June 9, 2025 • 41 mins
What happens when a young churchgoer's spiritual mountaintop experiences collide with the reality of everyday teenage life? Our pastor takes us on a deeply personal journey of his first encounter with the Holy Spirit—an uncoerced, transformative moment that sparked a lifelong understanding of what it truly means to be on fire for God.
The tension is familiar to many believers: experiencing powerful moments in church while fighting God for control the moment we walk out the doors. "I wanted to feel good, I wanted to believe," he confesses, "but I also wanted to do my own thing." This raw honesty unlocks a profound truth about Holy Spirit baptism—it's not primarily about the spiritual feelings we crave but about empowerment for obedience to God's calling.
Through a powerful examination of Pentecost and the early church's experience in Acts, we discover how God's presence moved from dwelling in temples to residing within believers. The transformation of Peter—from a fearful denier to a bold proclaimer—illustrates what happens when we surrender control and allow God's Spirit to work through us. "Your small yes turns into the big change that happens in the world because you consistently say yes to God."
The message culminates in a life-changing truth: God's eternal plans far exceed our limited vision. When we trade our personal ambitions for divine purpose, we become vessels through which God can reach our families, communities, and beyond. "He wants to do something in you and through you that's greater than your plan for your life." Are you ready to be empowered by surrendering control and embracing what He wants to do through your life?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
empowered.
Today we're talking about whatit means to be on fire for God.
Now I was thinking back someyears back, whenever I was a kid
growing up in church and Iremember my first real moment
with Holy Spirit, where I was ata kid's camp and they had
called everybody who just wantedmore of God to come forward and
there was nobody that waspushing me over.
(00:21):
There's nobody actually laid ahand on me.
There was none of that.
I was just in an aisle and Ijust wanted more of God and I
was just calling out to God formore of Him and I had that
moment of being baptized in theHoly Spirit and I didn't really
know what was going on.
I didn't know that Holy Spiritwas using this to be able to
pray His will through my life.
I didn't know anything and Iwas just experiencing his love
(00:43):
and his presence and it waspowerful.
It was something transformativefor me in my young faith and I
can tell you what's amazingabout that was that it was
because I didn't.
There was no coercion.
There was no any kind of likemagic words you had to say.
It really came directly fromhim, but I didn't know.
I thought you had to be like ata special place, like it only
(01:05):
happened at camp and only onnight, three or whatever.
And so it was.
That was what I thought, and soyou know, I was waiting for the
next camp.
It was like a year later andeven though we had those
highlight moments as I wasgrowing up, as I got a bit older
, well then you know, myrelationship with being filled
with the Spirit and listening toHoly Spirit was very much
roller coaster.
(01:25):
I don't know if anybody elsehas been through that, but that
was my experience, where youknow I would have this amazing
breakthrough moment.
Maybe we'd be at a youthservice and just a powerful time
of worship and really feel thisimpartation of the Spirit,
something renewed in my spirit,something powerful.
But by then, you know, there'sa lot of things going on in my
life.
Right, as a teenager, you'relike 200% hormones and, like you
(01:48):
know, 75% bad choices from yourfriend group.
You guys know what I'm talkingabout.
Your friends are like, hey,let's do something terrible,
like okay, let's do it together,you know.
And we walk over here and do ittogether.
And so it was hard because youknow the whole purpose of it is
not for that moment to feelspiritual.
Though that is a great thing,to feel the fullness of God,
it's not really for that.
It's really about thefulfillment of empowering you to
(02:11):
go and do what he's asked youto do, and so in doing so, I
didn't quite get that, and so Iwould have this struggle, this
real tension inside of my heart,whenever you know.
I had these things that weredrawing me this way and he's
trying to say, hey, listen, Iwant you to do this.
And I'm like, well, god, I wantyou in my life, I wanna
experience the good feelingsfrom the service.
(02:33):
But I mean, I wanna do what Iwanna do the rest of the time.
And he's like that's not whatthis is about.
I wanna empower you to beobedient to me.
And so there's this big tensionwithin me, within my heart,
within my life, of me going on aSunday and having a great
moment and then immediatelymaking poor decisions.
(02:56):
Anybody else, just three peopleand me.
And the people online beinghonest Praise God, lightning's
not coming for you, it'll beokay.
And the people online beinghonest Praise God, lightning's
not coming for you, it'll beokay.
The idea is this that we allknow that there's this tension
inside of us.
We know that there's this pullon us where we are fighting him
for the control, we say, lord,have all of me.
We pray these prayers to thesesongs, we say, lord, that you
(03:18):
would have your way in me.
And then we go and we fight himfor control on the way out the
building and I can tell you frommy own perspective that was the
hardest thing for me to fightfor was to say, lord, I want to
give you control, I want to havemore of you, less of me.
See, his fullness is there,available to us.
(03:39):
It's us, and what we're lettinggo of it's us.
On what we're willing to havehim do in our lives and through
our lives, we often so ask, lord, that you would open up the
right door for me, give meinsight and wisdom.
And he says, okay, great, hereyou go.
And he gives it to us.
And then we're like I reallywasn't looking for that.
I wanted something else.
I wanted you to bless me, makeme a multi-gajillionaire.
(04:08):
That's what I wanted.
He's like cool story.
I need you to start with thesmall obedience, because from
the small obedience I can trustyou with the next obedience.
And so that's what it startedto do is.
I started to really walk thisthing out, and it wasn't until I
really started to understandthat the power of God, the power
of the Holy Spirit, the baptismin the Holy Spirit, was all
about doing what he wants us todo by his spirit.
(04:29):
Very little of it is about theactual manifestation of it,
though those things are a markerthat shows us what it means.
He's praying through us, hiskingdom come, his will be done,
and so that's what it means.
When we're talking about todayis Pentecost Sunday.
It's a day that's a marker forthe church, because the
impartation, the pouring out ofthe Holy Spirit to embolden us
(04:51):
to be obedient to what Jesuscharges to do with the great
commission, the greatcommandments, is to be obedient
to him, empowered by his spirit.
So, for us, we're called to bethose that are on fire for God,
holding nothing back, and I cantell you you know we talk about
(05:13):
often how none of us is perfect.
I'm the first to tell you I'mnot perfect, but what we are is
people that are very muchintentional in living our life
after God, and so that means,when we look at this idea of
Jesus walking with his disciples, that's who we are, is that we
are people following after Jesus.
Our ambition is to be more likeJesus.
(05:36):
We want to be more like him.
That's why, collectively, welove God, we make disciples, we
reach the world.
It's because that's what ourheart is, is that we have love
and we're motivated by love todo something about it.
And that's why we talk abouthey, let's live with
intentionality in things likelife groups, because through
life groups we can go and havethat interaction.
(05:56):
We could be a friend, we couldbe a brother or sister who helps
another in a time of trial, andwe could be there as support
structure, see, in a time oftrial, and we could be there as
support structure.
See, we're never called to dothis life alone.
We're called to be in communityand that's why I challenge each
one of us to connect and growand serve the Lord, amen.
Today we're looking back to thisidea of on fire and we have
(06:18):
some scriptures that we've beengoing through here and it's been
a powerful time as we look atthis idea of fire burning in us
and using that symbol of theHoly Spirit.
It talks about it in scripturethat the Holy Spirit is the
promise of the Father.
He is the fulfillment of what'ssent to us in the presence of
God, very much God in the triunebeing.
(06:39):
And now we're called to bethose who have a fire for God,
that we have this passionburning inside of us.
We talked about it out of 2Timothy 1.
It says for this reason, Iremind you to fan into flame the
gift of God which is in youthrough the laying on of my
hands, for God gave us a spiritnot of fear, but of power and
(07:01):
love and self-control, or asound mind.
We talked about what that meansand how we're called to be
those that are set apart in thisway, experiencing the benefits,
the blessing of God by beingempowered by the Lord.
We talked about what it meansto be walking and clothed in
power, to be those that arewrapped in his power for the
(07:21):
service he's called us to do.
In Luke 24, it says it likethis you are witnesses of these
things, all that he told them.
He says and behold, I'm sendingthe promise of my father upon
you, but stay in this city untilyou are clothed with power from
on high.
Today we pick up a littlefurther in this story in Acts 2.
(07:43):
If you have your Bible, yourtablet, your phone.
I encourage you to highlightthis piece.
It says it here in Acts 2,verse 17 and 18.
And in the last days it shallbe God declares that I will pour
out my spirit on all flesh andyour sons and your daughters
shall prophesy, and your youngmen shall see visions, your old
(08:04):
men shall dream dreams, and evenon my male servants and female
servants.
In those days, I will pour outmy spirit and they shall
prophesy.
Lord, we pray over your wordtoday, lord, that you illuminate
it in our hearts and in ourminds.
Lord, that we would be thosechallenged.
Lord that would embrace all thefullness of who you are, to be
(08:27):
baptized in your spirit.
We pray this in the powerfulname of Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Today we're talking about thisidea of being empowered and I'll
tell you that, the power tolive for Christ.
It's such a game changer whenwe really start listening to him
, man, because I was back andforth that way whenever I was a
student, then later, whenever Ibecame an adult, I was making my
(08:49):
own choices and I wasn'tlistening to his guidance.
And see, that's what it talksabout in the scripture.
Is that the blasphemy of theHoly Spirit, the pushing away of
the Holy Spirit is the thingthat's unforgivable, because
he's the one that prompts us toconfession, he's the one that
prompts us to turn around, he'sthe one that says come to me and
be forgiven.
(09:10):
Without him we can't do it.
So when we push against HolySpirit, what we're doing is
literally pushing away theguidance of God, literally
pushing his spirit away from us.
And I could tell you, man, Iwas living in a certain way
where I wanted to feel good, Iwanted to believe, I wanted to
do that stuff, but I also wantedto do my own thing.
(09:30):
And the problem with that isthat he's like the reason that I
have saved you is not just tosave you to come be with me, but
to save you with a purpose,with a plan, with a future where
I can use you to be amouthpiece to others.
And meanwhile I'm fighting himover here and not wanting to do
what he wants me to do, becauseI had my own agenda, I had my
(09:54):
own thing, I had set myself upas my own little God G in my
life.
See, it was right here, actually, in that spot, right off the
end of this very altar, where itwas on a sunday night, at a
special service and we were justhaving a time of worship at the
end of the service and I Ireally was unhappy with what I
(10:17):
was going through.
Man, a lot of great stuff goingon at a corporate job, at a
company car, gas card, a gascard I had a gas card, had all
these things.
I was young, I was blowing mymoney on like tattoos and travel
and guns.
It was great.
You know what I mean.
I had no worries, I had noresponsibilities and God is like
cool story, how's that workingfor you?
And I'm like well, I'm hollow,I'm not happy.
(10:40):
Maybe I need more of the things.
He's like probably not.
You've been trying a lot ofthat stuff, how's that going?
And right here, at this altar inthis place, he was calling me
to say yes to him and to hisplan for my life and not my plan
(11:01):
.
And I had to come to that placewhere I said it's your plan,
it's not my plan.
I know what I have a plan for,I know what I want to do.
And it was all these thingsthat I'd swore as a young kid.
Right, my parents were inministry.
I was like I don't.
They had all sorts of peoplewho blamed them for stuff that
wasn't theirs and do all thesethings and headaches, and I'm
(11:23):
like man, I want to be rich andtell people to kick rocks when I
don't like what they say.
He's like great, great, great,great, I want you to be in
ministry.
Instead.
I'm like oh, this is a problemand so I had to deal with it.
Am I going to be obedient toGod or do what I want to do?
It's not, you can do both.
(11:44):
Are you going to be obedient toGod or are you going to do what
you want to do?
Friends, I would challenge youwith this that you would be
empowered by the Spirit of God,that you would kick all of your
plans to the side, because yourplans will end in the end of
your plans.
His plans are greater than yourplans.
His plans are eternal for yourlife, for the life of your
(12:04):
children, the life of yourgrandchildren.
He wants to do things in yourlife and through your life that
are greater than your plan foryour life.
He wants to do something in you.
He wants to do somethingthrough you.
It's greater than your plan foryour life.
(12:24):
We mess up because we getcaught up playing games and
doing stupid things that areagainst him.
The Lord, help us that we wouldembrace what he wants us to do
for him and be obedient, becauseobedience, as Pastor Slith said
, is greater than sacrifice.
(12:45):
So we found ourselves with thefollowers of Jesus in the upper
room.
He's ascended back to thefather, as we talked about last
week, at the end of Luke, in thebeginning of Acts, and he goes
and he charges with them, sayinggo and be clothed with power,
and that you would do thesethings because I have something
for you to do.
So they go to this upper roomand they're praying.
Now the story picks up early inthe morning, so they've been
(13:08):
praying overnight.
And guess what?
That also means that they'vebeen together in this upper room
, together for quite a while.
They've been praying for quite aseason and in doing so, that
means that they've had to dealwith some stuff, because you
can't be mad at someone in thesame room as you for many days
in a row and think it's going togo well.
So that means they probably hadto have some.
(13:29):
What does it say?
That they were in one accord.
They're in unity together.
That means that they probablyhad to forgive each other of
some stuff.
You know, like I didn't likehow you gave a dirty look to
such and such and blah, blah,blah.
Okay, well, jesus forgave us alot.
He gave us grace.
Maybe we should turn and do thesame.
(13:51):
And you notice that this big,massive crowd comes down to
people that can fit in an upperroom.
I wonder why that is.
See, I think some peoplewouldn't deal with their stuff
and so they left.
But those who pressed in, thosewho were willing to forgive,
those who were willing to dealwith it, then they were willing
to have the impartation of thenext thing that God wanted them
to do.
(14:12):
It's that upper room moment wepick up here in Acts 2, and it
says it like this and suddenlythere came from heaven a sound
like a mighty rushing wind, andit filled the entire house where
they were sitting in dividedtongues as of fire Sitting,
appeared on each one of them,rested on each one of them, and
they were filled with the HolySpirit and began to speak in
(14:35):
other tongues as the Spirit gavethem utterance.
Somebody say amen to that.
It's that pouring out moment ofthe Holy Spirit of God.
We see this picture, thispainting depicting it it's
beautiful of what that couldhave been like that moment of
holy divination, of giving thepower from the Lord directly to
(14:56):
his church.
And you got to remember thatthis was only possible because
of what Christ did for us on hisbehalf.
Before that God was there, buthe was in their midst, in their
presence, in the tabernacle andthen in the temple, the symbol
that he used to guide his people, what it says, that it was a
pillar of fire by night and apillar of cloud by day Literally
(15:16):
the wind and the fire guidingthem along through the desert as
they left Egypt, as they wentinto the promised land.
It was those very markers whichsymbolized his spirit.
In the tabernacle it was verymuch that thing, that fire
burning before them in thetemple, in the holy of holies,
inside of what we'd see the arkof the covenant.
But God is not kept in a goldbox.
(15:38):
God is greater than thesethings.
In fact, the reason that theholies of holies existed is so
he could be with his people butprotect his people from his
holiness because of theirunholiness.
And so jesus comes and he makesthe ultimate sacrifice for all
people, for all time.
He takes the sin of the worldupon himself, though he is
(16:01):
innocent, he pays for it onceand for all.
It splits the opening.
This splits the veil thatprotected people from the holies
of holies.
It was wide open, and so whathappens is the impartation, the
fire from inside the holy ofholies appears upon each one of
the church, signifying that thechurch, the people, are now the
(16:25):
temple, the tabernacle of thealmighty God.
That blowing spirit, thatblowing wind is a signifier,
because you can't contain fire,you can't contain wind, you
can't put your arms around it,and this signifies the working
power of God, which is greaterthan all that we can comprehend.
It says they were all togetherin that one place, so they had
(16:47):
this heart, this unity, and then, when the tongues of fire
appeared, it's this divinemoment of God, his impartation,
his spirit, this rushing windthat's in there, changing what's
happening in the room.
It says they began to speak intongues, and it's a divine
language that Holy Spirit isgiving them, and what he's doing
(17:08):
is he's actually using them asa vessel, praying through them
in a way they don't evenunderstand.
So they're speaking thisheavenly language.
It's he's using them as avessel, saying your kingdom come
, your will be done.
That's our prayer.
He's praying his will throughus, and so that's what the power
of the spirit is there for.
That's what it's about.
That's why, in this moment, thefirst thing that he tamed was
(17:35):
the tongue.
Why?
Because with the tongue.
The scripture says that wespeak life and we speak death by
the tongue, and so what he doesthe first thing is by his
spirit is he tames the tongue,and so they begin to pray out in
this language, and some of itis actually other people's
languages, and so it makes sucha big scene in the upper room in
the beginning of the morning.
People are like what is going onup there?
You know what I mean?
(17:55):
Block party, somebody didn'tinvite me, and so they're like
what's going on up there?
And it's making a big, hugenoise, a huge racket.
People are like these peopleare drunk, and Peter's like no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, they'renot.
They're full of the spirit ofGod, and it says that the people
around them start to listen towhat they're saying.
And it's amazing, because HolySpirit uses the early church,
(18:18):
and he uses them as a vessel ofproclamation.
These are all local Jews.
They have not traveled theworld, they're not from far off
lands, they are Jewish peoplefrom there and he's using them
to speak all these differentlanguages.
And these people who've come infor the celebration come in to
make sacrament, come in to havethat opportunity to be made
right with God.
They're already believers inhim, but as Jews, they start
(18:41):
hearing this word about theglory of God in their own heart
language.
It's why we do things liketranslation into Spanish, for
this service is so that peoplewho have a heart language can
hear the word of God in a waythey understand it, and so the
Holy Spirit of God starts totranslate this right into their
ears.
And it says that all thesepeople start to hear the wonders
(19:02):
of God, the glories of God, intheir own language.
It says both Jews andproselytes, cretans and Arabs,
we hear them telling in our owntongues the mighty works of God.
See, from the very first momentof the impartation of the Holy
Spirit upon the church, he usedthe church to proclaim his glory
(19:25):
, what he wants to do in themand through them, and he's using
a way.
What did they say?
They hear it in their ownlanguage.
See, he is, for the very firstmoment, he's fulfilling the
prophecy that he gave to Abramall the way back in those days
that you will be a blessing toall nations, to all people,
(19:45):
because of your faith and byfaith, they will be in your line
, in your heritage and they,from that very moment, it
expands and blows up the messageof the gospel because it's in
the heart of these people thattraveled there and now they're
going to take it home with them.
It's going to change the worldbecause they have had an
impartation of the spirit of God.
(20:07):
Now it's amazing because we pickup here in Acts 2, 17, and it's
Peter who's giving the sermon.
He says and in the last days itshall be God declares I will
pour out my spirit on all flesh,referencing the days of old and
the prophets of old, and yoursons and your daughters shall
prophesy and your young menshall see, see visions, and your
(20:29):
old men shall dream dreams.
And on my male and femaleservants, in those days I will
pour out my spirit and they willprophesy.
When we hear the word ofprophecy, what it does is that
it's declaring the wonders ofGod.
It's saying ahead of time thatthis is what God is gonna do, or
a word of knowledge that comesfrom him.
It's declaring his glory.
(20:51):
Friends, it's a sign and awonder.
It's a billboard for Godbecause he wants to use us for
his purposes, for his glory.
And think about the guy that'sgiving this sermon.
This is Peter.
This is the guy that was withJesus all those years.
The very guy that turned hisback on him whenever it came
(21:12):
down to Jesus being crucified.
The very one that even deniedhim to a servant girl who was
not a person of authority.
He's like I don't know him, I'mnot connected to him.
And then the rooster crowed andhe was convicted to the bone
about how he had denied Christ.
This is the same Peter that hadwalked on water to Jesus.
This same Peter that was therefor the feeding of the 5,000,
(21:34):
the 4,000.
He saw people healed.
He saw miracles happen.
He denied Jesus, but the Lord,after his resurrection, he goes
and restores Peter back.
He says come, would you comeand feed my sheep?
Will you tend my lambs?
Will you be the one that isactually doing what I've asked
you to do?
(21:55):
And he restores him back intothe disciples.
It's this one, this Peter, thisone that was still packing, you
know, in the garden ofGethsemane, pulled out the sword
, cut someone's ear off.
You know what I mean the gardenof Gethsemane, pulled out the
sword, cut someone's ear off.
You know what I mean?
Still, a salty sailor that Godwas using.
(22:16):
He's the one, not Paul, who's,like you know, a Pharisee of
Pharisees, not a Sadducee, notall these people who are trained
in the law, no, a fisherman iswho God uses to get up full of
his spirit and eloquently tietogether the prophets of old
into what God is doing by hisspirit here in the book of Acts.
And it picks up here and it saysin this next verse it says in
Acts 2.32, this is Jesus, godraised up.
(22:39):
Of that we are all witnesses,being therefore exalted at the
right hand of God, havingreceived from the Father the
promise of the Holy Spirit.
He has poured this out that youyourselves are seeing and
hearing, friends.
What he was declaring was thatthey are called to be empowered
(22:59):
by the Most High God.
And he's talking to all theseJews that are there in the
cities.
He's telling them to their faceyou are the ones that kill
Jesus, but he is the chosen oneand he didn't stay dead.
He has risen and he is backwith the Father.
And guess what?
He's empowering us to go andtake this message of the Messiah
(23:20):
who was foretold for all theseyears to the world.
We're empowered to do so.
And so that's where it picks upwith here.
And what does he say?
The first thing he calls themto do is to.
And so that's where it picks upwith here.
And what does he say?
The first thing he calls themto do is to be those that come
into alignment with it, to beobedient to the word of God.
And so it says that theyaccepted.
It said thousands on one dayaccepted and they changed their
(23:41):
life.
It says in Acts 2 42, and theydevoted themselves to the
apostles teaching and to thefellowship of the breaking of
bread and the prayers, and allcame upon every soul, and many
wonders and signs were beingdone through the apostles.
Friends, life change happenedbecause they stopped trying to
(24:02):
put God aside and just have itfor sacrifice, but instead they
walked empowered by the spiritof God.
So the miracle happens, and themiracle happens, and the
miracle happens.
And the miracle happens becausethey're doing it not of their
own power, but their ownalignment with what he wants to
do through them.
Would you say amen to that?
And so that's when we startlooking at scripture.
(24:23):
We see that life change moment.
It changes everything for themand it really makes that marker
of a difference, of what'shappening.
You can imagine how you knowthey're called to action.
They're not called to sitaround a campfire singing
Kumbaya.
And I think so often that'sexactly where you know, we want
to feel, we want the feels ofthe Sunday morning or the
(24:44):
gatherings on the weekend, wewant that warm and fuzzy, and
there's nothing wrong with that.
That's why we come together,the encouragement, the building
up of the church.
But see, friends, that's notwhere it ends.
That's the empowerment momentto release us into the world, to
release you back into yoursphere of influence, back into
your neighborhood, back intoyour family, back into your
friend group.
You back into your sphere ofinfluence, back into your
(25:06):
neighborhood, back into yourfamily, back into your friend
group, back with your colleagues, that you would be the light in
a spiritually dark place.
And so that's why we're notcalled to just sit around the
campfire scene, kumbaya.
We're called to be thechallenge to the world so that
they can see the light of God inus.
Would you say amen to that?
And so that's the life changethat we're talking about.
And so we pick up here in Acts10, and what starts to happen is
(25:29):
that fire that starts in them.
Well, it takes off.
And so, peter, he goes and hasthis vision.
He has this vision of what Godhas given him, and it says in
Acts 10 that he's someone whostarts to go and he starts to be
obedient to what God is saying.
Now Peter knows that they'recalled to a different thing.
As Jews, they're called to stayseparate, away from Gentiles.
(25:50):
And so he has this vision fromGod that God says what I have
now called clean is not unclean.
And so he says that you arecalled to go to be with the
Gentiles.
And so someone sends a runnerto him and he goes to the man's
house.
And he's hesitant at firstbecause he knows that as a Jew
he's never supposed to go into aGentile home.
But he just got told by theLord to go to the Gentiles.
(26:11):
So he, in obedience, goesObedience better than sacrifice.
So, by obedience, he goes.
And when he comes there, hestarts to proclaim the goodness
of God.
And there's a group of peoplethat have come together and he
starts to tell them this.
It says to him all the prophetsbear witness, everyone who
believes in him receivesforgiveness of sins.
(26:31):
Through his name, he'sdeclaring who Jesus is as the
Messiah.
It picks up in verse 44.
It says, while Peter was stillsaying these things, the Holy
Spirit fell on all who heard theword, and the believers from
among the circumcised who hadcame with Peter were amazed
(26:52):
because the gift of the HolySpirit was poured out even on
the Gentiles.
Someone, give glory to God forhis grace on us.
We're so very thankful, see,for you and I myself not being
100% Jewish, all of us would beconsidered Gentiles, and so,
even though that first movementof the Holy Spirit upon those
(27:14):
different languages, those wereall Jews, those are all people
who had become Jews, and thoseare people who were the children
of God expecting the Messiah.
These Gentiles, they're adifferent group, these are
Romans, these are other people,these are people like you and I,
by faith.
See, we don't have to become aJew first in order to become a
Christ follower with the Messiah.
Instead, by faith, we arebrought into who he is, in the
(27:38):
fullness of God.
As co-heirs with Christ, calledto be the children of the
Almighty, we're grafted into thetree that he's called his
family.
And so what's amazing is thatwe don't replace the children of
God.
We're brought into, we'reextended out to, and it says
that all who heard by faithreceived it.
They received this power, theyreceived what happens, and in
(28:00):
this moment, holy Spirit fallsand so they're speaking in other
tongues and Holy Spirit ispraying through them, and this
is a marker to all the otherleaders who are also Jewish.
They're like well, this is God.
How can we say anythingdifferent?
He's the one who is theinitiator of these things.
It's God's spirit upon them,and so what happens in this
(28:21):
moment is that the scripture isfurther fulfilled, that the
obedience that Abraham said whenhe says go from your house and
your parents' house to a land Iwill show you in Genesis 12.
When he says these things byfaith, abraham, at that time he
was obedient and he left out andsaid yes to God, small steps.
Yes to God, small steps.
(28:42):
See, friends, that's the samething he wants to do in your
life and my life.
See, god couldn't have taken aguy down here at this altar
right here.
He couldn't have taken a guywho wanted to do his own plan
and taken and used that personas a missionary in Europe and a
missionary in the Middle Eastand to pastor churches.
He couldn't have done thatbecause that guy had his own
plan.
But guess what?
By saying yes to the smallthing there and then saying yes
(29:07):
the next day and the next dayafter that, and even God helping
me whenever, even as a youthpastor, I made a boneheaded
mistakes like throwing frozenturkeys through the wall of the
multipurpose room, he stillhelped me figure it out.
And what happens is your smallyes turns into the big change
(29:29):
that happens in the worldbecause you consistently say yes
to God.
And so what's happening here isthat all those people, in that
moment the world expands and Godexpands and brings all of us in
by faith to be the children offaith, just like Abraham had
foretold that all of yourdescendants would be like the
stars of the sky, because all ofus belong, like he does, to God
(29:54):
by faith.
And so, as we look at scripture, we continue to hear, with the
Holy Spirit pouring out, 1Thessalonians 1,.
This is now Paul writing to thechurch at Thessaloniki.
He says, as we know, brothersloved by God, that he has chosen
you because our gospel came toyou not only in word, but in
(30:16):
power and in the Holy Spirit andwith full conviction.
You know what kind of men weprove to be among you, for your
sake.
What is he saying to the churchof Thessaloniki?
We know that you belong to Godbecause he came and showed up in
power and you have beenempowered by the Holy Spirit to
live for him in spiritually darkplaces.
(30:37):
And so what happens is they areon fire for God, they get
sparked for God and they'reliving as a fire for God, and so
that's why Paul, writing to thechurch later, he's encouraging
them.
In the same way, he wouldencourage us to live for God for
the day and live for God fortomorrow and live for God the
day after that.
And as you continue to live forGod, full of the spirit of God
(30:59):
and keeping your hand off thecontrol, then he will guide you
where you're supposed to go.
He will do the work, he will dothe miracle in and through your
life.
You want to see life change inyour family.
You want to see it in your kids, you want to see it in your
grandkids.
Then you have to say yes first,and he'll do something in your
life, and then he'll dosomething in their life.
You worry about you beingobedient to God and you say yes
(31:21):
to him and see what will happenwhen he uses you as an example
to other people.
Man, my friends couldn't believeit when I told them I was going
to leave corporate America tobecome a pastor.
They were like, I'm sorry, who?
Who?
You, the one with the big nose?
No, no, no, this is a bad idea.
We can see Pastor Celeste.
She's very anointed.
We see Pastor Angus, veryanointed Maybe not you.
(31:44):
Have you thought about somethingelse?
See, I'm thankful, because it'snot them that qualify me.
It's not someone else whoqualifies you, see, it's he who
qualifies us.
And so when we say yes to him,then we obediently be to him,
then our obedience is what opensup the blessing of God who
qualifies us.
And so when we say yes to him,then we obediently be to him,
then we, obedient with ourobedience, is what opens up the
(32:06):
blessing of God to guide us inthe direction we're called to go
.
And so that's what theempowerment of the Holy Spirit
is about is that we would bethose who are full of the Spirit
, empowered by him.
We go back to what we talkedabout a few weeks back in Luke
24, verse 46.
He said to them.
Thus it is written that Christshould suffer and, on the third
(32:30):
day, rise from the dead, andthat repentance for the
forgiveness of sin should beproclaimed in his name to all
nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
Friends, his plan always, whenJesus came, was redemption for
all people.
His plan for you is that youdon't stay in your brokenness
(32:50):
from before, you don't stay inyour addiction from before, you
don't stay in the shame of yourmistakes from before, but as a
new creation in Christ,empowered by his spirit, you
live a different path that hehas for you, and in doing so, it
changes everything for yourlife, because now you're walking
by faith, you're walking in acommunity of faith, not alone,
(33:13):
and you're walking this plan out, whereas the plan before was
your plan and now the plan ishis plan.
And, friends, what's amazingabout that is he wants to use
you as an example to thosearound you that you love.
He wants to use you as anexample to those around you
don't like, so that they canbecome people that you love,
(33:36):
because, just like you wereunlovely before God got a hold
of you, he wants to do the samefor them, and so that's why he
says to turn the cheek, that'swhy he says to pray for those
who persecute you.
That's why he says to lovethose who are the unlovely,
because we all are the unlovelyand he loved us first.
(33:57):
That's why, by the power of thespirit, we're called to walk a
different path.
That's why today, as we come tothis altar, we do so with
intentionality to ask for moreof Holy Spirit, for a fresh
anointing, for less of us andmore of Him in our lives.
Luke 24, 48 says you arewitnesses of these things and
behold, I'm sending the promiseof my Father upon you, but stay
(34:20):
in this city until you'reclothed with power from on high.
See, holy Spirit'sparticipation in your life is
one where you invite him in.
It's one where you are the onesaying Lord, I want more of you,
come into my life.
I want the promise of thefather.
I want the fire, the passionfor God.
(34:41):
I want a bird inside of me,like a flame.
I want something to happeninside of me where I'm empowered
to say yes to you and to followwhere you're leading me.
Friends, it's all about thatfirst moment where we say yes to
him, and my challenge to youtoday is that every single
(35:01):
person would come out of theirseats and come up to this altar,
and that you would make a placewith God, inviting him to have
his way, and that you would say,lord, that your will be done.
Friends, let's be on fire forGod.
Today, as we come to this altar,we do so understanding that
it's our ambition to be morelike Jesus.
(35:23):
And maybe you're here andyou've never made a decision to
follow Christ.
Today is your opportunity.
It's your opportunity to sayyes to him.
Each one of us has to answerthat question have you embraced
Jesus?
See, none of us is perfect.
All of us have sinned andfallen short of the glory of God
, and so all of us are in needof a savior.
And so that's why, today, us asChrist followers.
(35:46):
It doesn't make us any holierthan anyone else, but what it
does mean is that we haveembraced the saving love of
Jesus Christ and that he lovedus and he's changed us and
forgiven us, made us into a newcreation.
And so that's what it means toembrace Jesus.
But it's not just a get out ofhell free card.
It's a living with him as ourLord and savior every day.
(36:10):
See, for us, the symbol of thecross is one of transformation.
It's profound because upon thecross he took all of my sin and
all of my mistakes and all of mybrokenness, and he took all of
yours as well, and he paid forit once and for all, for all
people, for all time.
(36:30):
And when he did that, he made away for us to be reconnected to
the Father in relationship.
And when he returned back tothe Father, he gives us Holy
Spirit to be the one who's withus.
He says, an advocate for us,the one who helps us, guides us,
directs us, and so we're notleft alone.
And so, by placing our faithand trust in jesus, we say lord,
(36:53):
I believe you are who you sayyou are, and, lord, I invite you
into my life to be the lord andsavior of my life.
I want to live a different path.
I believe in you, the ApostlePaul.
He writes to the church at Rome.
He says it a little different.
He says it like this Because ifyou confess with your mouth
(37:13):
that Jesus is Lord and believein your heart that God raised
him from the dead, you will besaved, it says, for with the
heart one believes and isjustified, with the mouth one
confesses and is saved.
Friends, today is your day.
It's your opportunity to sayyes to Jesus.
I'm gonna ask everyone in theroom to stand to your feet.
(37:34):
Right where you're at, you canbow your heads.
Christians are praying rightnow as people are making
decisions to follow Jesus.
Man, this first service, wealready had people make a
decision to follow Jesus.
We had people that made adecision today that people have
been praying for for years madea decision today to follow Jesus
.
(37:56):
Friends, the same could be saidfor you that today would be your
day making a decision to followJesus as heads are bowed here
in the room.
If that's you, maybe you'venever made a decision to follow
Jesus.
Today's your opportunity, ormaybe you have in the past.
But, like my story from myyouth, you've walked away from
actively living for God.
Today's an opportunity for youto recommit your heart and your
(38:20):
life back to Christ.
As heads are bowed here in theroom, if you just raise your
hand right where you're at andsay pastor, that's me today.
I just wanna invite Christ intomy life.
I wanna make a decision tofollow Jesus today.
See the hands that are raised.
People making decisions, peoplereinforcing decisions.
Hand I see that hand.
I see that hand.
I see that hand.
Thank you, lord.
Thank you, lord.
Others, thank you Lord.
Others, friends online,wherever you are, I see you
(38:42):
making a decision for Jesus.
I'm gonna ask if you would, ifeveryone would, pray this prayer
out loud after me.
Lord, thank you for loving me.
Thank you for sending Jesus.
I believe Jesus died on thecross for my sins.
(39:02):
I believe he rose again.
Forgive me of my sins.
I surrender my life to you InChrist's name.
I pray Amen, amen.
Friends, we rejoice with youmaking a decision to follow
Jesus today.
Several people raising theirhand in this service Praise God,
(39:22):
praise the Lord.
Know this.
We rejoice with you making adecision to follow Jesus today.
Several people raising theirhand in this service.
Praise God, praise the Lord.
Know this.
We want to connect with youbefore you leave here today.
Put some resources into yourhands.
Please connect with us so thatwe can do so and if you're
online, message us.
You're not called to do thislife alone, friends.
For all of us, we're calledtoday to come and make an altar
with God, to come and to say Ineed more of you, holy Spirit.
(39:45):
I need a fresh anointing of youin my life, and so my challenge
to you, to all of us is that wewould come and make an altar
with God and ask for more of theimpartation of the Spirit and
then walk in obedience with whathe calls us to do.
Lord, we thank you for yourword today.
Lord, we thank you how youbreathe upon it.
You make it alive, youchallenge us, lord, and in doing
(40:06):
so, lord, we need more of yourspirit, holy Spirit, that you
would have your way in us andyou would baptize us afresh and
anew, Lord, and as we come tothis altar, we do so with
intentionality.
Lord, we need more of yourpresence, we need more of your
spirit.
Lord, we're asking for abreakthrough in our life.
Lord for guidance, for wisdom.
Lord for provision, lord forrelationships.
Lord, we need more of you inour life.
(40:29):
And so, lord, we come nowasking for that movement, asking
for those very things in ourlife.
Lord, we come and make an altarwith you.
Lord, we pray this in the nameof Jesus Christ, amen.
Hey, let me encourage you, guys.
If you haven't signed up, gents, let me encourage you to go and
sign up for the Camp and Fish.
It's happening this weekend andit's a powerful time.
It's fun because a lot of guys.
(40:49):
They aren't connected and soit's a great way to build some
friendships.
I know a lot of guys actuallyhave built some really good
friends out of going and, in mycase, not catching fish, but
you'll do better.
So sign up and participate withus.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
And next Sunday is Father's Day, and so we are
excited.
We're going to honor the men inour lives.
So if you have somebody a dad,a grandpa that doesn't come,
bring them, invite them.
It's going to be a fantasticSunday.
So, ladies, consider this yourseven-day warning to get
everything ready for next Sunday.
It's going to be a great day.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
Before we go, I'm going to pray this blessing over
us.
The Lord bless you and keep you.
Lord, make his face to shineupon you and be gracious to you.
We'll lift up his countenanceupon you and give you peace.
(41:44):
Lord, I pray a blessing uponyour church, your people.
Lord, 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 much here atCornerstone.
God bless you and have a greatweek.
empowered.
Today we're talking about whatit means to be on fire for God.
Now I was thinking back someyears back, whenever I was a kid
growing up in church and Iremember my first real moment
with Holy Spirit, where I was ata kid's camp and they had
called everybody who just wantedmore of God to come forward and
there was nobody that waspushing me over.
(00:21):
There's nobody actually laid ahand on me.
There was none of that.
I was just in an aisle and Ijust wanted more of God and I
was just calling out to God formore of Him and I had that
moment of being baptized in theHoly Spirit and I didn't really
know what was going on.
I didn't know that Holy Spiritwas using this to be able to
pray His will through my life.
I didn't know anything and Iwas just experiencing his love
(00:43):
and his presence and it waspowerful.
It was something transformativefor me in my young faith and I
can tell you what's amazingabout that was that it was
because I didn't.
There was no coercion.
There was no any kind of likemagic words you had to say.
It really came directly fromhim, but I didn't know.
I thought you had to be like ata special place, like it only
(01:05):
happened at camp and only onnight, three or whatever.
And so it was.
That was what I thought, and soyou know, I was waiting for the
next camp.
It was like a year later andeven though we had those
highlight moments as I wasgrowing up, as I got a bit older
, well then you know, myrelationship with being filled
with the Spirit and listening toHoly Spirit was very much
roller coaster.
(01:25):
I don't know if anybody elsehas been through that, but that
was my experience, where youknow I would have this amazing
breakthrough moment.
Maybe we'd be at a youthservice and just a powerful time
of worship and really feel thisimpartation of the Spirit,
something renewed in my spirit,something powerful.
But by then, you know, there'sa lot of things going on in my
life.
Right, as a teenager, you'relike 200% hormones and, like you
(01:48):
know, 75% bad choices from yourfriend group.
You guys know what I'm talkingabout.
Your friends are like, hey,let's do something terrible,
like okay, let's do it together,you know.
And we walk over here and do ittogether.
And so it was hard because youknow the whole purpose of it is
not for that moment to feelspiritual.
Though that is a great thing,to feel the fullness of God,
it's not really for that.
It's really about thefulfillment of empowering you to
(02:11):
go and do what he's asked youto do, and so in doing so, I
didn't quite get that, and so Iwould have this struggle, this
real tension inside of my heart,whenever you know.
I had these things that weredrawing me this way and he's
trying to say, hey, listen, Iwant you to do this.
And I'm like, well, god, I wantyou in my life, I wanna
experience the good feelingsfrom the service.
(02:33):
But I mean, I wanna do what Iwanna do the rest of the time.
And he's like that's not whatthis is about.
I wanna empower you to beobedient to me.
And so there's this big tensionwithin me, within my heart,
within my life, of me going on aSunday and having a great
moment and then immediatelymaking poor decisions.
(02:56):
Anybody else, just three peopleand me.
And the people online beinghonest Praise God, lightning's
not coming for you, it'll beokay.
And the people online beinghonest Praise God, lightning's
not coming for you, it'll beokay.
The idea is this that we allknow that there's this tension
inside of us.
We know that there's this pullon us where we are fighting him
for the control, we say, lord,have all of me.
We pray these prayers to thesesongs, we say, lord, that you
(03:18):
would have your way in me.
And then we go and we fight himfor control on the way out the
building and I can tell you frommy own perspective that was the
hardest thing for me to fightfor was to say, lord, I want to
give you control, I want to havemore of you, less of me.
See, his fullness is there,available to us.
(03:39):
It's us, and what we're lettinggo of it's us.
On what we're willing to havehim do in our lives and through
our lives, we often so ask, lord, that you would open up the
right door for me, give meinsight and wisdom.
And he says, okay, great, hereyou go.
And he gives it to us.
And then we're like I reallywasn't looking for that.
I wanted something else.
I wanted you to bless me, makeme a multi-gajillionaire.
(04:08):
That's what I wanted.
He's like cool story.
I need you to start with thesmall obedience, because from
the small obedience I can trustyou with the next obedience.
And so that's what it startedto do is.
I started to really walk thisthing out, and it wasn't until I
really started to understandthat the power of God, the power
of the Holy Spirit, the baptismin the Holy Spirit, was all
about doing what he wants us todo by his spirit.
(04:29):
Very little of it is about theactual manifestation of it,
though those things are a markerthat shows us what it means.
He's praying through us, hiskingdom come, his will be done,
and so that's what it means.
When we're talking about todayis Pentecost Sunday.
It's a day that's a marker forthe church, because the
impartation, the pouring out ofthe Holy Spirit to embolden us
(04:51):
to be obedient to what Jesuscharges to do with the great
commission, the greatcommandments, is to be obedient
to him, empowered by his spirit.
So, for us, we're called to bethose that are on fire for God,
holding nothing back, and I cantell you you know we talk about
(05:13):
often how none of us is perfect.
I'm the first to tell you I'mnot perfect, but what we are is
people that are very muchintentional in living our life
after God, and so that means,when we look at this idea of
Jesus walking with his disciples, that's who we are, is that we
are people following after Jesus.
Our ambition is to be more likeJesus.
(05:36):
We want to be more like him.
That's why, collectively, welove God, we make disciples, we
reach the world.
It's because that's what ourheart is, is that we have love
and we're motivated by love todo something about it.
And that's why we talk abouthey, let's live with
intentionality in things likelife groups, because through
life groups we can go and havethat interaction.
(05:56):
We could be a friend, we couldbe a brother or sister who helps
another in a time of trial, andwe could be there as support
structure, see, in a time oftrial, and we could be there as
support structure.
See, we're never called to dothis life alone.
We're called to be in communityand that's why I challenge each
one of us to connect and growand serve the Lord, amen.
Today we're looking back to thisidea of on fire and we have
(06:18):
some scriptures that we've beengoing through here and it's been
a powerful time as we look atthis idea of fire burning in us
and using that symbol of theHoly Spirit.
It talks about it in scripturethat the Holy Spirit is the
promise of the Father.
He is the fulfillment of what'ssent to us in the presence of
God, very much God in the triunebeing.
(06:39):
And now we're called to bethose who have a fire for God,
that we have this passionburning inside of us.
We talked about it out of 2Timothy 1.
It says for this reason, Iremind you to fan into flame the
gift of God which is in youthrough the laying on of my
hands, for God gave us a spiritnot of fear, but of power and
(07:01):
love and self-control, or asound mind.
We talked about what that meansand how we're called to be
those that are set apart in thisway, experiencing the benefits,
the blessing of God by beingempowered by the Lord.
We talked about what it meansto be walking and clothed in
power, to be those that arewrapped in his power for the
(07:21):
service he's called us to do.
In Luke 24, it says it likethis you are witnesses of these
things, all that he told them.
He says and behold, I'm sendingthe promise of my father upon
you, but stay in this city untilyou are clothed with power from
on high.
Today we pick up a littlefurther in this story in Acts 2.
(07:43):
If you have your Bible, yourtablet, your phone.
I encourage you to highlightthis piece.
It says it here in Acts 2,verse 17 and 18.
And in the last days it shallbe God declares that I will pour
out my spirit on all flesh andyour sons and your daughters
shall prophesy, and your youngmen shall see visions, your old
(08:04):
men shall dream dreams, and evenon my male servants and female
servants.
In those days, I will pour outmy spirit and they shall
prophesy.
Lord, we pray over your wordtoday, lord, that you illuminate
it in our hearts and in ourminds.
Lord, that we would be thosechallenged.
Lord that would embrace all thefullness of who you are, to be
(08:27):
baptized in your spirit.
We pray this in the powerfulname of Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Today we're talking about thisidea of being empowered and I'll
tell you that, the power tolive for Christ.
It's such a game changer whenwe really start listening to him
, man, because I was back andforth that way whenever I was a
student, then later, whenever Ibecame an adult, I was making my
(08:49):
own choices and I wasn'tlistening to his guidance.
And see, that's what it talksabout in the scripture.
Is that the blasphemy of theHoly Spirit, the pushing away of
the Holy Spirit is the thingthat's unforgivable, because
he's the one that prompts us toconfession, he's the one that
prompts us to turn around, he'sthe one that says come to me and
be forgiven.
(09:10):
Without him we can't do it.
So when we push against HolySpirit, what we're doing is
literally pushing away theguidance of God, literally
pushing his spirit away from us.
And I could tell you, man, Iwas living in a certain way
where I wanted to feel good, Iwanted to believe, I wanted to
do that stuff, but I also wantedto do my own thing.
(09:30):
And the problem with that isthat he's like the reason that I
have saved you is not just tosave you to come be with me, but
to save you with a purpose,with a plan, with a future where
I can use you to be amouthpiece to others.
And meanwhile I'm fighting himover here and not wanting to do
what he wants me to do, becauseI had my own agenda, I had my
(09:54):
own thing, I had set myself upas my own little God G in my
life.
See, it was right here, actually, in that spot, right off the
end of this very altar, where itwas on a sunday night, at a
special service and we were justhaving a time of worship at the
end of the service and I Ireally was unhappy with what I
(10:17):
was going through.
Man, a lot of great stuff goingon at a corporate job, at a
company car, gas card, a gascard I had a gas card, had all
these things.
I was young, I was blowing mymoney on like tattoos and travel
and guns.
It was great.
You know what I mean.
I had no worries, I had noresponsibilities and God is like
cool story, how's that workingfor you?
And I'm like well, I'm hollow,I'm not happy.
(10:40):
Maybe I need more of the things.
He's like probably not.
You've been trying a lot ofthat stuff, how's that going?
And right here, at this altar inthis place, he was calling me
to say yes to him and to hisplan for my life and not my plan
(11:01):
.
And I had to come to that placewhere I said it's your plan,
it's not my plan.
I know what I have a plan for,I know what I want to do.
And it was all these thingsthat I'd swore as a young kid.
Right, my parents were inministry.
I was like I don't.
They had all sorts of peoplewho blamed them for stuff that
wasn't theirs and do all thesethings and headaches, and I'm
(11:23):
like man, I want to be rich andtell people to kick rocks when I
don't like what they say.
He's like great, great, great,great, I want you to be in
ministry.
Instead.
I'm like oh, this is a problemand so I had to deal with it.
Am I going to be obedient toGod or do what I want to do?
It's not, you can do both.
(11:44):
Are you going to be obedient toGod or are you going to do what
you want to do?
Friends, I would challenge youwith this that you would be
empowered by the Spirit of God,that you would kick all of your
plans to the side, because yourplans will end in the end of
your plans.
His plans are greater than yourplans.
His plans are eternal for yourlife, for the life of your
(12:04):
children, the life of yourgrandchildren.
He wants to do things in yourlife and through your life that
are greater than your plan foryour life.
He wants to do something in you.
He wants to do somethingthrough you.
It's greater than your plan foryour life.
(12:24):
We mess up because we getcaught up playing games and
doing stupid things that areagainst him.
The Lord, help us that we wouldembrace what he wants us to do
for him and be obedient, becauseobedience, as Pastor Slith said
, is greater than sacrifice.
(12:45):
So we found ourselves with thefollowers of Jesus in the upper
room.
He's ascended back to thefather, as we talked about last
week, at the end of Luke, in thebeginning of Acts, and he goes
and he charges with them, sayinggo and be clothed with power,
and that you would do thesethings because I have something
for you to do.
So they go to this upper roomand they're praying.
Now the story picks up early inthe morning, so they've been
(13:08):
praying overnight.
And guess what?
That also means that they'vebeen together in this upper room
, together for quite a while.
They've been praying for quite aseason and in doing so, that
means that they've had to dealwith some stuff, because you
can't be mad at someone in thesame room as you for many days
in a row and think it's going togo well.
So that means they probably hadto have some.
(13:29):
What does it say?
That they were in one accord.
They're in unity together.
That means that they probablyhad to forgive each other of
some stuff.
You know, like I didn't likehow you gave a dirty look to
such and such and blah, blah,blah.
Okay, well, jesus forgave us alot.
He gave us grace.
Maybe we should turn and do thesame.
(13:51):
And you notice that this big,massive crowd comes down to
people that can fit in an upperroom.
I wonder why that is.
See, I think some peoplewouldn't deal with their stuff
and so they left.
But those who pressed in, thosewho were willing to forgive,
those who were willing to dealwith it, then they were willing
to have the impartation of thenext thing that God wanted them
to do.
(14:12):
It's that upper room moment wepick up here in Acts 2, and it
says it like this and suddenlythere came from heaven a sound
like a mighty rushing wind, andit filled the entire house where
they were sitting in dividedtongues as of fire Sitting,
appeared on each one of them,rested on each one of them, and
they were filled with the HolySpirit and began to speak in
(14:35):
other tongues as the Spirit gavethem utterance.
Somebody say amen to that.
It's that pouring out moment ofthe Holy Spirit of God.
We see this picture, thispainting depicting it it's
beautiful of what that couldhave been like that moment of
holy divination, of giving thepower from the Lord directly to
(14:56):
his church.
And you got to remember thatthis was only possible because
of what Christ did for us on hisbehalf.
Before that God was there, buthe was in their midst, in their
presence, in the tabernacle andthen in the temple, the symbol
that he used to guide his people, what it says, that it was a
pillar of fire by night and apillar of cloud by day Literally
(15:16):
the wind and the fire guidingthem along through the desert as
they left Egypt, as they wentinto the promised land.
It was those very markers whichsymbolized his spirit.
In the tabernacle it was verymuch that thing, that fire
burning before them in thetemple, in the holy of holies,
inside of what we'd see the arkof the covenant.
But God is not kept in a goldbox.
(15:38):
God is greater than thesethings.
In fact, the reason that theholies of holies existed is so
he could be with his people butprotect his people from his
holiness because of theirunholiness.
And so jesus comes and he makesthe ultimate sacrifice for all
people, for all time.
He takes the sin of the worldupon himself, though he is
(16:01):
innocent, he pays for it onceand for all.
It splits the opening.
This splits the veil thatprotected people from the holies
of holies.
It was wide open, and so whathappens is the impartation, the
fire from inside the holy ofholies appears upon each one of
the church, signifying that thechurch, the people, are now the
(16:25):
temple, the tabernacle of thealmighty God.
That blowing spirit, thatblowing wind is a signifier,
because you can't contain fire,you can't contain wind, you
can't put your arms around it,and this signifies the working
power of God, which is greaterthan all that we can comprehend.
It says they were all togetherin that one place, so they had
(16:47):
this heart, this unity, and then, when the tongues of fire
appeared, it's this divinemoment of God, his impartation,
his spirit, this rushing windthat's in there, changing what's
happening in the room.
It says they began to speak intongues, and it's a divine
language that Holy Spirit isgiving them, and what he's doing
(17:08):
is he's actually using them asa vessel, praying through them
in a way they don't evenunderstand.
So they're speaking thisheavenly language.
It's he's using them as avessel, saying your kingdom come
, your will be done.
That's our prayer.
He's praying his will throughus, and so that's what the power
of the spirit is there for.
That's what it's about.
That's why, in this moment, thefirst thing that he tamed was
(17:35):
the tongue.
Why?
Because with the tongue.
The scripture says that wespeak life and we speak death by
the tongue, and so what he doesthe first thing is by his
spirit is he tames the tongue,and so they begin to pray out in
this language, and some of itis actually other people's
languages, and so it makes sucha big scene in the upper room in
the beginning of the morning.
People are like what is going onup there?
You know what I mean?
(17:55):
Block party, somebody didn'tinvite me, and so they're like
what's going on up there?
And it's making a big, hugenoise, a huge racket.
People are like these peopleare drunk, and Peter's like no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, they'renot.
They're full of the spirit ofGod, and it says that the people
around them start to listen towhat they're saying.
And it's amazing, because HolySpirit uses the early church,
(18:18):
and he uses them as a vessel ofproclamation.
These are all local Jews.
They have not traveled theworld, they're not from far off
lands, they are Jewish peoplefrom there and he's using them
to speak all these differentlanguages.
And these people who've come infor the celebration come in to
make sacrament, come in to havethat opportunity to be made
right with God.
They're already believers inhim, but as Jews, they start
(18:41):
hearing this word about theglory of God in their own heart
language.
It's why we do things liketranslation into Spanish, for
this service is so that peoplewho have a heart language can
hear the word of God in a waythey understand it, and so the
Holy Spirit of God starts totranslate this right into their
ears.
And it says that all thesepeople start to hear the wonders
(19:02):
of God, the glories of God, intheir own language.
It says both Jews andproselytes, cretans and Arabs,
we hear them telling in our owntongues the mighty works of God.
See, from the very first momentof the impartation of the Holy
Spirit upon the church, he usedthe church to proclaim his glory
(19:25):
, what he wants to do in themand through them, and he's using
a way.
What did they say?
They hear it in their ownlanguage.
See, he is, for the very firstmoment, he's fulfilling the
prophecy that he gave to Abramall the way back in those days
that you will be a blessing toall nations, to all people,
(19:45):
because of your faith and byfaith, they will be in your line
, in your heritage and they,from that very moment, it
expands and blows up the messageof the gospel because it's in
the heart of these people thattraveled there and now they're
going to take it home with them.
It's going to change the worldbecause they have had an
impartation of the spirit of God.
(20:07):
Now it's amazing because we pickup here in Acts 2, 17, and it's
Peter who's giving the sermon.
He says and in the last days itshall be God declares I will
pour out my spirit on all flesh,referencing the days of old and
the prophets of old, and yoursons and your daughters shall
prophesy and your young menshall see, see visions, and your
(20:29):
old men shall dream dreams.
And on my male and femaleservants, in those days I will
pour out my spirit and they willprophesy.
When we hear the word ofprophecy, what it does is that
it's declaring the wonders ofGod.
It's saying ahead of time thatthis is what God is gonna do, or
a word of knowledge that comesfrom him.
It's declaring his glory.
(20:51):
Friends, it's a sign and awonder.
It's a billboard for Godbecause he wants to use us for
his purposes, for his glory.
And think about the guy that'sgiving this sermon.
This is Peter.
This is the guy that was withJesus all those years.
The very guy that turned hisback on him whenever it came
(21:12):
down to Jesus being crucified.
The very one that even deniedhim to a servant girl who was
not a person of authority.
He's like I don't know him, I'mnot connected to him.
And then the rooster crowed andhe was convicted to the bone
about how he had denied Christ.
This is the same Peter that hadwalked on water to Jesus.
This same Peter that was therefor the feeding of the 5,000,
(21:34):
the 4,000.
He saw people healed.
He saw miracles happen.
He denied Jesus, but the Lord,after his resurrection, he goes
and restores Peter back.
He says come, would you comeand feed my sheep?
Will you tend my lambs?
Will you be the one that isactually doing what I've asked
you to do?
(21:55):
And he restores him back intothe disciples.
It's this one, this Peter, thisone that was still packing, you
know, in the garden ofGethsemane, pulled out the sword
, cut someone's ear off.
You know what I mean the gardenof Gethsemane, pulled out the
sword, cut someone's ear off.
You know what I mean?
Still, a salty sailor that Godwas using.
(22:16):
He's the one, not Paul, who's,like you know, a Pharisee of
Pharisees, not a Sadducee, notall these people who are trained
in the law, no, a fisherman iswho God uses to get up full of
his spirit and eloquently tietogether the prophets of old
into what God is doing by hisspirit here in the book of Acts.
And it picks up here and it saysin this next verse it says in
Acts 2.32, this is Jesus, godraised up.
(22:39):
Of that we are all witnesses,being therefore exalted at the
right hand of God, havingreceived from the Father the
promise of the Holy Spirit.
He has poured this out that youyourselves are seeing and
hearing, friends.
What he was declaring was thatthey are called to be empowered
(22:59):
by the Most High God.
And he's talking to all theseJews that are there in the
cities.
He's telling them to their faceyou are the ones that kill
Jesus, but he is the chosen oneand he didn't stay dead.
He has risen and he is backwith the Father.
And guess what?
He's empowering us to go andtake this message of the Messiah
(23:20):
who was foretold for all theseyears to the world.
We're empowered to do so.
And so that's where it picks upwith here.
And what does he say?
The first thing he calls themto do is to.
And so that's where it picks upwith here.
And what does he say?
The first thing he calls themto do is to be those that come
into alignment with it, to beobedient to the word of God.
And so it says that theyaccepted.
It said thousands on one dayaccepted and they changed their
(23:41):
life.
It says in Acts 2 42, and theydevoted themselves to the
apostles teaching and to thefellowship of the breaking of
bread and the prayers, and allcame upon every soul, and many
wonders and signs were beingdone through the apostles.
Friends, life change happenedbecause they stopped trying to
(24:02):
put God aside and just have itfor sacrifice, but instead they
walked empowered by the spiritof God.
So the miracle happens, and themiracle happens, and the
miracle happens.
And the miracle happens becausethey're doing it not of their
own power, but their ownalignment with what he wants to
do through them.
Would you say amen to that?
And so that's when we startlooking at scripture.
(24:23):
We see that life change moment.
It changes everything for themand it really makes that marker
of a difference, of what'shappening.
You can imagine how you knowthey're called to action.
They're not called to sitaround a campfire singing
Kumbaya.
And I think so often that'sexactly where you know, we want
to feel, we want the feels ofthe Sunday morning or the
(24:44):
gatherings on the weekend, wewant that warm and fuzzy, and
there's nothing wrong with that.
That's why we come together,the encouragement, the building
up of the church.
But see, friends, that's notwhere it ends.
That's the empowerment momentto release us into the world, to
release you back into yoursphere of influence, back into
your neighborhood, back intoyour family, back into your
friend group.
You back into your sphere ofinfluence, back into your
(25:06):
neighborhood, back into yourfamily, back into your friend
group, back with your colleagues, that you would be the light in
a spiritually dark place.
And so that's why we're notcalled to just sit around the
campfire scene, kumbaya.
We're called to be thechallenge to the world so that
they can see the light of God inus.
Would you say amen to that?
And so that's the life changethat we're talking about.
And so we pick up here in Acts10, and what starts to happen is
(25:29):
that fire that starts in them.
Well, it takes off.
And so, peter, he goes and hasthis vision.
He has this vision of what Godhas given him, and it says in
Acts 10 that he's someone whostarts to go and he starts to be
obedient to what God is saying.
Now Peter knows that they'recalled to a different thing.
As Jews, they're called to stayseparate, away from Gentiles.
(25:50):
And so he has this vision fromGod that God says what I have
now called clean is not unclean.
And so he says that you arecalled to go to be with the
Gentiles.
And so someone sends a runnerto him and he goes to the man's
house.
And he's hesitant at firstbecause he knows that as a Jew
he's never supposed to go into aGentile home.
But he just got told by theLord to go to the Gentiles.
(26:11):
So he, in obedience, goesObedience better than sacrifice.
So, by obedience, he goes.
And when he comes there, hestarts to proclaim the goodness
of God.
And there's a group of peoplethat have come together and he
starts to tell them this.
It says to him all the prophetsbear witness, everyone who
believes in him receivesforgiveness of sins.
(26:31):
Through his name, he'sdeclaring who Jesus is as the
Messiah.
It picks up in verse 44.
It says, while Peter was stillsaying these things, the Holy
Spirit fell on all who heard theword, and the believers from
among the circumcised who hadcame with Peter were amazed
(26:52):
because the gift of the HolySpirit was poured out even on
the Gentiles.
Someone, give glory to God forhis grace on us.
We're so very thankful, see,for you and I myself not being
100% Jewish, all of us would beconsidered Gentiles, and so,
even though that first movementof the Holy Spirit upon those
(27:14):
different languages, those wereall Jews, those are all people
who had become Jews, and thoseare people who were the children
of God expecting the Messiah.
These Gentiles, they're adifferent group, these are
Romans, these are other people,these are people like you and I,
by faith.
See, we don't have to become aJew first in order to become a
Christ follower with the Messiah.
Instead, by faith, we arebrought into who he is, in the
(27:38):
fullness of God.
As co-heirs with Christ, calledto be the children of the
Almighty, we're grafted into thetree that he's called his
family.
And so what's amazing is thatwe don't replace the children of
God.
We're brought into, we'reextended out to, and it says
that all who heard by faithreceived it.
They received this power, theyreceived what happens, and in
(28:00):
this moment, holy Spirit fallsand so they're speaking in other
tongues and Holy Spirit ispraying through them, and this
is a marker to all the otherleaders who are also Jewish.
They're like well, this is God.
How can we say anythingdifferent?
He's the one who is theinitiator of these things.
It's God's spirit upon them,and so what happens in this
(28:21):
moment is that the scripture isfurther fulfilled, that the
obedience that Abraham said whenhe says go from your house and
your parents' house to a land Iwill show you in Genesis 12.
When he says these things byfaith, abraham, at that time he
was obedient and he left out andsaid yes to God, small steps.
Yes to God, small steps.
(28:42):
See, friends, that's the samething he wants to do in your
life and my life.
See, god couldn't have taken aguy down here at this altar
right here.
He couldn't have taken a guywho wanted to do his own plan
and taken and used that personas a missionary in Europe and a
missionary in the Middle Eastand to pastor churches.
He couldn't have done thatbecause that guy had his own
plan.
But guess what?
By saying yes to the smallthing there and then saying yes
(29:07):
the next day and the next dayafter that, and even God helping
me whenever, even as a youthpastor, I made a boneheaded
mistakes like throwing frozenturkeys through the wall of the
multipurpose room, he stillhelped me figure it out.
And what happens is your smallyes turns into the big change
(29:29):
that happens in the worldbecause you consistently say yes
to God.
And so what's happening here isthat all those people, in that
moment the world expands and Godexpands and brings all of us in
by faith to be the children offaith, just like Abraham had
foretold that all of yourdescendants would be like the
stars of the sky, because all ofus belong, like he does, to God
(29:54):
by faith.
And so, as we look at scripture, we continue to hear, with the
Holy Spirit pouring out, 1Thessalonians 1,.
This is now Paul writing to thechurch at Thessaloniki.
He says, as we know, brothersloved by God, that he has chosen
you because our gospel came toyou not only in word, but in
(30:16):
power and in the Holy Spirit andwith full conviction.
You know what kind of men weprove to be among you, for your
sake.
What is he saying to the churchof Thessaloniki?
We know that you belong to Godbecause he came and showed up in
power and you have beenempowered by the Holy Spirit to
live for him in spiritually darkplaces.
(30:37):
And so what happens is they areon fire for God, they get
sparked for God and they'reliving as a fire for God, and so
that's why Paul, writing to thechurch later, he's encouraging
them.
In the same way, he wouldencourage us to live for God for
the day and live for God fortomorrow and live for God the
day after that.
And as you continue to live forGod, full of the spirit of God
(30:59):
and keeping your hand off thecontrol, then he will guide you
where you're supposed to go.
He will do the work, he will dothe miracle in and through your
life.
You want to see life change inyour family.
You want to see it in your kids, you want to see it in your
grandkids.
Then you have to say yes first,and he'll do something in your
life, and then he'll dosomething in their life.
You worry about you beingobedient to God and you say yes
(31:21):
to him and see what will happenwhen he uses you as an example
to other people.
Man, my friends couldn't believeit when I told them I was going
to leave corporate America tobecome a pastor.
They were like, I'm sorry, who?
Who?
You, the one with the big nose?
No, no, no, this is a bad idea.
We can see Pastor Celeste.
She's very anointed.
We see Pastor Angus, veryanointed Maybe not you.
(31:44):
Have you thought about somethingelse?
See, I'm thankful, because it'snot them that qualify me.
It's not someone else whoqualifies you, see, it's he who
qualifies us.
And so when we say yes to him,then we obediently be to him,
then our obedience is what opensup the blessing of God who
qualifies us.
And so when we say yes to him,then we obediently be to him,
then we, obedient with ourobedience, is what opens up the
(32:06):
blessing of God to guide us inthe direction we're called to go
.
And so that's what theempowerment of the Holy Spirit
is about is that we would bethose who are full of the Spirit
, empowered by him.
We go back to what we talkedabout a few weeks back in Luke
24, verse 46.
He said to them.
Thus it is written that Christshould suffer and, on the third
(32:30):
day, rise from the dead, andthat repentance for the
forgiveness of sin should beproclaimed in his name to all
nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
Friends, his plan always, whenJesus came, was redemption for
all people.
His plan for you is that youdon't stay in your brokenness
(32:50):
from before, you don't stay inyour addiction from before, you
don't stay in the shame of yourmistakes from before, but as a
new creation in Christ,empowered by his spirit, you
live a different path that hehas for you, and in doing so, it
changes everything for yourlife, because now you're walking
by faith, you're walking in acommunity of faith, not alone,
(33:13):
and you're walking this plan out, whereas the plan before was
your plan and now the plan ishis plan.
And, friends, what's amazingabout that is he wants to use
you as an example to thosearound you that you love.
He wants to use you as anexample to those around you
don't like, so that they canbecome people that you love,
(33:36):
because, just like you wereunlovely before God got a hold
of you, he wants to do the samefor them, and so that's why he
says to turn the cheek, that'swhy he says to pray for those
who persecute you.
That's why he says to lovethose who are the unlovely,
because we all are the unlovelyand he loved us first.
(33:57):
That's why, by the power of thespirit, we're called to walk a
different path.
That's why today, as we come tothis altar, we do so with
intentionality to ask for moreof Holy Spirit, for a fresh
anointing, for less of us andmore of Him in our lives.
Luke 24, 48 says you arewitnesses of these things and
behold, I'm sending the promiseof my Father upon you, but stay
(34:20):
in this city until you'reclothed with power from on high.
See, holy Spirit'sparticipation in your life is
one where you invite him in.
It's one where you are the onesaying Lord, I want more of you,
come into my life.
I want the promise of thefather.
I want the fire, the passionfor God.
(34:41):
I want a bird inside of me,like a flame.
I want something to happeninside of me where I'm empowered
to say yes to you and to followwhere you're leading me.
Friends, it's all about thatfirst moment where we say yes to
him, and my challenge to youtoday is that every single
(35:01):
person would come out of theirseats and come up to this altar,
and that you would make a placewith God, inviting him to have
his way, and that you would say,lord, that your will be done.
Friends, let's be on fire forGod.
Today, as we come to this altar,we do so understanding that
it's our ambition to be morelike Jesus.
(35:23):
And maybe you're here andyou've never made a decision to
follow Christ.
Today is your opportunity.
It's your opportunity to sayyes to him.
Each one of us has to answerthat question have you embraced
Jesus?
See, none of us is perfect.
All of us have sinned andfallen short of the glory of God
, and so all of us are in needof a savior.
And so that's why, today, us asChrist followers.
(35:46):
It doesn't make us any holierthan anyone else, but what it
does mean is that we haveembraced the saving love of
Jesus Christ and that he lovedus and he's changed us and
forgiven us, made us into a newcreation.
And so that's what it means toembrace Jesus.
But it's not just a get out ofhell free card.
It's a living with him as ourLord and savior every day.
(36:10):
See, for us, the symbol of thecross is one of transformation.
It's profound because upon thecross he took all of my sin and
all of my mistakes and all of mybrokenness, and he took all of
yours as well, and he paid forit once and for all, for all
people, for all time.
(36:30):
And when he did that, he made away for us to be reconnected to
the Father in relationship.
And when he returned back tothe Father, he gives us Holy
Spirit to be the one who's withus.
He says, an advocate for us,the one who helps us, guides us,
directs us, and so we're notleft alone.
And so, by placing our faithand trust in jesus, we say lord,
(36:53):
I believe you are who you sayyou are, and, lord, I invite you
into my life to be the lord andsavior of my life.
I want to live a different path.
I believe in you, the ApostlePaul.
He writes to the church at Rome.
He says it a little different.
He says it like this Because ifyou confess with your mouth
(37:13):
that Jesus is Lord and believein your heart that God raised
him from the dead, you will besaved, it says, for with the
heart one believes and isjustified, with the mouth one
confesses and is saved.
Friends, today is your day.
It's your opportunity to sayyes to Jesus.
I'm gonna ask everyone in theroom to stand to your feet.
(37:34):
Right where you're at, you canbow your heads.
Christians are praying rightnow as people are making
decisions to follow Jesus.
Man, this first service, wealready had people make a
decision to follow Jesus.
We had people that made adecision today that people have
been praying for for years madea decision today to follow Jesus
.
(37:56):
Friends, the same could be saidfor you that today would be your
day making a decision to followJesus as heads are bowed here
in the room.
If that's you, maybe you'venever made a decision to follow
Jesus.
Today's your opportunity, ormaybe you have in the past.
But, like my story from myyouth, you've walked away from
actively living for God.
Today's an opportunity for youto recommit your heart and your
(38:20):
life back to Christ.
As heads are bowed here in theroom, if you just raise your
hand right where you're at andsay pastor, that's me today.
I just wanna invite Christ intomy life.
I wanna make a decision tofollow Jesus today.
See the hands that are raised.
People making decisions, peoplereinforcing decisions.
Hand I see that hand.
I see that hand.
I see that hand.
Thank you, lord.
Thank you, lord.
Others, thank you Lord.
Others, friends online,wherever you are, I see you
(38:42):
making a decision for Jesus.
I'm gonna ask if you would, ifeveryone would, pray this prayer
out loud after me.
Lord, thank you for loving me.
Thank you for sending Jesus.
I believe Jesus died on thecross for my sins.
(39:02):
I believe he rose again.
Forgive me of my sins.
I surrender my life to you InChrist's name.
I pray Amen, amen.
Friends, we rejoice with youmaking a decision to follow
Jesus today.
Several people raising theirhand in this service Praise God,
(39:22):
praise the Lord.
Know this.
We rejoice with you making adecision to follow Jesus today.
Several people raising theirhand in this service.
Praise God, praise the Lord.
Know this.
We want to connect with youbefore you leave here today.
Put some resources into yourhands.
Please connect with us so thatwe can do so and if you're
online, message us.
You're not called to do thislife alone, friends.
For all of us, we're calledtoday to come and make an altar
with God, to come and to say Ineed more of you, holy Spirit.
(39:45):
I need a fresh anointing of youin my life, and so my challenge
to you, to all of us is that wewould come and make an altar
with God and ask for more of theimpartation of the Spirit and
then walk in obedience with whathe calls us to do.
Lord, we thank you for yourword today.
Lord, we thank you how youbreathe upon it.
You make it alive, youchallenge us, lord, and in doing
(40:06):
so, lord, we need more of yourspirit, holy Spirit, that you
would have your way in us andyou would baptize us afresh and
anew, Lord, and as we come tothis altar, we do so with
intentionality.
Lord, we need more of yourpresence, we need more of your
spirit.
Lord, we're asking for abreakthrough in our life.
Lord for guidance, for wisdom.
Lord for provision, lord forrelationships.
Lord, we need more of you inour life.
(40:29):
And so, lord, we come nowasking for that movement, asking
for those very things in ourlife.
Lord, we come and make an altarwith you.
Lord, we pray this in the nameof Jesus Christ, amen.
Hey, let me encourage you, guys.
If you haven't signed up, gents, let me encourage you to go and
sign up for the Camp and Fish.
It's happening this weekend andit's a powerful time.
It's fun because a lot of guys.
(40:49):
They aren't connected and soit's a great way to build some
friendships.
I know a lot of guys actuallyhave built some really good
friends out of going and, in mycase, not catching fish, but
you'll do better.
So sign up and participate withus.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
And next Sunday is Father's Day, and so we are
excited.
We're going to honor the men inour lives.
So if you have somebody a dad,a grandpa that doesn't come,
bring them, invite them.
It's going to be a fantasticSunday.
So, ladies, consider this yourseven-day warning to get
everything ready for next Sunday.
It's going to be a great day.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
Before we go, I'm going to pray this blessing over
us.
The Lord bless you and keep you.
Lord, make his face to shineupon you and be gracious to you.
We'll lift up his countenanceupon you and give you peace.
(41:44):
Lord, I pray a blessing uponyour church, your people.
Lord, 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 much here atCornerstone.
God bless you and have a greatweek.
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