — that’s what Jesus is saying. And so, we must accept that truth. There are good things in our life. There are bad things in our life. We’ve got good habits. We’ve got bad habits. They co-exist. And we have to make a way, make it possible that we surrender all those to Jesus because He’s the one who has full control and full strength.

Practical Ways

I’m going to teach you now the practical stuff — four practical ways — because we’re talking about how to reject evil , rejecting the sin.

Four practical ways how you can reject evil.

STEP 1:

The first step to rejecting evil is this: You acknowledge the sin. You admit the sin.

You come before your God and you say: “Lord, forgive me for all the things I’d done, for all my sins, for all my transgressions, for those that

I did, and for those I did not do, that You called me to do. Father, forgive me.”

That’s the first step towards healing—when you come before God. The reason some people are walking in this world bitter , angry,

and resentful is they don’t acknowledge that they’re broken. That there are some pains in their life that need healing.

I want you to remember this age-old truth that I always preach: You cannot heal what you continue to conceal. You cannot heal what you’re not willing to reveal. If you want God to heal you, surrender your pains to God, you reveal them to God.

I want to speak this to somebody here today: You cannot heal if you’re pretending that you’re not hurt.

Go to God and then acknowledge, “Lord, I got hurt. Forgive me for thinking all these bad thoughts.”

Sin Starts Small

Sin usually starts out very, very small.

You don’t even notice it at first.

The other day, my wife was giving me a massage. That’s the purpose of a wife: to give you a massage. Ha-ha.

She was massaging me with oil . And then all of a sudden, she said. “Uy, yung likod mo nililibag. —Your back has skin dirt.”

Being real here. And I am like,

Kailangan ba agad, nililibag? Hindi ba pwedeng dead skin cells lang ‘yon?—Why call it skin dirt. May we just call it skin cells?”

She was accusing me that my back was dirty and I was not cleaning it.

But I told her, I usually take a bath with our son Ethan: “Pinapaliguan ko siya.

Hindi ako kasi hinihilod ni Ethan. ” – I bathe him, but he doesn’t scrub my back clean.”

You know, sometimes, we try to point fingers at other people. But that’s the truth. Sin often starts out very small.

Another example about my wife: She had this pestering pain in her hand.

She didn’t know where it was coming from – until she looked at it closely , and she saw that hidden underneath the skin was a small wood. It was a splinter. And that little thing, my goodness, was causing her so much discomfort.

Sin is like that. You’ve got sin in your life and you’ve got so many things bothering you. But you know, you don’t know what’s causing them: Sin.

Because you’ve got unresolved issues in your life. You’re not able to turn them over to the Lord. Turn them to God.

Acknowledge before God that you have sinned. You do this wonderful prayer the Psalmist says:

That’s a beautiful prayer. Come to God every day and you do your examination of conscience: “Lord, how did I fare out today?”

You review yourself and you come before God and s ay, “Lord, forgive me for all the things that I had done.”

And then you start the following day fresh and renewed.

STEP 2:

 Here’s the second step to rejecting sin: After you acknowledge your sin, you take responsibility for that sin.

I’m going to read to you something from the book of Genesis.

You know the story in Genesis—the story of creation where Eve takes a bite from that forbidden fruit , and then she gives it to Adam, and then Adam takes a bite.

But something happens…

God starts questioning Adam and then Adam says to the Lord:

What is Adam doing here? Adam is blaming the woman. But actually, if you think about it, Adam isn’t really blaming the woman. You know who he is blaming? He is blaming God.

Because, he says right here: “The woman You put here with me… It’s Your fault, Lord. If You did not put her here, my life would be good. I wouldn’t be doing anything wrong – if not for that woman that You put here.”

So, this is Biblical evidence that when the going gets tough, the m en will always blame the woman. Ha-ha.

Check out what do woman does. God questions the woman and she says:

Here’s the difference. The man will blame the woman. But the woman will blame anybody else —except that she will always call whoever she blames a serpent.

Here’s the truth: This is proof that we like blaming people. You know, for stuff that did not happen, or stuff we did not do. We don’t like taking responsibility for our actions.

What you want to do, if you want to reject sin, is take responsibility: “Lord, it’s my fault that this happened.”

STEP 3:

After you admit the sin, after you take responsibility for the sin, now it’s time to remove the sin.

Once upon a time, there was this man who came to a priest for confession and he says to the priest:

“Father, forgive me for I have sinned. I stole three chickens from my neighbor’s house.

The priest says, “Bless you, my child. I absolve you from your sin. For your penance, I want you to say three Hail Marys.

And then the man says, “Father, instead of three Hail Marys, may I say six Hail Marys?”

The priest scratches his head and says, “I’m asking you to say only three.

Why six?

The man says, “Well, Father, because my neighbor has three more chickens, and I’m just wondering, you know, maybe…”

Question: Is there repentance in this man’s heart? Yes, or no? No, right?

Because for repentance to happen, there must be a clear indication that you’re not going to do the sin anymore. You know, you confess your sin to the Lord , and then with this intention: “Hey, Lord, help me out. I don’t want to do this again.”

If you don’t have that contrite heart, it’s not repentance. It’s repetition.

It’s just rhetoric . It’s just something that you say out loud. Remove the sin by walking away from the sin.

I’ll share with you a story from the book of Exodus.

Remember the time when the Israelites were walking away from Egypt?

When they were removed from that place of sin—and they have been praying for their freedom for so long.

Moses came along and helped them bridge their freedom. And now, they’re walking in the desert – celebrating, rejoicing. They were jubilant because for years they were in bondage in Egypt. And now they’re walking in freedom. Even as they encountered the Red Sea.

Some of them even complained to Moses: “You know, we should have stayed in Egypt—because now we’re going to get killed in the wilderness, in the desert. We should have just stayed there in Egypt.”

But then God created a passage for the Israelites. And then now they were on their way to the mountain of God where God would give Moses the Ten Commandments on the two tablets.

Now, something happens before Moses could come down the mountain.

Let’s read Exodus 32:7-8:

Think about this with me for a moment: The Israelites, they were so happy. You would be happy if you’ve been in bondage for years and then God gave you your freedom—freedom from sickness, freedom from financial death. How would you feel? You would be happy. You would be saying, “Praise God! God is good.”

That’s what the Israelites were doing. They were celebrating God’s favor, God’s faithfulness in their life. But two months later, after crossing the wilderness, they came to the mountain of God and it took just a few days for Moses to be gone, and then they start creating gods, false gods for themselves. They started going back to their old ways.

What is the reflection here? Some of you might have walked away from your Egypt—that place of sin—not knowing that Egypt was still following you.

Think about that. You might have left that place of sin. But could it be possible that sin is still following you?

Ask yourself that question: “Where is sin following me?”

In your thoughts? In your patterns? In your responses? Maybe sin has followed you all throughout. You might have been gone away from that group of bad influences—but then you still carry that bad habit that you learned from them.

Egypt has been following you. You might have left Egypt but Egypt is still here in your heart. Think about that. Remove the sin from your life. How?

By walking away from Egypt completely — mind, body, and spirit.

You remove the sin completely.

STEP 4:

 Admit your sin before God.

Take responsibility for that sin. And then finally remove that sin.

And now, you’re ready for the fourth step. The fourth step is usually the hardest step ever. It’s confessing the sin.

I know it’s hard. Because a lot of us don’t like talking about our sins. We don’t even like looking at somebody in the eye and then telling them what we did. Because we don’t want to feel that we’re bad people– that we’ve done evil.

You know, if you confess your sin, you say it with your li ps. That’s why the book of Psalms says:

Here’s my question:

First of all, I think that’s a wrong question. Because why in the world is there a need to put or in the middle? Because the Bible says that, yes, you can confess your sins directly to the Lord. But the Bible also says that you may confess to one another. Right? James says that:

That’s the reason we have the Sacrament of Penance. For some of you who are interested in going to Confession, we have a Confession booth on the second floor. After The Feast, you go there. We got our priests lined up there on the second floor of the Plenary Hall.

Trust One Another

God says you can confess to Him and you can confess to one another.

That’s the purpose of having a small group: To have trust with one another—so that there are people who can pray for you.

So, confess your sins.

In the book of Matthew, it says that Jesus gave special authority to His apostles to forgive sins.

That’s why He says to Peter:

The same anointing that Jesus gave to Peter, guess what: Peter handed it down to the apostles, the apostles handed it down to all our ordained pr iests.

I heard this just this last Saturday in our Feast discipleship gathering — co-disciple Bro. Carlos Carcellar was talking about the grace of God working in our priests, and he said this:

Yes, there are priests who are, you know, exactly pure good. And there are priests who sometimes make mistakes, and sometimes they don’t have the purest of intentions, and sometimes they do things that surprise us — that shock us.

But he said this: Even if the priest is imperfect, the grace of God never changes. The grace of God that they give never changes. And so, if you’re somebody who thinks, “This priest, I know this priest from before . I grew up with this priest. I know what this pri est did when he was young…” know that the grace of God never changes.

The grace of God that’s handed down from our ordained priest, it’s still the same. Just because the person is broken, it doesn’t mean that the grace is broken when it’s given to you. Grace is full whenever it’s handed down to you because that’s the gift of God to everybody.

So, we confess our sins before our God and we recognize that we need

God in our life because we cannot do it on our own. God knows you’ve tried your best to walk away from that sin. But for some reason , it keeps on following you.

Because you need the Holy Spirit to be the One to strengthen you, to give you that grace to reject the sin.

Two Ways To Resist Temptation

How many of you know what it’s like to be tempted by the enemy? You know what it’s like to be tempted—when a thought holds you captive, when an intention locks you down… It’s hard to let go of that thing. But you know, let me end with two ways on how to resist temptation.

And this is proven—because I do this every time.

1.  Stop It at the Source

God knows the temptations I go through every day. But one way that I can try to stop temptation is first, I recognize the patterns of how temptation works.

So, if I know that this thought will lead me to temptation, I stay away

from the thought. If I know that seein g a picture will lead me to be tempted to sin, I try my best not to look at that picture.

Because one way to stop temptation is, you know, stop it at the source.

If you know that there are things that are going to tempt you eventually, you’ll get rid of them.

2.  Reveal the Temptation

The second way to resist temptation is to tell that temptat ion to somebody else. I want you to try it out this week. When you are tempted this week to do certain things that you know God doesn’t what you to do, I want you to tell that temptation to somebody else —somebody you trust, of course, somebody who won’t judge you.

Because when you reveal your temptation or your sin to somebody else, what’s happening is that you become accountable to that person. Meaning, you put yourself under the pastoral care of that person who can check you, guide you to resist temptations to sin.

But you’re also telling the Lord, “Lord, I’m no longer giving power to this temptation to control my life. ”

And so, you’re freeing yourself up– for God’s grace and God’s light to illuminate everything. As Ephesians 5: 13 puts it:

You’ve Got a Friend

When God pours down His grace over that sin, what’s happening is that it becomes lighter for you to carry the burden—you’re able to manage it now on your own. And you start by cutting it at the root and then telling it to the ones who are very close to you.

So, if you’ve got a spouse, tell your spouse if you’re being tempted. Tell your spouse if you are getting attracted to another person.

But here’s beautiful advice that I learned– from a marriage seminar conducted by Family advocates Edric Mendoza and his wife Joy. And they said that whenever they’ve got things that they cannot tell one another as married couples, you know, they would change hats.

They have what they call friend hats. They change perspective—from being spouses to being friends. They would say, “May I ask you to wear your friend hat for a moment?”

And then, they would talk about their concerns, like: “There’s somebody here who I am attracted to for whatever reason, I’m interested in this person.”

The spouse who’s hearing that is no longer responding as a wife or as a husband. He or she is responding as a friend, thinking like, “What should I do as your friend?”

You change hats. But it’s so important that you have people around you with whom you can talk, with whom you can confess. So that when you do that, you’re able to resist the temptation.

Ultimately, if you don’t have a friend like that, you still have a friend – called the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is your Helper. God sent the Holy Spirit to help you out in moments like this.

So, if you don’t have a friend at your disposal, at the moment– because you think that this person will judge you — then speak to the Holy Spirit.

Pray to the Holy Spirit — for strength, for guidance, for mercy. So that you will be able to reject the sin.

Receive the Holy Spirit

The gift of the Holy Spirit is love, and generosity, and self-control— all the good stuff that can only come from the Holy Spirit .

I want you to just open yourself to the work of the Holy Spirit to enable you to reject temptation, reject sin, and reject evil in your life.

God wants you to walk a straight path. But life is crooked. Life is corrupt.

And sometimes, it feels so impossible and so challenging, sometimes we feel

weak. Sometimes we don’t have the strength, sometimes, we don’t have the energy to fight temptation.

But thank God that we don’t have to do it all alone. Thank God that He sent us His Spirit – a Spirit who will help us, who will comfort us, who will encourage us when we need encouraging the most.

And so, let’s pray:

Holy Spirit, do Your work in the life of Your children right now. Whatever sins are there that they’re not able to put on the surface, whatever sins that are too dark and too heavy and too scary for them to even tell and speak out, I pray that You will heal them, Lord. Give them the gift of Your Spirit that will embolden them and give them the courage, Lord, to finally walk away from that place of sin, and start loving

You and start serving like You. And start becoming like You, Jesus.

Holy Spirit , we invite you right now that Your Pres ence and Your Power and Your Glory will rest on our life. This is our prayer In Jesus’ Name.