This week was my son's birthday. He turned two. I think fathers, sometimes when they hit milestones like that, start reminiscing about how things have changed. I was kind of laughing to myself walking around my house, thinking about how much has changed in the last two years and how amazing God has been.

You know, when you bring a new life into the house, things are overtaken by that. I was laughing as I was walking around the house, and I looked up at my shelves. I had these bookcases, and they were really nice, and they had all these different books in there. We used to go to antique stores and buy books, and they'd be all the right colors and they’d match all nice. And it was great.

Now I look up there and there's Dr. Seuss in there, and it's colorful for a different reason. There's also Baby's First Bible and all sorts of stuff like that. I look at my shelves—we used to have all these decorations on them—and now there's diapers and baby powder and cream.

I laughed and I opened up the closet, and my suits used to be really nice in there. Now there are toys and all sorts of stuff. And I love it, because when you bring a new life into the house, your life kind of stops, and everything becomes about that new life. You look around, and your entire life becomes overtaken by this new life.

As I was preparing the sermon this week, God was talking to me about that. The title of my sermon is Overtaken. Have you been overtaken by the Spirit of God? I look around at the process that has taken place in my house and how over these last two years everything has been overtaken by that, and I love it. And I tell you, that there is new life that comes in—that life is the Spirit of God. When that life comes into a heart, everything is supposed to stop. Everything is supposed to become about that new life—about nurturing that life and growing it until your entire life is overtaken.

My question today for us: have we been overtaken by the Spirit of God? Because that's what it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be a time of being overtaken.

I started crying this morning before church even started because I was thinking about how God is doing such an amazing thing. It's such an amazing time. God has brought us so far, and God is looking to do even more now. It's a time of being overtaken by the Spirit of God. Amen?

If you have your Bibles, I'm going to be reading from Matthew 13, verses 31 to 35. We're looking at a parable of Jesus where He describes the Spirit and the Kingdom of God and how we as God's people are supposed to be overtaken by that Spirit.

This was an amazing time in the ministry of Jesus. If you look at the chapter before and this chapter, a lot of stuff happened. Before that, Jesus was going out and talking to people, and it was great. But all of a sudden, Jesus’ ministry kind of changes at this point. He starts to make a division. He's not even talking about non-believers and believers—He's talking about inside the church, inside His people.

There was a division taking place where He was setting the people of the old who were wrapped up in religion and the people of the new who wanted to be overtaken by His Spirit.

Jesus starts healing people on the Sabbath, and the Pharisees get upset. He says, “No, don't you know that it's good to heal people? Don't you know that the law that’s not what the law is talking about?” He begins to separate. They start calling Him Beelzebub, and He calls them a brood of vipers. It goes back and forth and he’s doing all these amazing things. He's drawing a line in the sand, saying, “Either be on this side or this side. Either be of the old and religion, or come into the new and be about Me. Be a people of faith. Be a people of Spirit. Stop looking to the old and start being a people consumed and overtaken by the Spirit of God.”

Jesus was making a distinction at that time. I feel like the Spirit is the same today. God is making a distinction inside the house of God—between the old and the new. My question is, have you been overtaken by the Spirit of God? Are you coming into the new? Are you coming into what God is calling for us? Because God is making a change. My prayer for us today is that we would be on board with what God is doing—that we would be a people of faith, the type of faith that overtakes a man and transforms him completely. Amen?

In verse 31 he told them another parable. “The Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of plants and becomes a tree, so much so that the birds can come and perch in its branches.”

We read about the mustard seed. It is one sixty-fourth of an inch. It's really, really tiny. You could hold it and it's really malleable. You could damage it easily because it's so small. But that small seed can grow twenty feet wide and twenty feet tall. Something one sixty-fourth of an inch– it can grow into the ground, it can even grow in arid, dry places and become something magnificent. We all know the verse about faith the size of a mustard seed you tell the mountain to move and it’ll move. But Jesus takes it further. He's not just talking about faith and moving things on the outside. He's talking about faith that opens up a man's heart and the seed of God goes inside of them and grows until it overtakes their entire life. God is calling for faith, for spirit. Faith that opens up your heart and the Spirit, the seed of God, that goes in and grows into something magnificent.

I love that because it doesn't matter where you come from. There is a hope in the gospel for the broken. There is hope in the gospel for the lost. Why? The seed comes in and overtakes everything. That seed overtakes your past. It overtakes what you've done. It overtakes what you regret. It overtakes how you were raised. It overtakes where your family comes from. It overtakes the brokenness, the hurt, the pain. And it grows up into something amazing.

God wants a people who are overtaken by His Spirit. Do we realize we need to be overtaken? You see we can be in the church and sing songs and that’s amazing, we can worship God. But God is calling for people who are overtaken by His Spirit. Just being in church isn't enough. There were many people in Jesus' presence, but God is looking for a people overtaken. Are you looking for God to come in and plant something in your life? Are you listening for God? Are you waiting for Him to call your name so you can call out “God, yes, here I am.” The disciples were just twelve normal guys—carpenters, tent makers, tax collectors. What separated them? When God called their name, they said yes. When He said, “Drop your nets and follow Me,” they said “Okay God, I’m dropping it all and following you.”

Faith is what opens up the heart. When God calls your name and you hear Him, it’s what opens up your heart that God could plant something inside of you. You look at where the disciples ended up. Following God and starting churches, and making waves, and making a difference, and overthrowing everything that the people had known. You see, it grew into something mighty. Something so small as man saying “yes” to God, grew into something so amazing and big, and it overtook their entire lives. That’s what it’s meant to be for us.

We read about these things in the Bible and we think they are just stories from the past, but they’re not. God is calling for us to be overtaken this day. He’s calling for the gospel to come alive in your lives. We forget about the simplistic message of the gospel sometimes. Jesus Christ went to the cross and died for us. If we can look up at the cross and say, “God, I see You hanging on the cross. And I know that you paid for my sins. I believe God, I believe when You went to the cross and died for me it's enough to wash me clean. It’s enough that I can have a new start. It’s enough that I can be completely new and I can be washed away. God, I accept what You did for me. I open up my arms to You today. I take myself down. Lord, would you come in and take the throne of my life.” You see it's a simplistic gospel but that message for someone who says yes, God can come in and do something amazing.

The truth is many of our gardens, our fields, have been filled with all sorts of stuff. They’ve been filled with hatred, bitterness, our past, everything we’ve been through, low self-esteem, filled with all sorts of things. But this message that I’m talking about. God comes in and overtakes. That seed is planted and you begin to water it, you begin to say, “God, come in more. God, I worship You. God, I want to know You, God I want to be closer to you”— and you worship that Word, and it comes in and overtakes. It chokes the life out of those things. The despair, the brokenness, your past, everything you’ve been through. It begins to take all those things and choke the life out of them until it overtakes the entire field.

God doesn't want people who are carrying their past. He’s not looking for people carrying around their baggage everyday. The Spirit of God is meant to come in and overtake everything. I think about the Garden of Eden— how pure and beautiful it was. And then what happened? The seed of sin came in. And what happened as soon as that seed came in? There was shame, Adam and Eve hid from God, there was separation from God. Many of us still walk in that broken garden where there is shame and separation from God. But God wants that seed to grow today, He wants to call forth those things that have been put in your life. In the name of Jesus Christ, I call forth the seed that has been implanted in your life that it might grow and become something. Amen.

He wants to bring us back to that garden, that good place. That place where you dwelled with him, walked hand in hand with God, that place where there was no separation, but you were with Him, no shame, no discord. But you were with God because God has overtaken that place. It is a good place. It is a place where God’s fruit grows. Amen? Those seeds are meant to grow up. Others are meant to come into those trees and find shelter. We have a problem in the church and in this country where we have treeless fields, fruitless fields. Fields that you look across and you see that they’re barren and there’s nothing growing in them. God is calling forth the Spirit of God. He’s calling forth those seeds that have been planted. I’m telling you, if you are here today, God has implanted something inside of you.

You have to water it, you have to look after it. This process is called sanctification. It’s when you come to God and you say, “God, water that seed. May it grow and overtake who I am. I don't want to be the same anymore. I don’t want to go through and have my flesh following me around. God, I want that seed to come in and overtake everything.” This verse doesn’t say, “The kingdom of God is like fields that were empty”, it said it’s like a small seed that came in but it grew up and overtook. You see, those things start small, start off seemingly insignificant, but they grow up into something amazing.

What is God growing in our lives? What is God growing up? How are you different from yesterday? How is your tree grander than yesterday? What is God doing new? And the roots are going deep and they’re overtaking all those things of your past. What has God overtaken in your life—what pain, what hurt, what discord,what brokenness is He overtaking and replacing with His very Spirit? God is looking to bring us into a new time, a time where trees are in abundance. A time where fruit is growing. God is calling for a time where we are overtaken by the Spirit of God. Amen.

The second verse tells us about how yeast takes over the whole batch. Verse 33 says, “The Kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and hid into about sixty pounds of flour until it had worked all through the dough.” I read that and I thought this is nice, I guess Jesus is saying the same thing twice. He’s just saying it in different ways. The first one is about a seed that came in and grew and overtook the field, and this one’s about yeast that went in and overtook the whole batch. I thought, wow, this is nice, Jesus is just making it easy for these guys. But that’s not what it was. Yeast was never spoken about positively in the Bible. It was never associated with anything good. Yeast was always bad. And then you look at where it says sixty pounds. You see how I put in parentheses “three measures” there? That’s what it is in the Bible. The audience at this time would know what three measures of meal are.

Three measures of meal in the Old Testament were used over and over as a fellowship offering. When you come and you give three measures of meal, somebody higher than you is coming and you are breaking bread with them. It happened with Abraham when the angels came and he said, “Wait, wait right here. I’m going to go and prepare three measures of meal and we’ll break bread together.” It happened with Hannah. It happened with Gideon. It happened all throughout the Bible. These people must have heard this and knew right away what they were talking about. Three measures of meal that’s a good thing but they also knew something else: there was never supposed to be yeast in it. And then it says the woman “mixed” it in. That word actually means “hid.” It carries the idea of ill intent, something slipped in quietly—almost secretly—like she poured it in when no one was looking.

So now we realize this isn’t the same. He is talking about one or the other. The Kingdom of God is either like this or it’s like this; it’s one or the other. It’s not both. The Kingdom of God can either be that Jesus is coming in and He’s overtaking your entire life. Or it can be that sin is introduced into your life and it’s growing and it’s working its way through the whole batch.

We have to look at these two kingdoms and see: which kingdom are we living in? Are we in the Kingdom of God, where He is growing and coming and overtaking our hearts and His Spirit is doing new things in our lives until we are being transformed? Or are we in the other kingdom—where sin keeps getting slipped in, and we’re constantly fighting to manage it, suppress it, control it? Jesus is saying it’s one or the other. Either be overtaken by My Spirit or you will constantly be overtaken by sin.

As I was praying about this, God began speaking to me about the two kingdoms. The Kingdom of God has always existed. It was good. It was right. It was the way it was meant to be. Then Satan tried to be God. He tried to set himself up on the throne. And he was cast down from Heaven for trying to be God. And God began showing me something: everything in Satan’s kingdom is a counterfeit of God’s Kingdom. Everything in this world is always a counterfeit of what God instituted.

So you look at sin and see how it works its way through the entire batch. That’s not the original design. The original was the Spirit of God that came upon a man and worked its way through until it overtook who he was. And Satan tries to set up this sin and we focus on and get caught up in it. It tries to work its way through the whole batch. But today I’m trying to tell you that God is looking to change your kingdom. He’s looking to bring you into the Spirit of God. The One that overtakes your whole life.

Stop being consumed by sin. Stop trying to fight sin. Stop trying to go back and forth. It’s like that Popeye cartoon where you stick one finger in and the hole appears and the water is coming through. You’re sticking fingers and toes and you’re trying to play whack-a-mole with sin. But we see that so much. God is looking for us to stop trying to plug the fingers and toes to try and stop the flood. Say, “God, instead, may I be overtaken by your very Spirit. I don't want to be the one where this little bit of sin keeps getting poured into my life. Every time I turn around there’s a little bit of sin and it grows bigger and bigger. God, I want your Spirit to overtake me.

I want our prayers today to change. Our prayers in the past have been, “God may you stop this sin from coming in my life, from overtaking me.” Instead, I want to change our prayers to, “God, may your Spirit come in and overtake my very soul, may it overtake every bit of me, may it crush the power of sin.” Amen.

Yeast goes through a whole entire batch and it transforms to take on the characteristics of the yeast. So you look at water. If you poured water into the yeast it would break it down, it would ruin it. That’s not what yeast is. You see, yeast goes and it changes the composition of the dough to take on the characteristics of the yeast. It grows and it overtakes. So you can understand why Jesus used the example of yeast. He says a little bit of yeast goes in and it works its way through the whole batch. The sin comes in and changes the person to look more like the sin than they did before. All of a sudden they’re resembling sin more than the person they were before because sin works its way through the whole batch. It changes the composition of who you are to look more like Satan.

That’s not what God intended. God intended that this Spirit of God would come in. You see, sin is counterfeit. The Spirit of God was supposed to come inside the heart of man and transform and change them. Change the very composition of who you are that you would no longer resemble the man of the world, but you would resemble God. That’s what it is meant to be and that’s what we have to come into.

Change is different than transformation. If you change something, it can always change back. Change just means you’re moving a little bit, you’re moving to the side, but if you go this way then you can always go back the other way. People of the world are changed a little bit–they’re changed by their will, therapy, and all sorts of things they try really hard to be changed by. Often in the church, we say, “God change me from this, change me from that” but God is not looking for change. He’s looking for transformation. You see, transformation means you can never go back to what you once were. You can never turn around and revert back because you have been transformed by the Spirit of God.

That is what God is calling for– a transformation, not a change. When we are stuck in that second kingdom everything becomes about our sin. Every time we deal with God it’s about our sin. Every time we pray it is about our sin. Every time we are looking into our hearts it is about our sin. That’s not what God wanted. The Spirit comes and works its way through the whole batch, it transforms every fiber of who we are. Those things that maybe you’re not even paying attention to, He comes in and begins to speak to you about things you don’t think are that bad. He begins to talk to you about your character, making you into a person of stature, and changing how you speak.

Maybe nothing is “wrong” at your job—but God comes in and says, “I want to transform even your work so I receive glory through you and your job.” Maybe your home isn’t chaotic but God wants to shake it up and bring a little craziness for a little while so that He could do something amazing through your home. When we are of the kingdom of sin, of the yeast, we are only focused on the sin. Everything is status quo and behind it. I’ll never look at what’s going on behind me because nothing crazy is happening. I’m only focused on plugging the holes. But God is calling for you to come into the Kingdom of the Spirit. One where God transforms every fiber of who you are. That is what God is looking for.

Last week my wife preached about anxiety. God was speaking to me about it and about how it comes in and consumes people. When we’re riddled by anxiety so often it is about us—our money, our job, our family, our future. But instead, what if you came into a different kingdom? Where instead of lying awake anxious about ourselves, we were lying awake interceding for someone else? And you’re praying, “God, come through for this person.” You're concerned for them, and you can’t sleep until you bless them for the night. You see in the kingdom of sin, of yeast, we are only concerned about ourselves. But in the Kingdom of God, all of a sudden, we take on His heart, His life, His goodness. The Spirit begins to overtake even our own worries and anxieties. It overtakes it and crushes it, because all of a sudden you’re consumed for the Kingdom of God.

God is looking to bring you out of the kingdom of yeast, the kingdom of Satan-where you’re constantly trying to focus and stop the sin. He wants to bring you into the Kingdom of God. Because when the Kingdom of God rises inside a person it overtakes their entire being, it crushes the sin and desires, the ways of thinking, their past, and the Spirit of God overtakes.

I look at that verse and it says the woman hid it inside of the batch. But there is something alive hidden inside of you as well. It’s called the Spirit of God. I’m praying today that you would water the Spirit of God, that you would look and seek after God. That you wouldn’t think the seed is enough, but that you would begin to seek after Him, call Him down, and ask Him to grow that Spirit inside of you. I promise if you do, you will see God come in and overtake your life. The old isn’t good enough, the old isn’t okay. God is looking to overtake the people of God that you would no longer be the same but would be transformed by His Power.

Jesus takes over the soul. Verse 34: “Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables. He did not say anything to them without using a parable so it was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet, ‘I will open up my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world.’” And I started asking God what are these things hidden since the creation of the world? All of a sudden I’m asking what is this hidden mystery? Reveal it to me! I don’t want to be in the dark. I want to know too. So utter these things hidden since the beginning of time. And He began to show me that inside of the believer there are two things. There’s the Spirit of God, that seed of God, that He put inside of us and there’s the soul of a man. Your soul is what makes up who you are. It’s your will, it holds all your experiences, it holds your hurts, pain, your conscience. It holds all the things you’ve been through, it’s all those things where you said I’ll never be like him or her, I’ll never do that. It’s all the things we’ve built up inside of us that have grown with us over time and made us who we are. Our souls are what runs many men and women, what sits in the throne of our hearts. I asked God what is this thing that’s been hidden since the creation of the world? Let me tell you. It’s that the Spirit of God comes in and overtakes the soul of a person.

Many of us have experienced the Spirit of God. We’ve come to church, we’ve had hands laid on us, and we’ve felt the presence of God. Maybe for some it’s been different, maybe you felt the peace or the love of God. There’s all different things that come and you feel the Spirit of God. The problem is people have had a lot of experiences with God, but they haven’t been overtaken by the Spirit of God. We all know the Holy Spirit is likened to fire in the Bible. The Holy Spirit, the One you can’t even approach. Holy means good, perfect, glorious. You can’t even come near it because it is so holy. The Holy Spirit of fire is inside a person.

This is the lie that is in this world. That you can have the Holy Spirit of fire inside of you and the soul of a person and they can coexist with no problem. They never affect one another. You see that’s not true. That Holy Spirit, when it comes inside of a person, it overtakes, it burns away. Your soul starts to be refined by that fire. You can’t stand next to the Holy Spirit of fire and not be changed, transformed, refined because that is what the Spirit is. Lets say I die today and I go to Heaven. The lie is that you’re going to look before you and think everyone looks different. There’s going to be different people from different nations, all people from around the world waiting to get in. That’s the lie. God goes out to the nations to bring them to one nation. God goes out and picks them from the world and brings them into His house. And those people that are in His house, have made it to Heaven, are the ones that have encountered the Holy Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit of fire, and been transformed.

Those people waiting to get in are all going to look exactly the same. There is a curse word in this world and it's called “conformity.” But in the Bible it says, “You will be conformed into the likeness of the image of Jesus Christ.” Amen. Those people are going to be people that have been overtaken by the Spirit of God, who have subjected their souls to the very Spirit. There’s a thing that you have to do and we think it’s just going to happen. It’s not. It doesn’t just happen. You have to subject your soul to the Spirit of God. You have to say, “Soul, I’m lowering you. Soul, I’m taking you off the throne. I’m putting you through the fire of God that you would come out refined. When you go through the fire you would come out looking like the Spirit of God.” I pray that when I go up that I look exactly like everyone else in that line. I pray that my life has been conformed. I pray that I look like Jesus Christ and the only way that happens is if your soul has been refined by the Holy Spirit of fire.

There is a mystery in this world that has been hidden from so many people, and it is still being hidden today, and that is your soul is meant to be refined by the Spirit of God. It is to be brought through the Holy Spirit of fire and brought out the other end to look like Jesus Christ. We have seen so many people that talk about the seed of God. I hear this all the time people say, “I’ve had this experience with God, and that experience with God” and those are great, those are amazing times with God. However the verse doesn’t say that the seeds were supposed to stay seeds forever. Nobody wants a handful of seeds. Seeds are worthless. But the potential held inside of the seed is what we are really looking for. God is looking for seeds that have gone and found good soil. That have gone down inside of a man and that person has opened up their arms. They haven’t let the seed die or stay buried, or stay underground. Rather they have watered it, nurtured it, cultivated it, and it’s come in and overtaken their entire lives.

People say, “You know, I just worship God in my heart, my relationship is between God and me, God doesn’t have to be seen, nobody has to know about it.” But when I read this verse it talks about a mighty tree, a mighty oak, that comes and overtakes a person. It grows up tall and strong, and the roots go deep, and everybody can see it. The birds can come and rest in it. People can find safety there. God is looking to overtake you this day. He doesn't want fruitless fields anymore. He doesn’t want us to go through fields that are broken, old, and have no fruit inside of them. He wants to bring us back to the garden of God where we have been overtaken by the Spirit of God. I pray today that you would come into the new. That we would get out of the kingdom of yeast, that we would stop trying to plug the holes with our fingers and toes. Instead, we would say, “God come in with your very Spirit, overtake who I am, overtake my desires, overtake my mind and my heart.”

God is not looking for good people, He is looking for sanctified people, transformed people, overtaken people. Amen. God is looking to do something inside of us, for us to be overtaken. Faith opens up the heart like that flower, it opens up the petals, and God deposits something inside of us. I know each one of us here has felt the Holy Spirit and known God has deposited something inside of us. But God is calling for trees to be birthed this day. God is calling for things to start breaking through the surface of who we are. That it would overtake your fields. God wants to overtake your past, your pain, your experiences, the thing that person did to you that hurt you. God wants to overtake your family and the brokenness you came from. God wants to overtake those vows that you said you’ll never be like that. He wants to overtake every fiber of who we are and have the Spirit take over.

You see when we are overtaken by the Spirit of God everything changes. Our mind changes, how we think changes, what we dwell on changes. God overtakes our reasoning. Your heart, your desires, those idols are overtaken by God and He refines us to look like Him. That we would know His peace, goodness, and His truth. God overtakes your circumstance. For so long we’ve been in circumstances that have overtaken and seem so big and insurmountable odds. God is calling for you to be overtaken this day. My prayer today is that we would come out of the old, come out of that other kingdom. Jesus drew that line in the sand and He said you can be of the old, you can be of those things, you can continue to fight, or you can come and be overtaken by me. Let us be ones that have been overtaken by God. Let us be ones that are found on the right side. Ones that don’t have to struggle because the Holy Spirit fire comes inside of a person and overtakes who they are. We have a country filled with Christians yet we look at a country filled with depravity, lies, heartache. How can those things coexist? They can’t. The Spirit of God and the soul of a man cannot just coexist.

If you’re going to call on the Spirit of God today, it’s to say, “God may it overtake who I am, refine who I am. God, may it burn away my past, burn away my heartache, burn away the pain. God may it leave your goodness, grace, and truth behind. Lord, I pray for your Holy Spirit. That it would come down and overtake who we are. We don’t want to remain the same. Going to church every week, the seed is buried under the ground. Nobody can see it and only we know it’s there. But God, you want to overtake who we are, overtake where we come from, overtake the past, present, and overtake ourselves. That we would be called good, we would be called true. We would come through the refiner’s fire and that we would look like you. God, we want to look like you this day. I lower myself God. I lower my soul and who I am. I subject it to your Spirit. I lay it at your cross and say God, I’m taking myself off the throne. My soul isn’t going to run things anymore. God, I want your Spirit to come in and run who I am. Run my day, run my life. Holy Spirit, come Jesus. Holy Spirit of fire, come God. Righteous and true are You. Holy, holy, holy is Your name. You are good, God. You are true, God. Holy spirit, come God. We love you, Lord. Praise you, Jesus.