Wellspring Church Sermon Podcast · Wellspring Church

The Invisible Work of the Holy Spirit

·43 min·2 clips

Psalm 22 maps directly onto Jesus's cross: "my tongue sticks to my jaws" and "they divide my garments."

He starts with a short trip to Wilmore. He remembers taking his wife Stacey and their oldest two girls there and reflects on the place where he and Stacey fell in love and where his life was changed. He points back to Asbury College and the 2023 outpouring there as an example of transformation people can actually see. He argues that Christianity is not only about forgiven sin, but about becoming a radically different person. He then shifts into a more classroom-like explanation of the cross. He says the Father did not rescue Jesus from execution, and in that sense did not stop the suffering. He applies that to listeners asking God to end pain that feels undeserved. He makes room for the reality that sometimes suffering comes from our own choices, but not always. He keeps pressing on the harder case, where someone has done nothing wrong and still hurts. He says God sometimes rescues and sometimes allows the suffering to continue. He turns to Psalm 22 as the language of feeling abandoned. He notes that Jesus himself quotes that psalm. He reminds the room that Jesus walks out of the grave on Sunday. He uses that resurrection hope to argue that hidden suffering is not the end of the story. He returns to the idea that God may be working even when the work cannot be felt or seen. He says the deepest work often happens when a person is under pressure, not when life feels easy. He illustrates that with his own shoulder surgery and being put under. He treats the operating room as a picture of unseen but real healing. He closes by urging the room to stay faithful because God never leaves or forsakes his people. He ends with a blessing that feels like a classic church sending.

As heard by us

A sermon about hidden change, patient suffering, and the work you cannot always see.

Matt Ayers frames the sermon around unseen spiritual change: what God does when a life is still hurting, still waiting, and not yet visibly different.

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Why you'd press play

For when you need faith to make sense of suffering, God's seeming silence, and change you cannot yet see.

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