June 2, 2025 • 39 mins
What does it mean to be "clothed with power from on high"? This question forms the heart of today's exploration into spiritual transformation and mission effectiveness.
Looking out from Shakespeare & Company bookstore in Paris onto Notre Dame Cathedral, our narrative begins with an honest confession of missionary frustration. How do we become light in spiritual darkness? The answer wasn't found in grand strategies but in surrendering to God's power working through ordinary relationships.
The stories shared transport us from the bustling streets of Paris to intimate moments of transformation—Kwabena finding God just days after arriving in a new country, Nam abandoning Buddhism for Christ, Mohamed coming to church seeking romance but finding salvation, and Christophe surrendering to Jesus in the shadow of the Grand Arch (ironically built to symbolize humanity's advancement beyond religion). Each story demonstrates how God's power works through faithful presence and authentic connections.
At the core of this message lies Luke 24:48-49, where Jesus promises to clothe His followers with power from on high. This clothing isn't merely a covering but a complete empowerment that transforms our effectiveness. We discover that being clothed with power requires recognition of our limitation, submission to Holy Spirit's leading, and faithful obedience in small things before greater responsibility.
The imagery of fire recurs throughout—not just any fire, but one that creates sparks that fly outward, igniting transformation in others. This divine power operates not through overwhelming force but through one relationship at a time, starting in our immediate sphere of influence before expanding outward.
The profound promise "I am with you" anchors everything. We're never alone in this mission because the very power we need is available through His presence. Will you allow yourself to be clothed with this power today? Take a moment now to surrender your limitations and ask for fresh fire that doesn't just warm you but ignites transformation in everyone you touch.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Amen.
Today we're talking about thisidea of being clothed with power
.
Clothed with power Because wewant to be on fire for God.
You know, I was thinking aboutthis journey that God has taken
us on, and when I turned 30, wewere moving to France, actually
to be missionary, churchplanters and to establish an
(00:23):
international church in a veryspiritually dark city.
One of those things thathappened was that when we moved
to Paris, was that we realizedvery quickly that people did not
care what we had to say,because they were very sure that
they had the answer already.
So it was one of those thingsthat we would start to talk with
people and they were very warmto us at first, and then we'd
start dialogue and then, all ofa sudden, they would start to
(00:45):
push back because we got tospiritual things, and so what we
talked about was like Lord man,I was wrestling with this
concept of how do we become thislight in the darkness, lord?
How are we going to do thisthing?
How are we going to establishthis church?
And so one of the places I usedto go in between my meetings, I
would go kind of hole up in thisbookstore there in Paris.
(01:06):
It's on the left bank.
It's called Shakespeare andCompany.
It's a famous old bookstore.
It's been there for ages andall these famous authors have
kind of holed up there.
They've stayed there, They'vewritten there at this bookstore.
It's kind of been one of thoseplaces for a long time.
And so for people that are kindof a book nut, kind of a person
really like books, you guys cansee, this is what it looks like
(01:32):
inside.
It is floor to ceiling booksEverywhere you go, as you walk
up the staircases very narrowstaircases there are books all
the way around and it's quitethe place.
It's pretty amazing, a verysmall place but usually packed
with people.
But I would get there and Iwould just kind of, I would just
kind of camp out and I wouldstart to write and then upstairs
in the window there's, there'sthe kind of a ledge that's there
and a small desk and I wouldsit and and I would just kind of
(01:52):
start to write and listen andstudy and kind of hear from the
Lord.
And as I was doing so I waslooking out the window and the
picture window that's upstairsin this bookstore looks directly
across at the Notre Dame.
So you're looking across theriver and you see the Notre Dame
right out the window.
It's pretty breathtakingactually.
And so, as I was sitting there,I, just to be very honest, I
(02:14):
started to complain to God aboutwhat was going on.
Lord, it's just not going theway we thought it would go, and
it's these people aren't comingin the way we thought it would
do.
And it's there's people aren'tcoming in the way we thought it
would do.
And and I just startedcomplaining complaining.
Anybody ever complained to Godbefore?
And I was complaining about allthese things.
And it was like man, lord, they, you know people, they they'll
roll their eyes at me.
Or when I talk about being apastor, they, like you know,
(02:36):
smirk and they curse at me andall these things.
And I was complaining to God.
And even where we have ourchurch, we plant it in the
western suburbs of Paris.
That side of town is all wherethe business district is, it's
called La Défense and it's whereall the sky rises are, just
outside of the Parifrique inParis.
And one of the things that theybuilt when they started
(02:56):
building all these big towerswas they build what they called
the Grand Arch.
So you have the Arc of Triomphewhich is there on the
Champs-Élysées.
That goes with the lineage allthe way down into the Louvre,
the Place de Concorde, and onthe other direction you have
this great arch, which is donein a style like the buildings
around it and it's beautiful,but the thing that they were
(03:16):
making was a statement with thisarch, because the space
underneath the arch is exactlywhat it takes to fit the Notre
Dame.
So what they're saying withtheir architecture is that we
have gone beyond these things ofthe past in this church of the
past, and we are now above itand we are something else.
(03:39):
And so, with that kind of anattitude, I was like complaining
to God, looking out thispicture window at this beautiful
church, and I was whining.
Nobody ever whines, it was justme.
I'm going to talk to the peopleonline then.
So you guys remember.
And what I was whining aboutwas like God, well, you know
this and that.
And he's like, yeah, yeah, youcan't do it on your own.
(04:01):
That's why I asked you to go doit.
And if I ask you to go do it,then guess what?
That I'm going to give you thepower to do it if you come to me
and ask me for the power to doit.
So if you try and do it on yourown, then it's not going to
work because that's in your ownability, that's in your plan.
But if it's the plan that Iasked you to do, then if you
(04:22):
come to me, then guess what?
Then I will give you the powerto do these things.
And guess what?
It's not some dynamic thing,it's not some crazy thing.
It's one person at a time.
It's being the light of Godinside of me, shining the light
into the spiritual dark places,and that those people will be
illuminated by the light of God.
(04:43):
As I interact with people one byone, and what I started to
understand was that that's whatit means for us to be clothed in
power is to walk in step withHoly Spirit, where he's guiding
us and directing us to go todeal with the junk that's inside
of us and not operate in fear,but instead encourage and to
step out and to really seesomething dynamic happen.
(05:06):
And I don't mean just in smallamounts.
God will do something amazingwith small amounts, it says,
with a grain faith the size of amustard seed, he can move the
mountain.
But what starts to happen?
If you really start to believeand say Lord, I really want to
be used by you it's this phrasemy dad used to say all the time
is that he wanted to see so muchof God going on that God would
let the sparks fly and see.
(05:29):
That's what he wants in ourlives too, that, spiritually
speaking, that we don't keep ourlittle fire contained, but
instead the fire of God isburning in our lives and the
love of God and our character ofGod and the fruit of the spirit
is interacting with peoplearound the.
The sparks are flying and,friends, I can tell you today it
wasn't by anything that we did,but that that church in Paris
(05:50):
exists still today, reachingpeople with the gospel message
in a spiritually dark city sothat they could be the light of
God today, because the fire ofGod took hold of some people and
it changed their life, oneafter the other, after the other
.
I think of my friends, kwabenaQuabano, who came in.
He flew in and he didn't knowanybody.
He heard about a party washappening.
He comes alongside at the party.
(06:17):
There was some big, wide, openblock party.
He meets a friend fromuniversity back home that
already was a part of our church.
He comes to church the next day, on Sunday.
He's been in the country twodays and he got saved on that
Sunday morning.
That was because they came andgot saved and then they reached
out to their friend.
Do you think it's beyond Godthat he would move you countries
across just so he can interactyour life?
So it didn't matter whatcountry he was from in Africa.
(06:40):
The idea was that he wanted aplan and a purpose instilled in
Kwabena so he could take thatand do something across the
world.
Our friend Nam, same thing withhim.
He moved there following hiswife as she was going to school
and he was working.
He didn't really believe, hewas Buddhist, didn't really
believe in Christ, and startedto spend time with us.
We started to walk down thesepathways together and we started
to dialogue what it meant tofollow Jesus and he could no
(07:07):
longer skate the idea what am Igoing to do with Jesus?
And so there in the middle of alife group, we started to talk
about how we'd make a decisionto follow Jesus.
Friends.
That next weekend he committedhis life to Jesus Christ.
People from Asia, people fromAfrica that are giving their
lives to God.
I was thinking of my friendMohamed, and Mohamed was an
(07:27):
interesting guy.
I've told you guys about himbefore.
Mohamed was very suave.
He was one of these guys thatcame to church and he was like,
bonjour, how are you?
And he was there looking for anice church girl, and so we were
paying attention to Mohamed.
I'm like my man, I'm watchingyou, my man.
What I love about that is thatGod was using even that kind of
(07:51):
a heart.
He changed it around and heused my bed and my med came to
faith in Jesus.
My med became a life groupleader.
My med became somebody who wassold out to God and was on fire
for Jesus.
So, even though he came in withone kind of a perspective, god
turned that around and madesomething alive in his heart and
his life.
I was thinking about my friend,christophe.
(08:11):
Christophe was French andChristophe he was married to an
Irish woman and she loved Jesusand she just prayed for her
family, and so, as she would doso, she would pray for
Christophe, for her husband andI started spending time with
Christophe one-on-one.
We'd catch a coffee and then hejoined our life group.
We started shooting photosacross the city and it was
(08:32):
powerful, it was amazing, and aswe did so, we were having these
dialogues about faith.
And what happened is that hisson, who was like a hardcore
punk rocker with big likethree-foot spikes, come out of
his head Like I ran a skate parkman, this is like a kid in my
youth group, like I didn't thinkanything about it, we just
loved on Alexi.
We're like, yeah, come on inhere, man, like we love you.
And the fact that we lovedAlexi when all the rest of
society shunned Alexi had such abig change in Christoph's heart
(08:55):
.
It really sparked somethinginside of him.
And so we began to just showthe love of God by being the
love of God where we were, andAlexi responded to the love of
God.
Do you know?
Alexi is a missionary today inMarseille, isn't that amazing?
So I get a call and it'sChristoph's wife, isol, and she
said hey, jay, can you go findChristoph?
(09:16):
He just took off without hiskeys, without his phone, he just
walked out of the house andhe's just walking.
We can't get, we can't find him.
And so I kind of traced behindhim and I kind of looked for him
for a while and then I was likeI think I know where he's
headed and I headed out to thatplace where that grand arch is
at.
And we were standing right infront of that grand arch when I
caught him and I said hey, man,I've been looking for you, how
(09:39):
are you doing?
And what I saw on his face,which is a very serious guy,
very analytical guy.
He did engineer software, allsorts of things like this, very
smart.
He had been wrestling with Godduring his whole walk down there
.
You could see his eyes were wetfrom crying and he could no
longer say no to God and heturned his life towards Jesus
(10:02):
and he invited Jesus into hisheart and life that very day in
front of that grand arch.
And what's amazing about thesestories is that all of them were
one by one.
All of them were a spark of thefire of God inside of one of us
, reaching into another person.
And today those same people arenow leaders in churches across
(10:23):
the world, in Paris, right there, same, with Christophe and
Isolde still there, still partof the church, and others.
As they've gone back to theirnative countries or other places
.
They're taking the light of thegospel wherever they go.
Friends, let's see the sparksfly.
Let's let the sparks fly in ourlife and see people get on fire
for God.
(10:43):
Would you say amen to that Amen.
And so what we see is that noneof us are perfect.
All of us are on that journey,following Christ.
That means that we arefollowing Jesus wherever he's
leading us to go.
So, since none of us areperfect, we're all in need of a
savior, and so that's why wetalk about, we want to be more
like Jesus.
(11:04):
Our ambition collectively is tolove God and make disciples to
reach the world, and so that'swhy we reach the world right
where we're at.
That's why we do things likegoing and doing Mercy House,
because we serve there thosechildren and those families,
because the love of God is inthose actions and we want to see
those kids be able to thriveand their kids to thrive.
(11:25):
And now we've seen generationsof people know Jesus because of
the obedience of people servingright here in our community,
friends.
That's what it means to reachthe world is that we reach the
world starting where we are, inour sphere of influence.
We're intentional to connect,to grow, to serve the Lord.
(11:45):
Would you say amen?
Amen?
Well, today we're continuing onthis theme of on fire and we're
talking about this question.
Last week, what are you on firefor?
We talked about how a firetakes different elements, how
each element is important tohave the fire there, and without
the oxygen, you wouldn't havethe fire, though you have the
flame.
And without something to theoxygen, you wouldn't have the
fire, though you have the flame.
(12:06):
And without something to burn,then you wouldn't have that
either.
And we talked about how allthose elements are so important.
We talked last week at a secondTimothy with this scripture
verse For this reason, I remindyou to fan into flame the gift
of God which is in you throughthe laying on of my hands, for
God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and
(12:29):
self-control, or sound mind insome translations.
We talked about how these are.
What we're called to be is tohave that mind of Christ, to be
those who are not living in fearbut living in the courage, in
the power of God.
You say amen to that, and so,because we're not gonna be
motivated by fear, we're gonnabe those that are walking in his
courage and his strength.
(12:50):
That's what it means to be onfire for God, and so in talking
about that a little bit more, wesee this next scripture, which
is what we're looking at fortoday, if you move your Bible,
your tablet, your phone.
We're looking at Luke 24, verse48.
It says you are my witnesses ofthese things and, behold, I'm
sending the promise of my Fatherupon you, but stay in the city
(13:13):
until you are clothed with powerfrom on high.
Lord, we pray over your wordtoday that you would breathe
upon it, that you would make italive, that you would make it
transformative to us.
We're so very thankful.
We pray a blessing upon thename of Jesus Christ, amen.
Now we're talking about thisidea of on fire for God and, as
(13:36):
we look to that, that imagery ofa flame we see so often.
Holy Spirit is represented byflame because it is that oil.
The essence of the anointingwas something that we see
throughout the Old Testament.
We see it as a symbol of thefiery, the burning bush that did
not be consumed, as Moses isbeing called into leadership.
We see it in the tabernacle,being there before the Lord as
(13:58):
an offering before him.
We see it later in the templein the same way of that offering
before the Lord, that light,that incense burning up before
God.
Each one of those imageries issomething that we see here as
the anointing of God, the powerof God, and so we're called to
be those that we are a part ofthis power.
And then we say, lord, haveyour way in us.
(14:20):
I want your power to live foryou.
Well, I want to be clothed withpower, and so that's what we
start to pick up here in thisscripture, as we start to look,
is talking about this idea ofbeing clothed with power, and so
that's what we start to pick uphere in this scripture, as we
start to look, is talking aboutthis idea of being clothed with
power from on high.
It picks up in Luke 24, verse44.
And he said to them these aremy words, that I spoke to you
while I was still with you, thateverything written about me in
(14:41):
the law of Moses and theprophets and the Psalms must be
fulfilled.
Then he opened their minds tounderstand the scriptures.
I love this.
This is after the Lord has comeback to life and he's appeared
to the disciples.
It's before his ascension.
And as we start to see thesedifferent pieces, we start to
(15:01):
navigate how they areinteracting with the Lord, and
he starts to go and say listen,I never left you, I am still
with you, and friends, that'sthe same word he has for us
today, though Jesus goes andreturns back to the Father, he
gives us Holy Spirit.
Father, son and Holy Spirit, hehas not left us alone.
I am with you is God's messageto you today.
(15:24):
That you might be someone who'sgoing through something where
you feel isolated, maybe youfeel alone, even in a crowd.
Friends, he is with you.
The Lord says I am with you.
See, he won't leave you, hewon't forsake you, he is by your
side.
It says that he calls us friend, which is amazing, that the
(15:47):
living God, the creator God,would call us friend, and so
that's something that's dynamic.
And his promise is true today,as it was all those days ago
when he said it to his disciplesI am with you, and he was
telling them.
While I was still with you, Iwas trying to give you this
instruction to model before yoube a mirror of the Father's
(16:08):
message to you, so that you, inturn, could be a mirror of my
message to others that we wouldreflect the glory of the Father.
And so we see this again andagain.
He's saying in me scripture isfulfilled.
So it means that all of therules and all the regulations,
all the guidance I tried to giveyou that you could never live
up to all of those things Ifulfilled.
(16:31):
Today I have become the Messiahfor all these things, and they
are fulfilled today.
See, he gave us the rules notto have a set of rules for us to
fail against.
He gave us the rules to guideus towards a life in him, all
the while knowing that we'rebroken people and that we're
going to mess up.
(16:51):
And so he gave a way for us tobe put back in right, standing
through sacrifices.
And so Jesus, he comes down tobecome the ultimate sacrifice
for all people, for all time,and in him all of the prophets
and all that Moses had taught,the word of God that had been
given down as instructions forhis people.
(17:12):
All of that had been fulfilledin Jesus Christ alone.
And see, what's amazing aboutit is he starts to give them
this interaction, thisunderstanding.
You know, just a few miles awayfrom here, on Litchfield Park,
there's a Bible museum, and init you can see some old copies
of the Bible, like you see thisone here, ones that go all the
(17:32):
way back to the first printingof the Bible in different
languages.
And that was a huge moment forthe church, because that meant
that now you could read the wordof God in a language you
understood.
You wouldn't just be clergysomeone like me up here speaking
in Latin and you couldn'tunderstand it.
No, now you could be able tounderstand it and go and read it
for yourself.
(17:54):
And this is a big marker,because people you know I could
tell you whatever I thought,because you didn't have a copy
of the book to counteract me.
But now you have a book and I'mtrying to give away books so
you'll read it.
You know what I mean.
So you put it into action inyour life.
So when we stand up here, it'san encouragement of the word of
God that you're already readingin your life.
It's not something new to youbecause you read it already.
(18:18):
It's just spending time withhim and then, collectively, as
we have this gathering together,he starts to open up the
scripture, the meaning behindthe words.
It said that he opened up theirminds.
He opened their minds and see,that's what we want to be is.
We want to open our minds, wewant to have him open our minds
(18:39):
as well, saying Lord, make thisword of yours alive to me,
because if I'm not of faith,then I read these sets of words
and I'm like I don't.
I don't know what this is.
What are these rules?
What is this history?
I don't get it.
But whenever we start to lookthrough a lens of faith, then we
start to see something totallydynamic, something
transformative in our lives.
(19:00):
See, jesus comes on the scene.
He's the ultimate servantleader.
He's the authentic leader thateveryone was looking for.
They thought he was going tooverthrow the Romans and kick
them out.
He was going to become a kinglike David and establish a
kingdom like Solomon, butinstead Jesus says no, you don't
(19:22):
get it.
I didn't come here just for you.
I came here for everyone,forever, for every tribe, for
every tongue, for every peoplegroup, that everyone would be
saved.
And so he became the sacrificefor all people and in doing so,
he started to open their mind.
We could think about how wethink and all the synapses and
all the firing and triggering ofour thoughts, and he started to
(19:43):
open up their minds to see thescripture and see it through a
lens of faith that they wouldsay Lord, I believe you are who
you say you are, and, lord, Ibelieve that you can do great
and mighty things.
So I'm gonna trust you and I'mgonna walk in your ways.
And so that's the challengethat he began to do for them in
opening their minds is to besomething that helps them to
(20:06):
live with the purpose and theplan of the things that he had
said to them.
It continues here in verse 46.
It says, and he said to themthus it is written that the
Christ should suffer and on thethird day, rise from the dead,
and that the repentance offorgiveness of sin should be
proclaimed in his name to allnations, starting from Jerusalem
(20:31):
.
I love this, that it should beproclaimed to all nations.
And see, this is huge, becausesee before that they were
following Jesus.
So the disciples' main job wasto come and to navigate the
crowds and to say, hey, yeah,jesus is over here, jesus is
going to be ministering.
Hey, I want to introduce you.
To navigate the crowds and tosay, hey, yeah, jesus is over
here, jesus is going to beministering.
Hey, I want to introduce you toJesus, I want to introduce you
(20:52):
to Jesus.
And so now he's saying, listen,I have to go back to the Father
, I'm going to go back Now.
It's on you.
You need to take this message.
But actually it's no differentthan what you were doing before.
All you're doing is introducingpeople to me.
It's not on you, you're notgonna save them, it's not your
role.
You're gonna introduce them tome.
(21:13):
So what you're gonna do is goand proclaim what I have done
for them, and I want you to dothat, starting right here.
And he was talking about intheir own sphere of influence.
He talked about going to allthe world, and all the world is
amazing.
We think about our globe.
We think about all the people,the 7 point, whatever billion of
us that live here, and that'spretty dynamic, it's pretty
(21:36):
amazing.
But at the same time, weunderstand.
How would we be able to takethat on?
It's much like me sitting inthat window in Paris.
How are we going to help thiscity?
Well, it's really easy.
It's one at a time.
It's one at a time.
See, he started.
What is his commandment?
To start first right here inJerusalem.
It means in your sphere ofinfluence, in your family, with
(21:57):
your friend group, with yourcolleagues at work, with those
people you go to school with,with your neighbors next door,
the people that see the love ofGod in your life.
That's where you start to sharethe love of Christ, so that
that's where things happen.
And whenever that starts tohappen, guess what?
Then you can be obedient rightthere.
Then he can trust you to go tothe next level.
(22:19):
You know, it's like what wewere talking about with Gage and
Denea sharing their testimonyof trusting God.
See, they were willing to trustGod with something and he was
able to trust them with more.
It's the same as we talk aboutas being a good steward.
We give you know, we're given adollar.
We give 10% back to God as ourfirst gift and as tithe to him.
If he can trust you with adollar, he can trust you with 10
(22:41):
.
If he can trust you with 10, hecan trust you with 100 and
1,000 and 100,000 and on and on.
But if he can't trust you withsee, instead he wants to trust
you with the little things.
Maybe you're somebody you'relike man, I should get involved,
I should use my talent for god.
So you jump in with the teamyou're gonna be on a serve team
(23:03):
and then you're like, ah, firstweekend I get scheduled to go.
You know, I don't really feellike going.
Today I'm gonna call out whichthat happens, happens whatever.
But then, like you know, weektwo comes around, you're like I
don't don't know, not reallyfeeling it today.
Pastor Jay still has a big nose.
I'm not going to do it.
Week three runs around, samedeal, and here's the deal.
(23:24):
Then you're like, oh God, useme in my life, use me for great
things.
He's like cool, I'm trying toyou keep calling out all the
time.
I'm going to talk to thesepeople because they're going to
give me feedback.
You guys know what I'm talkingabout.
See, if he wants to take youand use you as an impact to all
(23:45):
nations, it starts right herefirst, right here in our own
life first, right here in ourown little sphere of influence,
first On our yes to God.
I was thinking back to someyears ago, right after
university.
I graduated and I kind of hadthis interesting situation
happen to me where I ended upgoing and living down in
(24:07):
Mazatlan, mexico, and I did soin helping a church to plant the
church, and it's a beautifulplace, amazing.
And so we went down there to goserve and help plant the church
there, centro de Vida Mazatlan.
And in doing so, man, go serveand help plant the church there,
centro de Vida Mazatlan.
And in doing so, man, it's abeautiful place.
I mean, you see the white sand,the beautiful water.
We didn't live anywhere nearthat.
We lived in the barrio, in theback in the dirt with a bunch of
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other people.
You guys know what I'm talkingabout and so that's where we
were at.
But what we did is we helpedrun missions teams to help plant
the church.
We were doing church out at thedump where people that lived on
the dump they actually gottheir food from the dump we did
church for them.
We did church in the prison.
We did church, obviously, onthe weekends with those things.
We had all across the city hadall sorts of things going on,
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and so we're running these teamsand all this stuff.
But we ran hard, we played hard, it was all that process and,
as you can imagine, man, it's abeautiful place and we're summer
people.
We were out there in the water.
You know I was a little moreaerodynamic in those days.
You guys know what I'm talkingabout.
I had this long, beautifulblonde hair, big gait.
I was beautiful, you guys, itwas beautiful.
It's the only time in my wholelife, but it was amazing.
(25:11):
And so I was tan, I was out.
We would like go get up 4.30 inthe morning, go ride our rickety
bicycles to the beach, go surfor go like you know, go paddle
out, go dive off these rocks.
And in doing one of those thisone time we ran into a problem
where my friend Tim and I, wegot into all of these sea
urchins that were all over theserocks.
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And Tim, he had very lovinglylet a friend of ours, matt from
Australia, he let him use hisflippers and then Tim got stung
in the face by a jellyfish.
And when he got stung in theface he was like ah, ah and he
put his feet down, both feet,into sea urchins on razor sharp
coral and in me, trying to gethis feet out of it, I got it
(25:54):
over my hands, I got it in myfoot, I got it in my hands, I
got it in my foot and in my armand so we were a mess.
He had like over I think it waslike over 50 pieces in his feet
.
And so we have to ride, we haveto paddle back out to the beach
, ride bicycles with stuff inour feet to the hospital, and
we're supposed to show up towork to help these teams and we
are a mess.
We're a mess, we are sunburned,we are stung by jellyfish, we
(26:17):
have sea urchins in our feet.
We are like barely holding ittogether, man.
And so we go, we lay down and,like we stayed at this ghetto
place that had bedbugs, we'relike laying in pain.
Bedbugs are like time to eat,you know.
So they're trying to get a bitetoo.
I did not feel like running ateam for church that day.
(26:37):
Anybody Our leaders comeknocking for us.
Hey, hey, you missed themeeting.
Why are you sleeping?
And we had a choice to make.
Am I going to let my yes be yes?
Am I going to get up, eventhough I don't feel like it, and
go do this thing becausethey're relying on us, or am I
just going to say no?
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And we decided, as the Lordwould give us power to do so,
that we would get up that dayand go do the work he had called
us to do.
And so, friends, what we didwas do obedience to God, and we
were able to run team that day.
And because of that, because ofthe team and the word of God
that was going on, people thatday made a decision to follow
Jesus, and so we got to be apart of that by saying yes to
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him, even though it didn't feellike it, even though we had
stuff that we had an out, we hadthings legitimately happen.
No, we chose to say yes anywayand let the fire of God burn
through us so that we couldshine the light of the gospel to
other people.
Amen, so that we could shinethe light of the gospel to other
people.
Amen.
And looking back at thisscripture, we see here where it
(27:41):
picks up.
It says in Luke 24, 48, you arewitnesses of these things and
behold, I'm sending the promiseof my father upon you, but stay
into the city until you'reclothed with power from on high
and see.
That's what he's saying to youand to me is that he wants us to
be clothed with power to dothese things.
See, he has a great plan and apurpose for your life.
(28:03):
It's so much bigger than yourplan for your life.
But the thing is is that youhave to go and be in step with
him in order to see those thingsaccomplished.
What that means is that youhave to be clothed with power
from Holy Spirit to really seethese things happen, because if
not, we can't do it in our ownpower.
We know this and in order to seethe sparks fly, something
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really dynamic happen, then ithas to be the small yes,
followed by the small yes,followed by the small yes of an
everyday.
After God we say amen.
What we see is that see for us.
We don't want to just see asmall flame happening.
We want that yes, but what wewant to see is someone breathing
upon it, holy Spirit, makingthat thing go and see.
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I don't want just sparks tohappen off your life.
I'm all for that.
I want to see the sparks go off.
But, friends, I want more thanthat Out of your life.
I want sparks to turn intofireworks.
You guys know what I'm talkingabout Like some real dynamic,
amazing, divine, miraculousthings to happen in your life
and through your life.
What happens if you step out infaith and just agree in prayer
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for your neighbor and God healsthem, then the fireworks are
happening in their life and itchanges everything.
Because something happenedwhere, by faith, you stepped out
and you're like it's not mehealing anybody, but I'll agree
that God can heal you because hewants to and agree in prayer.
Man, I can't solve your problemin your marriage, but I know a
guy who can.
His name is Jesus, and so I'mgoing to pray right now that you
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guys can have forgiveness witheach other, there'll be unity in
your life Am I talking tosomebody?
And that we walk together inthis thing.
Friends, he wants to see thesparks fly in your life and he
goes back to the scripture thatwe saw, this last bit of the 50,
luke 24, verse 50.
It says and he led them out asfar as Bethany and, lifting up
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his hands, he blessed them.
While he blessed them, heparted from them and was carried
up to heaven.
I love this last moment ofJesus on earth.
His last thing that he did ishe blessed his church.
He blessed you because hebelieves in you and he values
you.
So he was praying a blessingover his disciples then and over
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us now, that we would be thosethat walk in his peace and in
his provision.
We see that as a depiction herein this painting of the
ascension, and you can imaginewhat that'd be like.
It's all of these differentpeople that are there.
They're looking at Jesus and,as he's talking to them, he's
returning back to the father,and so he goes back up to his
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returns to the father.
And what I love about thismoment.
I don't know about you.
I would have been a little bitfreaked out.
I'd be like Jesus, where areyou going?
No, please stay, please staylonger.
But he said, listen, I have togo.
But he said, listen, I have togo, but Holy Spirit is going to
be here, that you are not alone.
(31:00):
And I love their response.
It says and they worshiped himand returned to Jerusalem with
great joy.
They weren't living in fear,they weren't worrying about
those things, they wereworshiping God for fulfilling
all the scriptures, for doingall these things.
And they continually worshipedthe Lord, even in the temple
giving, doing all these things.
And they continually worshipthe Lord, even in the temple,
giving glory to God for Jesus.
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Friends, our worship is a signof our heart after God.
It's a weapon against thedarkness, it's a weapon against
depression, it's a weaponagainst these kinds of lies
that'll come into us that weworship the creator, god.
See what happens was we had theword of God today that came to
us.
What happens was we had theword of God today that came to
us.
What happens whenever youprofess the word of God over
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your life, over your family,over your children, over your
grandchildren.
See what happens that God won'tfulfill his word.
He will.
He will do it.
Last week we talked about thisin John 14.
It says these things I'vespoken to you while I'm still
with you, but the helper, theHoly Spirit, whom the Father
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will send in my name, he willteach you all things and bring
to your remembrance all that Ihave said to you, friends.
He is with you.
His sentence to you is I amwith you.
He wants to be like we talkedabout last week that fire.
He wants to spark that in yourlife so that you can shine for
him, that you can burn for him.
(32:25):
That the promise of the Father,holy Spirit, is available for
you to be clothed with power, sothat you don't try to do this
thing on your own.
That you will have the fire forGod in your heart and in your
life, that you will walk everyday with the promise of the
Father is that he won't leave us, and so, because of that,
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you're clothed in power withwhat he's doing, and then we can
let the sparks fly, as we'reobedient to what he wants to do
in our lives.
Friends, our ambition is to bemore like Jesus.
Today we have this opportunityto respond to his love, and it's
a question that each one of ushas to answer.
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And have you embraced, jesus?
See, that question is for you,it's for every single one of us,
and we have to answer it forourselves alone.
No one can answer it for you.
The symbol of the cross is oneof forgiveness.
For us, it's one of freedom.
The cross becomes the placewhere Jesus takes all of the sin
(33:29):
of the world, all of mymistakes, all of my brokenness,
all of yours.
He took it to the cross and hepaid for it once and for all,
and in doing so he made a wayfor us to be reconnected back in
relationship with the Holy God.
See, for us, we can't earn ourway into God's grace.
It's not possible.
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What do we have to offer a HolyGod?
We can't earn our way intoGod's grace.
It's not possible.
What do we have to offer a holyGod?
We can't earn it.
So because of that, jesus cameall the way to us as the
sacrifice for all people, and indoing so we can say Lord, I
believe you are who you say youare.
Lord, I acknowledge that youbecame the sacrifice for me.
Lord, I invite you into my lifeas my Lord and Savior, and by
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doing so, by faith, we start anew relationship with God.
The Apostle Paul.
He writes to the church at Rome.
It says this because if youconfess with your mouth that
Jesus is Lord and believe inyour heart that God raised him
from the dead, you will be saved.
For with the heart one believesand is justified.
(34:34):
With the mouth one confessesand is saved.
Friends, today is your day.
It's your opportunity to sayyes to Jesus.
I'm gonna ask everyone in theroom if you'd stand to your feet
right where you're at you, bowyour head as Christians are
praying for those about torespond Online.
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Wherever you are, you take astop from whatever you're doing.
Just prepare your heart forwhat God wants to do, even in
this moment, wherever you are,you've heard this message about
all that God wants to do in andthrough us by his spirit, but
you don't yet have arelationship with him.
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His heads are bowed here.
If that's you, if you've nevermade a decision to follow Jesus,
today you want to make thatdecision, or maybe perhaps
you've made it in the past buthave walked away from living
that decision.
Today is an opportunity torecommit your heart back to God.
If that's you right now, if youjust raise your hand right
(35:36):
where you're at and say, pastor,that's me.
I want to be included in thisprayer to give my heart to God.
See the hand that's there,thank you, jesus.
Others making decisions for Godtoday See another hand that's
there, thank you God.
Others as well in the earlierservice, making a decision to
follow Jesus.
Thank you, god.
As others are making decisions,friends, I'm going to ask if
everyone would pray this prayerout loud after me Lord, thank
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you for loving me, thank you forsending Jesus.
I believe Jesus died on thecross for my sins.
I believe he rose again.
Forgive me of my sins.
(36:21):
I surrender my life to you.
In Christ's name.
I pray Amen, amen.
Friends, we rejoice in youmaking a decision to follow
Jesusesus today.
Those that raise their handpraise the lord.
Hey, let us know about thedecision you made today.
Connect with us.
We have a team in the back andat the, at the cafe, we want to
put some materials into yourhands so you can be successful
(36:43):
in living this life after god.
If you're online, message uswherever you are so we can know.
We can connect with you to dothe same.
Friends, all of us that arealready Christ followers.
Today is an opportunity to drawnear to him.
It's an opportunity to ask HolySpirit for an impartation of
his spirit, of freshness, ofwhat he wants to do in us.
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So my challenge to each one ofus today is that we would leave
our seat where we are, that wewould come down and make an
altar with God, asking for moreof the Spirit of God in our
lives.
Lord, we thank you so much foryour word.
We thank you, lord, how yougive it to us and challenge us.
Lord, knowing that we are notalone, that you are with us.
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Lord, that you haven't forsakenus.
Instead, you want to empower us.
Lord, that we will be clothedwith power to be obedient in the
things that you have for us.
Lord, as we're being spirit-ledand spirit-formed.
Lord, that we would be thosethat walk full of your spirit.
Lord, as we come to this altartoday, we do so with
intentionality, lord, justsaying more of you in my life.
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Lord, for what I'm doing for myfamily, for all that you have
for me.
Lord, more of you in my life.
Lord, for what I'm doing for myfamily, for all that you have
for me.
Lord, more of you in my life.
We pray, pray this in theprecious name of Jesus Christ,
amen.
Can we have one more hand ofappreciation for all of our
graduates today?
Amazing, we got those in firstservice, second service.
We'll have a little bit of themnext week as well.
(38:06):
So proud of you, yes absolutely.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
I want to let you know we're going to do party
with the pastor following thisservice.
You can find us on the eastside of the building, down the
hallway.
It's for anyone that has beenhere in about the last three
months and we have notpersonally been able to meet you
.
You have not met our team.
We want to say hi.
We want to put a face to thename.
So if you would come, if youhave children, grab them first,
bring them with you.
We have some snacks in there,but we just want to spend some
(38:32):
time with you, get to say hi.
It's very informal, we're notgoing to hold you up all
afternoon, but we just want tomeet you and get to know you.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Amen.
Before we go, we pray thisblessing over us.
The Lord bless you and keep you.
Lord, make his face to shineupon you and keep you.
Lord, make his face to shineupon you and be gracious to you.
Lord, lift up his countenanceupon you and give you peace.
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Lord, I pray a blessing uponyour church, your people, lord,
that you empower us by yourspirit to live your love out to
those around us.
Pray all this in the powerfulname that is Jesus Christ.
Amen, amen.
Know this we love you very muchhere at Cornerstone.
God bless you and have a greatweek.
Amen.
Today we're talking about thisidea of being clothed with power
.
Clothed with power Because wewant to be on fire for God.
You know, I was thinking aboutthis journey that God has taken
us on, and when I turned 30, wewere moving to France, actually
to be missionary, churchplanters and to establish an
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international church in a veryspiritually dark city.
One of those things thathappened was that when we moved
to Paris, was that we realizedvery quickly that people did not
care what we had to say,because they were very sure that
they had the answer already.
So it was one of those thingsthat we would start to talk with
people and they were very warmto us at first, and then we'd
start dialogue and then, all ofa sudden, they would start to
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push back because we got tospiritual things, and so what we
talked about was like Lord man,I was wrestling with this
concept of how do we become thislight in the darkness, lord?
How are we going to do thisthing?
How are we going to establishthis church?
And so one of the places I usedto go in between my meetings, I
would go kind of hole up in thisbookstore there in Paris.
(01:06):
It's on the left bank.
It's called Shakespeare andCompany.
It's a famous old bookstore.
It's been there for ages andall these famous authors have
kind of holed up there.
They've stayed there, They'vewritten there at this bookstore.
It's kind of been one of thoseplaces for a long time.
And so for people that are kindof a book nut, kind of a person
really like books, you guys cansee, this is what it looks like
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inside.
It is floor to ceiling booksEverywhere you go, as you walk
up the staircases very narrowstaircases there are books all
the way around and it's quitethe place.
It's pretty amazing, a verysmall place but usually packed
with people.
But I would get there and Iwould just kind of, I would just
kind of camp out and I wouldstart to write and then upstairs
in the window there's, there'sthe kind of a ledge that's there
and a small desk and I wouldsit and and I would just kind of
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start to write and listen andstudy and kind of hear from the
Lord.
And as I was doing so I waslooking out the window and the
picture window that's upstairsin this bookstore looks directly
across at the Notre Dame.
So you're looking across theriver and you see the Notre Dame
right out the window.
It's pretty breathtakingactually.
And so, as I was sitting there,I, just to be very honest, I
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started to complain to God aboutwhat was going on.
Lord, it's just not going theway we thought it would go, and
it's these people aren't comingin the way we thought it would
do.
And it's there's people aren'tcoming in the way we thought it
would do.
And and I just startedcomplaining complaining.
Anybody ever complained to Godbefore?
And I was complaining about allthese things.
And it was like man, lord, they, you know people, they they'll
roll their eyes at me.
Or when I talk about being apastor, they, like you know,
(02:36):
smirk and they curse at me andall these things.
And I was complaining to God.
And even where we have ourchurch, we plant it in the
western suburbs of Paris.
That side of town is all wherethe business district is, it's
called La Défense and it's whereall the sky rises are, just
outside of the Parifrique inParis.
And one of the things that theybuilt when they started
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building all these big towerswas they build what they called
the Grand Arch.
So you have the Arc of Triomphewhich is there on the
Champs-Élysées.
That goes with the lineage allthe way down into the Louvre,
the Place de Concorde, and onthe other direction you have
this great arch, which is donein a style like the buildings
around it and it's beautiful,but the thing that they were
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making was a statement with thisarch, because the space
underneath the arch is exactlywhat it takes to fit the Notre
Dame.
So what they're saying withtheir architecture is that we
have gone beyond these things ofthe past in this church of the
past, and we are now above itand we are something else.
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And so, with that kind of anattitude, I was like complaining
to God, looking out thispicture window at this beautiful
church, and I was whining.
Nobody ever whines, it was justme.
I'm going to talk to the peopleonline then.
So you guys remember.
And what I was whining aboutwas like God, well, you know
this and that.
And he's like, yeah, yeah, youcan't do it on your own.
(04:01):
That's why I asked you to go doit.
And if I ask you to go do it,then guess what?
That I'm going to give you thepower to do it if you come to me
and ask me for the power to doit.
So if you try and do it on yourown, then it's not going to
work because that's in your ownability, that's in your plan.
But if it's the plan that Iasked you to do, then if you
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come to me, then guess what?
Then I will give you the powerto do these things.
And guess what?
It's not some dynamic thing,it's not some crazy thing.
It's one person at a time.
It's being the light of Godinside of me, shining the light
into the spiritual dark places,and that those people will be
illuminated by the light of God.
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As I interact with people one byone, and what I started to
understand was that that's whatit means for us to be clothed in
power is to walk in step withHoly Spirit, where he's guiding
us and directing us to go todeal with the junk that's inside
of us and not operate in fear,but instead encourage and to
step out and to really seesomething dynamic happen.
(05:06):
And I don't mean just in smallamounts.
God will do something amazingwith small amounts, it says,
with a grain faith the size of amustard seed, he can move the
mountain.
But what starts to happen?
If you really start to believeand say Lord, I really want to
be used by you it's this phrasemy dad used to say all the time
is that he wanted to see so muchof God going on that God would
let the sparks fly and see.
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That's what he wants in ourlives too, that, spiritually
speaking, that we don't keep ourlittle fire contained, but
instead the fire of God isburning in our lives and the
love of God and our character ofGod and the fruit of the spirit
is interacting with peoplearound the.
The sparks are flying and,friends, I can tell you today it
wasn't by anything that we did,but that that church in Paris
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exists still today, reachingpeople with the gospel message
in a spiritually dark city sothat they could be the light of
God today, because the fire ofGod took hold of some people and
it changed their life, oneafter the other, after the other
.
I think of my friends, kwabenaQuabano, who came in.
He flew in and he didn't knowanybody.
He heard about a party washappening.
He comes alongside at the party.
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There was some big, wide, openblock party.
He meets a friend fromuniversity back home that
already was a part of our church.
He comes to church the next day, on Sunday.
He's been in the country twodays and he got saved on that
Sunday morning.
That was because they came andgot saved and then they reached
out to their friend.
Do you think it's beyond Godthat he would move you countries
across just so he can interactyour life?
So it didn't matter whatcountry he was from in Africa.
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The idea was that he wanted aplan and a purpose instilled in
Kwabena so he could take thatand do something across the
world.
Our friend Nam, same thing withhim.
He moved there following hiswife as she was going to school
and he was working.
He didn't really believe, hewas Buddhist, didn't really
believe in Christ, and startedto spend time with us.
We started to walk down thesepathways together and we started
to dialogue what it meant tofollow Jesus and he could no
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longer skate the idea what am Igoing to do with Jesus?
And so there in the middle of alife group, we started to talk
about how we'd make a decisionto follow Jesus.
Friends.
That next weekend he committedhis life to Jesus Christ.
People from Asia, people fromAfrica that are giving their
lives to God.
I was thinking of my friendMohamed, and Mohamed was an
(07:27):
interesting guy.
I've told you guys about himbefore.
Mohamed was very suave.
He was one of these guys thatcame to church and he was like,
bonjour, how are you?
And he was there looking for anice church girl, and so we were
paying attention to Mohamed.
I'm like my man, I'm watchingyou, my man.
What I love about that is thatGod was using even that kind of
(07:51):
a heart.
He changed it around and heused my bed and my med came to
faith in Jesus.
My med became a life groupleader.
My med became somebody who wassold out to God and was on fire
for Jesus.
So, even though he came in withone kind of a perspective, god
turned that around and madesomething alive in his heart and
his life.
I was thinking about my friend,christophe.
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Christophe was French andChristophe he was married to an
Irish woman and she loved Jesusand she just prayed for her
family, and so, as she would doso, she would pray for
Christophe, for her husband andI started spending time with
Christophe one-on-one.
We'd catch a coffee and then hejoined our life group.
We started shooting photosacross the city and it was
(08:32):
powerful, it was amazing, and aswe did so, we were having these
dialogues about faith.
And what happened is that hisson, who was like a hardcore
punk rocker with big likethree-foot spikes, come out of
his head Like I ran a skate parkman, this is like a kid in my
youth group, like I didn't thinkanything about it, we just
loved on Alexi.
We're like, yeah, come on inhere, man, like we love you.
And the fact that we lovedAlexi when all the rest of
society shunned Alexi had such abig change in Christoph's heart
(08:55):
.
It really sparked somethinginside of him.
And so we began to just showthe love of God by being the
love of God where we were, andAlexi responded to the love of
God.
Do you know?
Alexi is a missionary today inMarseille, isn't that amazing?
So I get a call and it'sChristoph's wife, isol, and she
said hey, jay, can you go findChristoph?
(09:16):
He just took off without hiskeys, without his phone, he just
walked out of the house andhe's just walking.
We can't get, we can't find him.
And so I kind of traced behindhim and I kind of looked for him
for a while and then I was likeI think I know where he's
headed and I headed out to thatplace where that grand arch is
at.
And we were standing right infront of that grand arch when I
caught him and I said hey, man,I've been looking for you, how
(09:39):
are you doing?
And what I saw on his face,which is a very serious guy,
very analytical guy.
He did engineer software, allsorts of things like this, very
smart.
He had been wrestling with Godduring his whole walk down there
.
You could see his eyes were wetfrom crying and he could no
longer say no to God and heturned his life towards Jesus
(10:02):
and he invited Jesus into hisheart and life that very day in
front of that grand arch.
And what's amazing about thesestories is that all of them were
one by one.
All of them were a spark of thefire of God inside of one of us
, reaching into another person.
And today those same people arenow leaders in churches across
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the world, in Paris, right there, same, with Christophe and
Isolde still there, still partof the church, and others.
As they've gone back to theirnative countries or other places
.
They're taking the light of thegospel wherever they go.
Friends, let's see the sparksfly.
Let's let the sparks fly in ourlife and see people get on fire
for God.
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Would you say amen to that Amen.
And so what we see is that noneof us are perfect.
All of us are on that journey,following Christ.
That means that we arefollowing Jesus wherever he's
leading us to go.
So, since none of us areperfect, we're all in need of a
savior, and so that's why wetalk about, we want to be more
like Jesus.
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Our ambition collectively is tolove God and make disciples to
reach the world, and so that'swhy we reach the world right
where we're at.
That's why we do things likegoing and doing Mercy House,
because we serve there thosechildren and those families,
because the love of God is inthose actions and we want to see
those kids be able to thriveand their kids to thrive.
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And now we've seen generationsof people know Jesus because of
the obedience of people servingright here in our community,
friends.
That's what it means to reachthe world is that we reach the
world starting where we are, inour sphere of influence.
We're intentional to connect,to grow, to serve the Lord.
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Would you say amen?
Amen?
Well, today we're continuing onthis theme of on fire and we're
talking about this question.
Last week, what are you on firefor?
We talked about how a firetakes different elements, how
each element is important tohave the fire there, and without
the oxygen, you wouldn't havethe fire, though you have the
flame.
And without something to theoxygen, you wouldn't have the
fire, though you have the flame.
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And without something to burn,then you wouldn't have that
either.
And we talked about how allthose elements are so important.
We talked last week at a secondTimothy with this scripture
verse For this reason, I remindyou to fan into flame the gift
of God which is in you throughthe laying on of my hands, for
God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and
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self-control, or sound mind insome translations.
We talked about how these are.
What we're called to be is tohave that mind of Christ, to be
those who are not living in fearbut living in the courage, in
the power of God.
You say amen to that, and so,because we're not gonna be
motivated by fear, we're gonnabe those that are walking in his
courage and his strength.
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That's what it means to be onfire for God, and so in talking
about that a little bit more, wesee this next scripture, which
is what we're looking at fortoday, if you move your Bible,
your tablet, your phone.
We're looking at Luke 24, verse48.
It says you are my witnesses ofthese things and, behold, I'm
sending the promise of my Fatherupon you, but stay in the city
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until you are clothed with powerfrom on high.
Lord, we pray over your wordtoday that you would breathe
upon it, that you would make italive, that you would make it
transformative to us.
We're so very thankful.
We pray a blessing upon thename of Jesus Christ, amen.
Now we're talking about thisidea of on fire for God and, as
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we look to that, that imagery ofa flame we see so often.
Holy Spirit is represented byflame because it is that oil.
The essence of the anointingwas something that we see
throughout the Old Testament.
We see it as a symbol of thefiery, the burning bush that did
not be consumed, as Moses isbeing called into leadership.
We see it in the tabernacle,being there before the Lord as
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an offering before him.
We see it later in the templein the same way of that offering
before the Lord, that light,that incense burning up before
God.
Each one of those imageries issomething that we see here as
the anointing of God, the powerof God, and so we're called to
be those that we are a part ofthis power.
And then we say, lord, haveyour way in us.
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I want your power to live foryou.
Well, I want to be clothed withpower, and so that's what we
start to pick up here in thisscripture, as we start to look,
is talking about this idea ofbeing clothed with power, and so
that's what we start to pick uphere in this scripture, as we
start to look, is talking aboutthis idea of being clothed with
power from on high.
It picks up in Luke 24, verse44.
And he said to them these aremy words, that I spoke to you
while I was still with you, thateverything written about me in
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the law of Moses and theprophets and the Psalms must be
fulfilled.
Then he opened their minds tounderstand the scriptures.
I love this.
This is after the Lord has comeback to life and he's appeared
to the disciples.
It's before his ascension.
And as we start to see thesedifferent pieces, we start to
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navigate how they areinteracting with the Lord, and
he starts to go and say listen,I never left you, I am still
with you, and friends, that'sthe same word he has for us
today, though Jesus goes andreturns back to the Father, he
gives us Holy Spirit.
Father, son and Holy Spirit, hehas not left us alone.
I am with you is God's messageto you today.
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That you might be someone who'sgoing through something where
you feel isolated, maybe youfeel alone, even in a crowd.
Friends, he is with you.
The Lord says I am with you.
See, he won't leave you, hewon't forsake you, he is by your
side.
It says that he calls us friend, which is amazing, that the
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living God, the creator God,would call us friend, and so
that's something that's dynamic.
And his promise is true today,as it was all those days ago
when he said it to his disciplesI am with you, and he was
telling them.
While I was still with you, Iwas trying to give you this
instruction to model before yoube a mirror of the Father's
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message to you, so that you, inturn, could be a mirror of my
message to others that we wouldreflect the glory of the Father.
And so we see this again andagain.
He's saying in me scripture isfulfilled.
So it means that all of therules and all the regulations,
all the guidance I tried to giveyou that you could never live
up to all of those things Ifulfilled.
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Today I have become the Messiahfor all these things, and they
are fulfilled today.
See, he gave us the rules notto have a set of rules for us to
fail against.
He gave us the rules to guideus towards a life in him, all
the while knowing that we'rebroken people and that we're
going to mess up.
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And so he gave a way for us tobe put back in right, standing
through sacrifices.
And so Jesus, he comes down tobecome the ultimate sacrifice
for all people, for all time,and in him all of the prophets
and all that Moses had taught,the word of God that had been
given down as instructions forhis people.
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All of that had been fulfilledin Jesus Christ alone.
And see, what's amazing aboutit is he starts to give them
this interaction, thisunderstanding.
You know, just a few miles awayfrom here, on Litchfield Park,
there's a Bible museum, and init you can see some old copies
of the Bible, like you see thisone here, ones that go all the
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way back to the first printingof the Bible in different
languages.
And that was a huge moment forthe church, because that meant
that now you could read the wordof God in a language you
understood.
You wouldn't just be clergysomeone like me up here speaking
in Latin and you couldn'tunderstand it.
No, now you could be able tounderstand it and go and read it
for yourself.
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And this is a big marker,because people you know I could
tell you whatever I thought,because you didn't have a copy
of the book to counteract me.
But now you have a book and I'mtrying to give away books so
you'll read it.
You know what I mean.
So you put it into action inyour life.
So when we stand up here, it'san encouragement of the word of
God that you're already readingin your life.
It's not something new to youbecause you read it already.
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It's just spending time withhim and then, collectively, as
we have this gathering together,he starts to open up the
scripture, the meaning behindthe words.
It said that he opened up theirminds.
He opened their minds and see,that's what we want to be is.
We want to open our minds, wewant to have him open our minds
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as well, saying Lord, make thisword of yours alive to me,
because if I'm not of faith,then I read these sets of words
and I'm like I don't.
I don't know what this is.
What are these rules?
What is this history?
I don't get it.
But whenever we start to lookthrough a lens of faith, then we
start to see something totallydynamic, something
transformative in our lives.
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See, jesus comes on the scene.
He's the ultimate servantleader.
He's the authentic leader thateveryone was looking for.
They thought he was going tooverthrow the Romans and kick
them out.
He was going to become a kinglike David and establish a
kingdom like Solomon, butinstead Jesus says no, you don't
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get it.
I didn't come here just for you.
I came here for everyone,forever, for every tribe, for
every tongue, for every peoplegroup, that everyone would be
saved.
And so he became the sacrificefor all people and in doing so,
he started to open their mind.
We could think about how wethink and all the synapses and
all the firing and triggering ofour thoughts, and he started to
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open up their minds to see thescripture and see it through a
lens of faith that they wouldsay Lord, I believe you are who
you say you are, and, lord, Ibelieve that you can do great
and mighty things.
So I'm gonna trust you and I'mgonna walk in your ways.
And so that's the challengethat he began to do for them in
opening their minds is to besomething that helps them to
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live with the purpose and theplan of the things that he had
said to them.
It continues here in verse 46.
It says, and he said to themthus it is written that the
Christ should suffer and on thethird day, rise from the dead,
and that the repentance offorgiveness of sin should be
proclaimed in his name to allnations, starting from Jerusalem
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.
I love this, that it should beproclaimed to all nations.
And see, this is huge, becausesee before that they were
following Jesus.
So the disciples' main job wasto come and to navigate the
crowds and to say, hey, yeah,jesus is over here, jesus is
going to be ministering.
Hey, I want to introduce you.
To navigate the crowds and tosay, hey, yeah, jesus is over
here, jesus is going to beministering.
Hey, I want to introduce you toJesus, I want to introduce you
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to Jesus.
And so now he's saying, listen,I have to go back to the Father
, I'm going to go back Now.
It's on you.
You need to take this message.
But actually it's no differentthan what you were doing before.
All you're doing is introducingpeople to me.
It's not on you, you're notgonna save them, it's not your
role.
You're gonna introduce them tome.
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So what you're gonna do is goand proclaim what I have done
for them, and I want you to dothat, starting right here.
And he was talking about intheir own sphere of influence.
He talked about going to allthe world, and all the world is
amazing.
We think about our globe.
We think about all the people,the 7 point, whatever billion of
us that live here, and that'spretty dynamic, it's pretty
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amazing.
But at the same time, weunderstand.
How would we be able to takethat on?
It's much like me sitting inthat window in Paris.
How are we going to help thiscity?
Well, it's really easy.
It's one at a time.
It's one at a time.
See, he started.
What is his commandment?
To start first right here inJerusalem.
It means in your sphere ofinfluence, in your family, with
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your friend group, with yourcolleagues at work, with those
people you go to school with,with your neighbors next door,
the people that see the love ofGod in your life.
That's where you start to sharethe love of Christ, so that
that's where things happen.
And whenever that starts tohappen, guess what?
Then you can be obedient rightthere.
Then he can trust you to go tothe next level.
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You know, it's like what wewere talking about with Gage and
Denea sharing their testimonyof trusting God.
See, they were willing to trustGod with something and he was
able to trust them with more.
It's the same as we talk aboutas being a good steward.
We give you know, we're given adollar.
We give 10% back to God as ourfirst gift and as tithe to him.
If he can trust you with adollar, he can trust you with 10
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.
If he can trust you with 10, hecan trust you with 100 and
1,000 and 100,000 and on and on.
But if he can't trust you withsee, instead he wants to trust
you with the little things.
Maybe you're somebody you'relike man, I should get involved,
I should use my talent for god.
So you jump in with the teamyou're gonna be on a serve team
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and then you're like, ah, firstweekend I get scheduled to go.
You know, I don't really feellike going.
Today I'm gonna call out whichthat happens, happens whatever.
But then, like you know, weektwo comes around, you're like I
don't don't know, not reallyfeeling it today.
Pastor Jay still has a big nose.
I'm not going to do it.
Week three runs around, samedeal, and here's the deal.
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Then you're like, oh God, useme in my life, use me for great
things.
He's like cool, I'm trying toyou keep calling out all the
time.
I'm going to talk to thesepeople because they're going to
give me feedback.
You guys know what I'm talkingabout.
See, if he wants to take youand use you as an impact to all
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nations, it starts right herefirst, right here in our own
life first, right here in ourown little sphere of influence,
first On our yes to God.
I was thinking back to someyears ago, right after
university.
I graduated and I kind of hadthis interesting situation
happen to me where I ended upgoing and living down in
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Mazatlan, mexico, and I did soin helping a church to plant the
church, and it's a beautifulplace, amazing.
And so we went down there to goserve and help plant the church
there, centro de Vida Mazatlan.
And in doing so, man, go serveand help plant the church there,
centro de Vida Mazatlan.
And in doing so, man, it's abeautiful place.
I mean, you see the white sand,the beautiful water.
We didn't live anywhere nearthat.
We lived in the barrio, in theback in the dirt with a bunch of
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other people.
You guys know what I'm talkingabout and so that's where we
were at.
But what we did is we helpedrun missions teams to help plant
the church.
We were doing church out at thedump where people that lived on
the dump they actually gottheir food from the dump we did
church for them.
We did church in the prison.
We did church, obviously, onthe weekends with those things.
We had all across the city hadall sorts of things going on,
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and so we're running these teamsand all this stuff.
But we ran hard, we played hard, it was all that process and,
as you can imagine, man, it's abeautiful place and we're summer
people.
We were out there in the water.
You know I was a little moreaerodynamic in those days.
You guys know what I'm talkingabout.
I had this long, beautifulblonde hair, big gait.
I was beautiful, you guys, itwas beautiful.
It's the only time in my wholelife, but it was amazing.
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And so I was tan, I was out.
We would like go get up 4.30 inthe morning, go ride our rickety
bicycles to the beach, go surfor go like you know, go paddle
out, go dive off these rocks.
And in doing one of those thisone time we ran into a problem
where my friend Tim and I, wegot into all of these sea
urchins that were all over theserocks.
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And Tim, he had very lovinglylet a friend of ours, matt from
Australia, he let him use hisflippers and then Tim got stung
in the face by a jellyfish.
And when he got stung in theface he was like ah, ah and he
put his feet down, both feet,into sea urchins on razor sharp
coral and in me, trying to gethis feet out of it, I got it
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over my hands, I got it in myfoot, I got it in my hands, I
got it in my foot and in my armand so we were a mess.
He had like over I think it waslike over 50 pieces in his feet
.
And so we have to ride, we haveto paddle back out to the beach
, ride bicycles with stuff inour feet to the hospital, and
we're supposed to show up towork to help these teams and we
are a mess.
We're a mess, we are sunburned,we are stung by jellyfish, we
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have sea urchins in our feet.
We are like barely holding ittogether, man.
And so we go, we lay down and,like we stayed at this ghetto
place that had bedbugs, we'relike laying in pain.
Bedbugs are like time to eat,you know.
So they're trying to get a bitetoo.
I did not feel like running ateam for church that day.
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Anybody Our leaders comeknocking for us.
Hey, hey, you missed themeeting.
Why are you sleeping?
And we had a choice to make.
Am I going to let my yes be yes?
Am I going to get up, eventhough I don't feel like it, and
go do this thing becausethey're relying on us, or am I
just going to say no?
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And we decided, as the Lordwould give us power to do so,
that we would get up that dayand go do the work he had called
us to do.
And so, friends, what we didwas do obedience to God, and we
were able to run team that day.
And because of that, because ofthe team and the word of God
that was going on, people thatday made a decision to follow
Jesus, and so we got to be apart of that by saying yes to
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him, even though it didn't feellike it, even though we had
stuff that we had an out, we hadthings legitimately happen.
No, we chose to say yes anywayand let the fire of God burn
through us so that we couldshine the light of the gospel to
other people.
Amen, so that we could shinethe light of the gospel to other
people.
Amen.
And looking back at thisscripture, we see here where it
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picks up.
It says in Luke 24, 48, you arewitnesses of these things and
behold, I'm sending the promiseof my father upon you, but stay
into the city until you'reclothed with power from on high
and see.
That's what he's saying to youand to me is that he wants us to
be clothed with power to dothese things.
See, he has a great plan and apurpose for your life.
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It's so much bigger than yourplan for your life.
But the thing is is that youhave to go and be in step with
him in order to see those thingsaccomplished.
What that means is that youhave to be clothed with power
from Holy Spirit to really seethese things happen, because if
not, we can't do it in our ownpower.
We know this and in order to seethe sparks fly, something
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really dynamic happen, then ithas to be the small yes,
followed by the small yes,followed by the small yes of an
everyday.
After God we say amen.
What we see is that see for us.
We don't want to just see asmall flame happening.
We want that yes, but what wewant to see is someone breathing
upon it, holy Spirit, makingthat thing go and see.
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I don't want just sparks tohappen off your life.
I'm all for that.
I want to see the sparks go off.
But, friends, I want more thanthat Out of your life.
I want sparks to turn intofireworks.
You guys know what I'm talkingabout Like some real dynamic,
amazing, divine, miraculousthings to happen in your life
and through your life.
What happens if you step out infaith and just agree in prayer
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for your neighbor and God healsthem, then the fireworks are
happening in their life and itchanges everything.
Because something happenedwhere, by faith, you stepped out
and you're like it's not mehealing anybody, but I'll agree
that God can heal you because hewants to and agree in prayer.
Man, I can't solve your problemin your marriage, but I know a
guy who can.
His name is Jesus, and so I'mgoing to pray right now that you
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guys can have forgiveness witheach other, there'll be unity in
your life Am I talking tosomebody?
And that we walk together inthis thing.
Friends, he wants to see thesparks fly in your life and he
goes back to the scripture thatwe saw, this last bit of the 50,
luke 24, verse 50.
It says and he led them out asfar as Bethany and, lifting up
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his hands, he blessed them.
While he blessed them, heparted from them and was carried
up to heaven.
I love this last moment ofJesus on earth.
His last thing that he did ishe blessed his church.
He blessed you because hebelieves in you and he values
you.
So he was praying a blessingover his disciples then and over
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us now, that we would be thosethat walk in his peace and in
his provision.
We see that as a depiction herein this painting of the
ascension, and you can imaginewhat that'd be like.
It's all of these differentpeople that are there.
They're looking at Jesus and,as he's talking to them, he's
returning back to the father,and so he goes back up to his
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returns to the father.
And what I love about thismoment.
I don't know about you.
I would have been a little bitfreaked out.
I'd be like Jesus, where areyou going?
No, please stay, please staylonger.
But he said, listen, I have togo.
But he said, listen, I have togo, but Holy Spirit is going to
be here, that you are not alone.
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And I love their response.
It says and they worshiped himand returned to Jerusalem with
great joy.
They weren't living in fear,they weren't worrying about
those things, they wereworshiping God for fulfilling
all the scriptures, for doingall these things.
And they continually worshipedthe Lord, even in the temple
giving, doing all these things.
And they continually worshipthe Lord, even in the temple,
giving glory to God for Jesus.
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Friends, our worship is a signof our heart after God.
It's a weapon against thedarkness, it's a weapon against
depression, it's a weaponagainst these kinds of lies
that'll come into us that weworship the creator, god.
See what happens was we had theword of God today that came to
us.
What happens was we had theword of God today that came to
us.
What happens whenever youprofess the word of God over
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your life, over your family,over your children, over your
grandchildren.
See what happens that God won'tfulfill his word.
He will.
He will do it.
Last week we talked about thisin John 14.
It says these things I'vespoken to you while I'm still
with you, but the helper, theHoly Spirit, whom the Father
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will send in my name, he willteach you all things and bring
to your remembrance all that Ihave said to you, friends.
He is with you.
His sentence to you is I amwith you.
He wants to be like we talkedabout last week that fire.
He wants to spark that in yourlife so that you can shine for
him, that you can burn for him.
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That the promise of the Father,holy Spirit, is available for
you to be clothed with power, sothat you don't try to do this
thing on your own.
That you will have the fire forGod in your heart and in your
life, that you will walk everyday with the promise of the
Father is that he won't leave us, and so, because of that,
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you're clothed in power withwhat he's doing, and then we can
let the sparks fly, as we'reobedient to what he wants to do
in our lives.
Friends, our ambition is to bemore like Jesus.
Today we have this opportunityto respond to his love, and it's
a question that each one of ushas to answer.
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And have you embraced, jesus?
See, that question is for you,it's for every single one of us,
and we have to answer it forourselves alone.
No one can answer it for you.
The symbol of the cross is oneof forgiveness.
For us, it's one of freedom.
The cross becomes the placewhere Jesus takes all of the sin
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of the world, all of mymistakes, all of my brokenness,
all of yours.
He took it to the cross and hepaid for it once and for all,
and in doing so he made a wayfor us to be reconnected back in
relationship with the Holy God.
See, for us, we can't earn ourway into God's grace.
It's not possible.
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What do we have to offer a HolyGod?
We can't earn our way intoGod's grace.
It's not possible.
What do we have to offer a holyGod?
We can't earn it.
So because of that, jesus cameall the way to us as the
sacrifice for all people, and indoing so we can say Lord, I
believe you are who you say youare.
Lord, I acknowledge that youbecame the sacrifice for me.
Lord, I invite you into my lifeas my Lord and Savior, and by
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doing so, by faith, we start anew relationship with God.
The Apostle Paul.
He writes to the church at Rome.
It says this because if youconfess with your mouth that
Jesus is Lord and believe inyour heart that God raised him
from the dead, you will be saved.
For with the heart one believesand is justified.
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With the mouth one confessesand is saved.
Friends, today is your day.
It's your opportunity to sayyes to Jesus.
I'm gonna ask everyone in theroom if you'd stand to your feet
right where you're at you, bowyour head as Christians are
praying for those about torespond Online.
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Wherever you are, you take astop from whatever you're doing.
Just prepare your heart forwhat God wants to do, even in
this moment, wherever you are,you've heard this message about
all that God wants to do in andthrough us by his spirit, but
you don't yet have arelationship with him.
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His heads are bowed here.
If that's you, if you've nevermade a decision to follow Jesus,
today you want to make thatdecision, or maybe perhaps
you've made it in the past buthave walked away from living
that decision.
Today is an opportunity torecommit your heart back to God.
If that's you right now, if youjust raise your hand right
(35:36):
where you're at and say, pastor,that's me.
I want to be included in thisprayer to give my heart to God.
See the hand that's there,thank you, jesus.
Others making decisions for Godtoday See another hand that's
there, thank you God.
Others as well in the earlierservice, making a decision to
follow Jesus.
Thank you, god.
As others are making decisions,friends, I'm going to ask if
everyone would pray this prayerout loud after me Lord, thank
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you for loving me, thank you forsending Jesus.
I believe Jesus died on thecross for my sins.
I believe he rose again.
Forgive me of my sins.
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I surrender my life to you.
In Christ's name.
I pray Amen, amen.
Friends, we rejoice in youmaking a decision to follow
Jesusesus today.
Those that raise their handpraise the lord.
Hey, let us know about thedecision you made today.
Connect with us.
We have a team in the back andat the, at the cafe, we want to
put some materials into yourhands so you can be successful
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in living this life after god.
If you're online, message uswherever you are so we can know.
We can connect with you to dothe same.
Friends, all of us that arealready Christ followers.
Today is an opportunity to drawnear to him.
It's an opportunity to ask HolySpirit for an impartation of
his spirit, of freshness, ofwhat he wants to do in us.
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So my challenge to each one ofus today is that we would leave
our seat where we are, that wewould come down and make an
altar with God, asking for moreof the Spirit of God in our
lives.
Lord, we thank you so much foryour word.
We thank you, lord, how yougive it to us and challenge us.
Lord, knowing that we are notalone, that you are with us.
(37:24):
Lord, that you haven't forsakenus.
Instead, you want to empower us.
Lord, that we will be clothedwith power to be obedient in the
things that you have for us.
Lord, as we're being spirit-ledand spirit-formed.
Lord, that we would be thosethat walk full of your spirit.
Lord, as we come to this altartoday, we do so with
intentionality, lord, justsaying more of you in my life.
(37:45):
Lord, for what I'm doing for myfamily, for all that you have
for me.
Lord, more of you in my life.
Lord, for what I'm doing for myfamily, for all that you have
for me.
Lord, more of you in my life.
We pray, pray this in theprecious name of Jesus Christ,
amen.
Can we have one more hand ofappreciation for all of our
graduates today?
Amazing, we got those in firstservice, second service.
We'll have a little bit of themnext week as well.
(38:06):
So proud of you, yes absolutely.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
I want to let you know we're going to do party
with the pastor following thisservice.
You can find us on the eastside of the building, down the
hallway.
It's for anyone that has beenhere in about the last three
months and we have notpersonally been able to meet you
.
You have not met our team.
We want to say hi.
We want to put a face to thename.
So if you would come, if youhave children, grab them first,
bring them with you.
We have some snacks in there,but we just want to spend some
(38:32):
time with you, get to say hi.
It's very informal, we're notgoing to hold you up all
afternoon, but we just want tomeet you and get to know you.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Amen.
Before we go, we pray thisblessing over us.
The Lord bless you and keep you.
Lord, make his face to shineupon you and keep you.
Lord, make his face to shineupon you and be gracious to you.
Lord, lift up his countenanceupon you and give you peace.
(39:00):
Lord, I pray a blessing uponyour church, your people, lord,
that you empower us by yourspirit to live your love out to
those around us.
Pray all this in the powerfulname that is Jesus Christ.
Amen, amen.
Know this we love you very muchhere at Cornerstone.
God bless you and have a greatweek.
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