How to Access Power

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- Hey, welcome to Crossroads.

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I'm Andy, the community pastor

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for our Crossroads Anywhere community.

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Crossroads is a church of people meeting

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both physically and digitally all over the map.

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And today we're jumping into the book of Acts,

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but first, I want to celebrate the life change

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that took place in our church last week

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during our Easter services.

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Across all of our sites and online

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we had 857 people baptized just last weekend,

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and even more all over the globe

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that are waiting to be baptized.

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One of our community members, Ethan,

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actually got baptized in Japan last week.

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Hey, well done Ethan, that is amazing.

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Now, right now we're about to go into a time of worship

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and we do this every single week for lots of reasons.

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But one of those reasons is because we believe

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God is good and that He's faithful

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and that He's full of love.

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And we want to declare that and to remember it

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and to remind ourselves of it.

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So wherever you are, turn up your music

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and let's worship together right now.

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- All the praise that I give my God is because

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He's rescued me and set me free.

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This is that story

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- I see some folks who got baptized

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this weekend in the room.

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If you got baptized at Easter, make some noise.

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I see you, I see the shirts.

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You have new life.

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You have the Holy Spirit walking with you now

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and that's all of our desire as believers

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is to have His presence.

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That's why we say...

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- Let me pray for us.

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Father God, anything that wells up inside of us,

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anything in this moment that wells up inside of us,

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like an applause, like that,

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just putting our hands together and making a noise,

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or lifting our voices too,

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anything that wells up inside of us that says

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today we have something to be grateful for,

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we know all that falls short of what you're worthy of,

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but it's what You've given us to praise You with.

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And so we say, "Everything I'm grateful for

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has a source and I bring my gratitude to You,

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my King and my Rescuer, the One who sets me free."

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So I don't know what kind of day we've all had.

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I don't know if everyone in this place or online

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feels it or doesn't feel it.

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But I say, I throw my feelings aside right now,

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and I give You my heart and my life and my voice

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because you're worthy of it.

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Whether I've had a high day or a low day,

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or just a normal day, I say You are worthy

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of all that I have.

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Thank You for setting me free

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and raising me to full life.

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That's what I'm finding in You, Jesus.

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And I pray all this because of You. Amen.

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Man, that's right.

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So, so good to sing with you.

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I don't know if you came expecting to sing like that

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or experience that, great.

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We've got more in store for you today.

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Why don't you make your way back to your seat,

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or if you're in your seats,

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why don't you turn to somebody and say,

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"I'm glad you made it today.

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Glad to be here with you."

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If you're online, glad you're with us, too.

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- If you're brand new, we want you to know

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that we believe that the church is so much more

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than a building or a religious institution.

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It's actually people, you and me, who are living out

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the movement that Jesus started over 2000 years ago.

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We want this to be a place that you can fully belong to

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no matter where you live.

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And so we put a lot of time and energy

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into making that possible.

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And one of the most unique and exciting ways

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that you can engage is coming up,

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it is just something we call Horse Weekend.

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It has a better name, but that's what I call it.

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We are actually inviting back our friend Todd Pierce,

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and he is going to train a wild horse in under an hour.

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Yes, in our building on our stage,

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live in front of a crowd and online.

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Yes, it is as crazy and cool as it might sound,

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and I promise you, it will be one of

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the most memorable church experiences of your life

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and one of the most clear and compelling pictures

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of God's love for you.

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That will be in about a month from now,

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from May 2nd through 5th, with each service

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available to watch online.

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You do not want to miss it.

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Another way that you can engage with us at Crossroads,

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and particularly for those of us that

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don't live near one of our physical sites,

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is by coming to the Crossroads Anywhere weekend,

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July 19th through 21st.

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You'll have a chance to experience for yourself

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by coming to Cincinnati the global movement

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and community that Crossroads is to resource you

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and help you understand how you can be the church

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no matter where you live.

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And for those of you who consider yourselves

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in around here, we're able to make

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these experiences and so much more happen

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because of those who choose to give.

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Seriously, everything we do is made possible

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by the generosity of normal, everyday people.

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There are no corporate sponsors here.

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So if you'd like to join in giving,

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or if you just want to check out what we believe

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about money or what we spend our money on,

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you can do that at crossroads.net/give.

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Now, today we'll be in the book of Acts

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and learning how the Holy Spirit brings us power.

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Let's jump in with Chuck Mingo right now.

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- Wherever you're listening to this,

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so glad to be with you.

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I'm Chuck Mingo and I want to tell you,

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you talk about can't count them, the things that God has done.

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I don't know if you know this or not,

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but last weekend was Easter. I know you know that.

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I know you know that last weekend was Easter.

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What you may not know is that power,

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that God power was moving in the lives of people

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in an amazing way and 857 people

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across all the Crossroads locations

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were baptized last weekend.

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That's the kind of power that we're talking about today.

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Amazing, amazing.

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And what happened last week was really special for me.

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Last Sunday, along with being Easter,

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was my 48th birthday, so I had a birthday.

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Thank you. Thank God for another year of life.

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And thank you for your card always, Angie.

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I always look forward to seeing it.

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And so it was awesome to have your card.

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And I was, like, now this is a little secret for you.

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You know, it's like all hands on deck

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for church workers when it comes to Easter.

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But because I have a different role now,

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I came on Saturday and got to enjoy the service

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and chill on Sunday on my birthday.

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And so I had this, you know, tradition every year,

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I will go to the park.

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I will kind of take a walk,

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reflect on the year that was,

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think about the year ahead.

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But of course, it was storming in Cincinnati

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last Sunday, so I didn't get to do that.

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So later in the afternoon it cleared up.

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It was beautiful.

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And I told my wife, Maria, I said,

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"I am either about to take a nap

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or I'm going to go take that walk."

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She was like, "Well, you should take the walk

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because you're planning on doing it."

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And so I was like, chill.

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I had on my sweats, my hoodie,

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leaving the house to go take this walk.

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I get in my car and I'm greeted with a text

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before I leave my street from my friend

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before I pulled away.

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This is a guy I've known for a long, long time,

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and I've known his daughter since she was little.

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And he texted me and said,

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"My daughter just decided she wanted to get baptized."

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And he said, "We would love for you to do it.

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Are you in the building?"

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I told him, "I'm not in the building,

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but give me seven minutes and I will be there."

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And so I rolled up here in my hoodie

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and got to baptize my friend's daughter.

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It was a birthday I will never forget,

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and it's part of the power of God working in lives.

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Who wants to see more of that?

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I want to see more of that.

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I want to see more of that.

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That's what we're kind of leaning into in this series.

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Let's pray as we get started.

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God, thank You that You are a God who changes lives.

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Thank You that as we even look at the book of Acts,

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we're not talking about history only,

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we're talking about what You want to do

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right here and right now.

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God, You know the truth is it's been a crazy week for me.

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You know that it's been hard in a lot of ways.

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And I also know that because of Your power

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I can be here and I can stand and I can share

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the good news of what You do

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through the power of the Holy Spirit.

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I pray for that power now. In Jesus's name, Amen.

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I want to give you a little bit of a history lesson

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to start, because I'm sure that all of us remember

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in school learning about

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the bloody French Revolution, right?

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Like just the way that revolution happened in France.

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And yet at the same time, you had many of

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the same dynamics happening in the nation of England,

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and yet there wasn't a bloody revolution.

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And as historians, not just Christian historians,

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have looked at what made the difference,

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they point to something called the Great Awakening.

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And the Great Awakening was a time where in England,

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literally in droves, people were being drawn to Jesus.

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They were filling up churches

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and all kinds of things were happening,

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not just people's individual lives being changed,

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but social conditions being changed as well.

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One of my favorite pastors recently passed away,

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but he wrote this about the Great Awakening. He says:

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(that's what we're talking about in this series),

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The rich and the poor were changed

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by the power of what we're talking about today,

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God's Holy Spirit.

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And I don't know about you,

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but I long for that to happen in my day.

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I long for that to happen

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in our moment in history right now.

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And the big idea today is this:

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if we want to have that kind of dynamic life,

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if we want to see that kind of dynamic change,

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we cannot rely on our own power.

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We need the Holy Spirit. We need the Holy Spirit.

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You know, when we think about Holy Spirit,

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you probably think about this, right?

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Father, Son, and you just know the Holy Spirit gets two right?

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Like the Holy Spirit gets two.

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But who is this Holy Spirit?

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Well, God, we learn that the Holy Spirit is

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actually part of the way that God moves in our lives.

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The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity.

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This is a mystery.

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Every time I talk about the Trinity,

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I always tell people, like, it's a mystery.

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How do I explain the fact that God is one being

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that exists as three persons; God the Father,

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God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit?

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And yet that is what's revealed in Scripture.

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We're going to read today Jesus, God the Son,

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talking about God the Spirit, like so this is a thing.

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But the Holy Spirit in particular

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is the part of the Trinity that

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dwells inside of every person who trusts Jesus

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and brings a dynamic power into our lives.

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And that's why we're studying the book of Acts,

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because we want to see that kind

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of transformation in our day.

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We would love to see that.

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In fact, next week Brian's going to be talking about

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what would it look like for awakening

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to happen in our day.

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You will not want to miss that.

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But in short, this book of Acts that we're looking at

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is the history of the church that Jesus launched

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after He resurrected and eventually ascended to heaven.

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We did a series on this actually this time last year.

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I was looking at my notes, and I realized

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I preached on this same passage a year ago.

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And it's good and right because it is so important.

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And it's also the next step in the story.

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It comes after Easter.

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And so it is really healthy and good for us

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to revisit this, because you have to ask yourself

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the question, how did what the Bible describes

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as 12 unschooled, ordinary men

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lead a movement that within 300 years,

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even though being a Christian could be met with death,

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yet this movement of a ragtag group of people

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who didn't have buildings, didn't have power,

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didn't have prestige, wound up being

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the majority faith in the Roman Empire?

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How did that happen?

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And how is it that 2000 years later,

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in places like Cincinnati and Lexington

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and Columbus and Dayton and all these places

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around the world, there are people

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who still name the name of Jesus

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and whose lives are still being changed by Him,

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and who are actually doing things

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in the name of Jesus to change the world?

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How do you explain that?

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Well, it's certainly not because we're so smart.

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We too are unschooled and ordinary.

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It's not by human power,

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and even the most human power anyway is limited.

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I mean, think about it, our world is full of limits.

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And we love some of these limits, right?

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We love the limit of being able to say no.

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That's a great limit.

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Hopefully you're practicing that

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in wise ways in your life, right?

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We also love limits, like, you know what,

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I'm glad for the weekend.

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Anybody happy that there's a thing

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called the weekend in our culture? Right?

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Like that's a wonderful thing.

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That's a limit where we don't say,

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"Hey, you got to work every day."

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Now, I know some people work more than that,

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and I know some people struggle

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to have weekends off, all of that.

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But at least there is this reality of a limit

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that is available.

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But then there's other limits that we don't like,

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limits that we like to, let's just say exceed.

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Like this one, like this one.

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This is a limit that we certainly like to exceed.

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Somebody was talking about speed limits.

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And speed limits, it's interesting,

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when we read the speed limit, we don't see it as,

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"Okay, that's the maximum speed

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that I can do in this area."

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At least I don't read it like that. Right?

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I'm doing all of that at least. Right?

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If the speed limit is 70. I'm trying to do 70.

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And there are those of you who actually

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like to do 55 when the speed limit is 70.

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And I'm just going to tell you,

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I really need Jesus when I'm behind you.

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I'm just going to be honest with you.

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I really do, because I'm going to try to do 70

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in a 70 mile an hour speed limit area,

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and maybe a little bit more.

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But anyway, but anyway, there's some limits

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that we just try to exceed.

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And then there's this crazy thing called

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the Guinness Book of World Records, right,

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that captures all these other crazy limits

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that people have exceeded.

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Here's a limit that I just love.

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There's a story of a guy, and I don't know

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if I'm pronouncing this city right.

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So you can correct me if you know this,

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but Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, is the home

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of a guy named Don who holds the record

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for having eaten the most Big Macs

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of anybody on record.

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Don has eaten 34,128 Big Macs.

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He usually has a Big Mac for two meals a day.

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So that's how Don rolls.

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And here's what I love.

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It says Don's record now stands at a total

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of 34,128 Big Macs.

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The 70 year old retired prison officer

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from Fort du Lac, Wisconsin,

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ate his first Big Mac almost 52 years ago.

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Let me tell you what I secretly love about this story.

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And listen, let me tell you, I'm trying to eat healthy.

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I encourage people to eat healthy,

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but you got to love a guy that is 70 years old

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and retired and makes two of his meals Big Macs,

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and he's still living his best life.

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God bless Don. God bless Don.

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So, like, there's something about that.

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But the truth is we want to be like Don.

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We want to exceed limits.

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In fact, there's a quote from a favorite song that says:

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Does anybody know what that song is?

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I thought we'd have at least one music head in the house.

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That's Elphaba.

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That's Elphaba from Wicked, Defying Gravity.

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Now, if you're disappointed, you've seen Wicked

00:31:18

and you're like, "I should have known that," right?

00:31:20

You know Elphaba says that.

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How many people agree with Elphaba,

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you want to defy gravity?

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You wish you could break through those limits?

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Raise your hand. Be honest.

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Don't we want to break limits? We want to break limits.

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But here's the thing. Elphaba is wrong.

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Elphaba is wrong.

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We can try to go through those human limits,

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but it doesn't work. Our self help falls short.

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But the good news is that God, through the Holy Spirit,

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wants to empower us to live a limitless life,

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and we are able to experience that

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through relationship with Him.

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It's interesting we have access to unlimited power

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because Jesus left.

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And no, you didn't hear me incorrectly.

00:31:55

You think I might say we have access to this power

00:31:57

because Jesus came.

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But Jesus Himself says the reason we'll have

00:32:02

access to this power is because He's leaving.

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He says this in John 16:7:

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It is to your advantage that I go away.

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He's saying this to his disciples

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before He was going to die on the Cross,

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knowing that after the Cross was Resurrection,

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and 40 days after being with them

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in His resurrected body, He was ascending back to heaven.

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He was ascending back to the realm of being with the Father.

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And so Jesus tells the disciples, but

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"Hey, it is better for you if I leave."

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"Really? Jesus."

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I mean, I don't know about you,

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but if I was in that conversation

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and I had spent three years with literally

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the Son of God, like, the guy that can take

00:32:35

two fish and three loaves of bread and make a buffet,

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like the guy that's able to, like, raise the dead.

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Jesus, is this negotiable? Can we talk about this?

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Because I kind of like having You here.

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What would it be like to kick some Jesus for 3 years?

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You know, like, for Jesus to be with you in your job,

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like, literally with you, like, Jesus is next to you.

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He's in the cube next to you.

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Like, I want to try that.

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What would it be like to hoop with Jesus?

00:32:58

Of course He'd make every shot, you know we know that.

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But like, what would it be like to be with Jesus?

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And yet Jesus says it even better for you if leave.

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You know why?

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Because out of love Jesus limited Himself

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when He was on the earth.

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He limited Himself to a human body

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that could only be in one place at one time.

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He limited Himself to a body that would be tired.

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He limited Himself to a body that felt the pain

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so that He could fully experience

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what it is to be human

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and so that in that physical body

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He could suffer crucifixion on our behalf.

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So what Jesus is saying is, "Hey,

00:33:37

I'm going back to the Father.

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I'm going to be limitless,

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but I'm not going to leave you as orphans.

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I love when He said that to the disciples.

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Out of love He limited Himself, but out of love

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He also promises not to leave us as orphans.

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And so the focus verse of the rest of our time today

00:33:54

is one of the words of how Jesus said this to His disciples.

00:33:56

And we want to break this down and understand

00:33:58

what was the promise that Jesus made

00:34:00

in promising the Holy Spirit?

00:34:01

Because if we want to live a dynamic life,

00:34:03

we can't rely on our own power.

00:34:05

We have to have the power of the Holy Spirit.

00:34:07

So in Acts chapter one, first chapter of Acts,

00:34:10

this is after Jesus has spent 40 days

00:34:12

hanging out with the disciples, or in the midst of that 40 days

00:34:15

after He had resurrected, He says this

00:34:16

to his disciples in Acts 1:8:

00:34:30

I want to talk about that word power,

00:34:32

because the word there in the Greek language

00:34:34

is the word "dynamis."

00:34:36

Does that sound like a word that, you know?

00:34:39

Dynamite. It's where we get the word dynamite from.

00:34:41

It's also where we get the word dynamic from.

00:34:43

So Jesus isn't saying, "I'm going to give you

00:34:46

the kind of power that you get from a AAA battery."

00:34:49

Jesus is saying, "I'm going to give you

00:34:51

nuclear level power, life changing power,

00:34:56

city transforming power, life impacting power

00:35:00

where you will be able to do things

00:35:02

that you couldn't do in your humanness."

00:35:05

And He's going to give us that through the Holy Spirit.

00:35:08

That's why it says in Romans 1:16:

00:35:16

Those 857 people who got baptized

00:35:19

in all of our sites last week

00:35:21

did not get up and do that on their own power.

00:35:24

It is the Spirit that awakened them to who Jesus is,

00:35:27

created that desire to follow Jesus

00:35:29

and gave them the boldness to publicly declare

00:35:32

that I am going to die to the life that I used to have,

00:35:35

and I'm going to rise to life in Jesus.

00:35:37

And then as they lived that life in their families,

00:35:39

in their communities, in their cities,

00:35:40

they are empowered by the Holy Spirit to do so.

00:35:44

And it's why Paul says this.

00:35:46

One of the things that I pray every time I preach

00:35:48

is I pray that this would be true for me.

00:35:50

Paul is talking about preaching

00:35:52

in 1 Corinthians 2:4-5, he says:

00:36:01

Now I prepare when I get up to speak,

00:36:04

and I hope that what I say makes a half a bit of sense.

00:36:06

I do. And yet the thing that needs to happen

00:36:10

in spaces like this is not for Chuck

00:36:12

to come up with an eloquent way to, you know,

00:36:15

codify some things into three points.

00:36:17

What needs to happen is somehow the Holy Spirit

00:36:20

uses my words to penetrate your heart through His power.

00:36:23

That's what this is about.

00:36:25

And it's only possible through the Holy Spirit.

00:36:28

I know that especially on days like today

00:36:31

when I've had the kind of week that I've had.

00:36:34

Because I want to be honest with you,

00:36:36

I don't want to be here right now.

00:36:38

I want to be home under the covers crying.

00:36:43

It's been a hard week.

00:36:44

There's been a lot of things demanded of me this week.

00:36:47

There have been a lot of difficult conversations

00:36:49

I've had to have this week, and they're not done.

00:36:52

And I'm going to tell you,

00:36:53

I can't stand here in my own power today.

00:36:55

I can't. I can only be here

00:36:57

through the power of the Holy Spirit.

00:37:00

And I trust that He's going to do something

00:37:02

with all that I'm feeling and all that I'm wrestling with,

00:37:05

that He's going to do something that I can't do.

00:37:08

Because this power comes

00:37:09

and it does many things for our lives.

00:37:10

But I want to just focus on two things

00:37:12

that it does for the rest of our time.

00:37:14

The first is, the power of the Holy Spirit

00:37:15

gives us the power to remember our worth.

00:37:18

I love Black Panther.

00:37:20

It's one of my favorite movies,

00:37:22

and one of my favorite scenes in that movie

00:37:24

is when the battle scene is happening.

00:37:26

If you haven't seen the movie, you should watch it.

00:37:28

But if you know that scene, it's kind of like, you know,

00:37:30

T'Challa has to kind of battle to become the king.

00:37:33

And at one point he's losing the battle to M'Baku.

00:37:35

And you hear the voice of Angela Bassett,

00:37:37

which, honestly, Angela Bassett could speak to me

00:37:39

and it would make me want to live a better life,

00:37:41

like, I mean, just, you know,

00:37:42

anytime Angela Bassett says something, I'm down. Right?

00:37:44

So, but she says to him in the midst of the crowd,

00:37:47

"Show them who you are."

00:37:50

And it's almost like that word breathes more life into him.

00:37:54

He gets a new strength, and he's able to live

00:37:57

and fight and ultimately become the king.

00:38:00

And I want to tell you, that's one of the ways

00:38:02

the Holy Spirit works in our lives,

00:38:05

is He helps us to remember who we are.

00:38:08

I did a -- and the reason I want to say it

00:38:10

is because where we take that question

00:38:12

of where our worth comes from is really important.

00:38:14

And we can take that question to a lot of bad places.

00:38:17

I did an experiment with my son.

00:38:18

It's part of a father/son journey that we're on

00:38:21

as he's turning 13 later this year,

00:38:23

and it's called the Magic Eight Ball Adventure.

00:38:25

Anybody ever played with the magic eight ball, right?

00:38:27

You know, you ask it a question and it's like,

00:38:29

yes, maybe, not today, whatever it says, right?

00:38:32

Well, here's the deal.

00:38:33

We live five minutes from Aldi.

00:38:35

And so the way this worked, he didn't know this,

00:38:37

but I knew this. I said, "All right, Sam,

00:38:39

here's what we're going to do.

00:38:40

I got the GPS. The GPS is pointing to Aldi,

00:38:42

but instead of doing what the GPS tells us

00:38:45

whenever we get to an intersection,

00:38:46

we're going to shake the magic eight ball

00:38:48

and see if it wants us to go left or right.

00:38:50

And we're gonna do that for ten minutes

00:38:51

and see if we end up at Aldi's."

00:38:54

We did not end up at Aldi's.

00:38:58

And the reason that that was a great experience

00:39:01

is because I was able to use that to say,

00:39:03

"Sam, when we take our questions of worth,

00:39:06

of identity to any place other than God

00:39:08

and the Holy Spirit, we do not end up at Aldi's.

00:39:11

We end up somewhere else."

00:39:13

And it was a powerful thing.

00:39:15

And you know what? Yeah, he's turning 13.

00:39:16

But isn't that true of us whether we're 33, 43, 63, 73,

00:39:21

we can take that question of worth to our work,

00:39:23

we can take that question of work to sex and dating.

00:39:26

We can take it to our spouse.

00:39:28

We can take it to our body image.

00:39:30

We can take it to how many likes or follows

00:39:32

we're getting on our social media feeds.

00:39:34

We can take that question of worth

00:39:36

to so many of the wrong places.

00:39:40

How do I know that is true?

00:39:41

Because I've tried all of those places myself

00:39:44

and found them to not end up at Aldi's.

00:39:48

I used to say for many years,

00:39:50

and I still wrestle with this today.

00:39:52

I struggle with believing that my worth

00:39:54

is a combination of my performance

00:39:57

and people's opinion of me.

00:39:59

And I've always said that's a faulty value equation,

00:40:01

but I really struggle with that.

00:40:03

And one of the ways the Holy Spirit is healing me,

00:40:06

helping me is He's helping me not to be

00:40:08

like a Labrador retriever who goes around saying,

00:40:11

"Would you please tell me I'm worthy?

00:40:13

Would you please tell me you like me?

00:40:14

Would you please tell me you love me?

00:40:16

Would you please praise me?"

00:40:17

Like I used to live like that all the time.

00:40:20

And the Holy Spirit is saying, "No, no, no, no, no.

00:40:23

That's not who you are. That's not who you are.

00:40:26

Your worth is not come from what you do.

00:40:28

Your worth does not come from some title, Chuck.

00:40:30

Your worth comes from Me.

00:40:33

You're My child, and that's what makes you worthy."

00:40:35

And thank God that's not just true for me,

00:40:37

it's true for everyone who is in relationship with Jesus.

00:40:41

The other thing the Spirit is helping me with

00:40:43

is I heard this phrase this week

00:40:45

and I've been sticking with it.

00:40:46

It helps me kick out the trash talking voice of shame.

00:40:53

Because I struggle with that.

00:40:55

And one of the things I'm realizing is

00:40:57

when shame is impacting my image,

00:41:00

when I'm in a place where I feel ashamed

00:41:03

or I'm feeling shamed or whatever,

00:41:04

it either shows up in one of two ways.

00:41:06

I either rear up and want to defend,

00:41:09

or I want to run away and retreat.

00:41:12

And one of the things this week has required of me

00:41:15

is to stay at the table in difficult conversations.

00:41:19

Stay at the table when I am being misunderstood.

00:41:22

I don't just feel misunderstood,

00:41:24

I really am being misunderstood.

00:41:26

And one of the things the Holy Spirit is doing

00:41:28

in those moments is just reminding me, "Chuck,

00:41:31

show them who you are.

00:41:34

You don't have to think about

00:41:36

your worst mistake is who you are.

00:41:38

Know that I set your identity.

00:41:40

And because of that, you don't have to hear

00:41:42

the voice of shame, you can hear My voice

00:41:44

and you can stay at the table."

00:41:45

This is what the Holy Spirit does.

00:41:47

This is why in Romans 8:16, I love this verse. It says:

00:41:55

Man, I need that moment by moment.

00:41:57

I need that day by day.

00:41:59

I need that when things are hard.

00:42:00

I need the Spirit, the power, the dynamic power

00:42:03

of the spirit to remind me that I am a child of God.

00:42:07

There's a song that we have sung around here

00:42:10

and these words have been words I've just been

00:42:13

continually singing over myself this week.

00:42:15

I'm already loved. I'm already chosen.

00:42:19

I know who I am. I know what You've spoken.

00:42:23

I'm already loved more than I can imagine.

00:42:26

And that is enough.

00:42:29

And man, if I can rest in that place,

00:42:31

then it kicks out the trash talking voice of shame.

00:42:34

If I can rest in that place, then my value equation

00:42:36

doesn't become my performance

00:42:37

and other people's opinions of me.

00:42:38

My value equation is I'm already loved.

00:42:42

I'm already chosen. I am God's child.

00:42:45

And I can only experience that through

00:42:47

the power of the Holy Spirit.

00:42:49

And when you experience that kind of power,

00:42:51

you know what it makes you want to do?

00:42:53

It makes you want to tell everybody

00:42:54

about how good God is.

00:42:56

It makes you want to tell everybody about

00:42:57

what's possible through a relationship with Jesus.

00:43:00

It makes you want to be a witness.

00:43:03

That's what Jesus says in Acts 1:8.

00:43:05

He says, "You'll receive that power,

00:43:07

and that power is for worth.

00:43:08

But that power is ultimately so you can be a witness."

00:43:11

Can I get a witness? [applause]

00:43:13

That's what Jesus is looking for.

00:43:14

He's saying, "Can I get a witness?"

00:43:17

And what do I mean when I say a witness?

00:43:19

A witness is someone who's a sign of coming attractions.

00:43:23

It doesn't mean we're going to be perfect,

00:43:24

but the Spirit will enable you to love in a way

00:43:28

that is so different from the way

00:43:29

people have experienced love, that it's a sign

00:43:32

of the coming attraction of when Jesus is King

00:43:34

and there's perfect love on the earth.

00:43:36

When you're a witness, you're able to give grace

00:43:39

in a way that people have not experienced

00:43:41

and it's a sign of a coming attraction

00:43:43

that a day is coming when full grace

00:43:45

will be experienced by all.

00:43:47

When you are a person who is a witness,

00:43:49

you're able to be generous in a way that says

00:43:51

there is a generous God.

00:43:52

His generosity would blow you away.

00:43:55

When you're able to be a witness, you're empowered

00:43:58

by the Holy Spirit to make people say,

00:44:00

"I want to know this Jesus that you talk about.

00:44:03

I want to know Him. I want to experience Him myself."

00:44:06

Because I have a question for you.

00:44:07

Do you think that the world as it is right now

00:44:09

is as good as it gets?

00:44:11

God, I hope not.

00:44:13

And friends, let me tell you, this is not

00:44:16

what this is going to end up looking like.

00:44:18

The pain that you experience right now

00:44:21

is not what's going to be at the end.

00:44:22

The brokenness, the hatred, the division,

00:44:25

it is not going to end this way.

00:44:28

And so what the Spirit is doing in our day,

00:44:31

as He's done in every day, is He's empowering people

00:44:34

to be a sign of coming attractions

00:44:36

so that more people say, "Man, if this is the way

00:44:38

that Jesus is going, I want to go in Jesus's direction."

00:44:42

And we get to be witnesses of this.

00:44:44

I put it to you like this: God, in His crazy design,

00:44:48

chooses to partner with people to bring that about.

00:44:51

We are God's plan A and He does not have a plan B.

00:44:54

I've heard someone say that,

00:44:56

and I just say Amen to that.

00:44:58

But we can't do this in our own power. We can't.

00:45:01

I love this quote. Somebody said:

00:45:23

And you know what? He does that through you and me.

00:45:25

When you receive power,

00:45:27

when the Holy Spirit comes upon you,

00:45:29

you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea,

00:45:32

Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

00:45:34

And we see this over and over again in the book of Acts.

00:45:36

We see people doing supernatural things.

00:45:38

One of the amazing stories that I love

00:45:40

in the book of acts, I love it for two reasons.

00:45:43

I love it because it's a miraculous story,

00:45:45

but it also love it because it helps explain

00:45:48

history and context.

00:45:49

I don't know if you know this or not,

00:45:51

but Ethiopia is one of the oldest places

00:45:54

where there's an expression of Christianity.

00:45:56

Christianity has been a part of

00:45:57

the Ethiopian culture for a really long time.

00:46:00

And I believe in the book of Acts we get the answer to why.

00:46:03

Because there's an experience that happens

00:46:05

in the book of Acts chapter eight,

00:46:07

where one of Jesus's disciples, one of His followers,

00:46:09

his name was Philip, is actually just hanging out.

00:46:12

I don't know what he was doing. He was hanging out.

00:46:14

And the Holy Spirit tells Philip, "Hey, I want you

00:46:17

to go over and engage with that chariot."

00:46:20

Let me read it to you. It comes from Acts 8:29:

00:46:38

Well, let me tell you who this person was.

00:46:40

This man was an Ethiopian eunuch,

00:46:42

and we're adults in the room.

00:46:44

So I'm not going to talk about what a eunuch is.

00:46:46

I'm going to assume you know that.

00:46:47

But what I will say is, one of the reasons

00:46:49

that a man would be castrated in that way

00:46:52

is because they were going to have high access

00:46:56

to the lineage of the king.

00:46:58

And they didn't want that person

00:46:59

to mess up the lineage of the king.

00:47:00

And so that was one of the ways

00:47:02

they ensured that didn't happen.

00:47:03

I know that's barbaric.

00:47:04

I know that's gross, but that was the way it was.

00:47:07

And particularly, you have to think about it,

00:47:09

this is a person who had the ability

00:47:11

to influence the direction of an entire nation.

00:47:14

And this person is visiting Israel.

00:47:16

I don't know why they were visiting Israel,

00:47:18

but this Ethiopian eunuch is visiting in Israel

00:47:20

and he's reading Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah.

00:47:23

And particularly he's reading the section of Isaiah

00:47:26

that talks about the suffering servant.

00:47:27

He's literally reading prophecies of Jesus

00:47:30

that were written like hundreds of years

00:47:32

before Jesus ever walked on the earth.

00:47:34

And that so happens to be the text t

00:47:36

hat he's wrestling with and struggling with

00:47:38

when the Holy Spirit says to Philip,

00:47:39

one of Jesus's followers, "I want you to go over

00:47:41

and have a conversation with this guy."

00:47:43

So Philip goes over,

00:47:44

has a conversation with this guy,

00:47:45

sits down with him and he's like,

00:47:47

"Do you know what you're reading?"

00:47:48

Guy's like, "No, I don't. You got to explain it to me."

00:47:51

Philip is like, 'Well, let me tell you.

00:47:52

This is the prophet Isaiah.

00:47:53

Isaiah was writing about a suffering servant,

00:47:55

but I know that servant. I met Him. His name is Jesus.

00:47:57

Let me tell you what He did over the three years

00:47:59

of me being on a journey with Him.

00:48:01

And let me tell you about the fact that He was dead

00:48:03

and buried, but three days later He rose again.

00:48:05

This Jesus was alive. We have proof.

00:48:07

I hung out with Him. In fact, it's only been

00:48:09

a couple of weeks since I saw Him.

00:48:10

And I'm telling you, this is all real."

00:48:12

And that Ethiopian eunuch was moved by the Spirit

00:48:16

to believe Philip's message

00:48:18

and eventually said to Philip, "Hey, stop the chariot,

00:48:20

stop the chariot! I want to get baptized

00:48:23

right now in the name of Jesus."

00:48:25

You know, the Ethiopian eunuch then gets baptized.

00:48:28

And the Bible says, when he went down and got baptized,

00:48:31

when he came up, Philip disappeared.

00:48:35

I know that sounds crazy.

00:48:37

And the Holy Spirit does crazy things just like that.

00:48:40

And so I love that story, because

00:48:43

what I want you to know is

00:48:44

those crazy stories didn't just happen back then.

00:48:47

They're happening today.

00:48:49

So I want to share a couple of them with you.

00:48:51

2007, I was in South Africa on my first Go Trip

00:48:56

to South Africa, actually my first Go Trip, period.

00:48:58

And it was to South Africa.

00:48:59

We were doing ministry in Mamelodi, South Africa,

00:49:01

that was the township.

00:49:02

And one of the amazing things that happened in there

00:49:05

was about the work of the Holy Spirit.

00:49:07

There was a woman, her name was Maria,

00:49:09

and she was teaching music

00:49:10

and she was a worship leader.

00:49:12

So she was over there and she was teaching music.

00:49:14

And, you know, the cool thing about most people

00:49:16

in the world is they speak multiple languages.

00:49:18

You know, I only speak one half decently,

00:49:20

but, you know, most places they speak multiple languages.

00:49:23

And so there was an interpreter that was interpreting

00:49:25

one of the languages that was a common language there.

00:49:28

But then there was another person who was in the room.

00:49:30

And as Maria was teaching,

00:49:31

this person didn't speak English.

00:49:33

And so the interpreter is doing the interpreter

00:49:35

in the one language, but Maria is speaking.

00:49:37

And this person over there, you know,

00:49:38

just I guess they're getting the best they can

00:49:40

out of the experience.

00:49:41

Well, after that experience, that person comes up to Maria.

00:49:45

It turns out the interpreter

00:49:46

could also speak that other language, wasn't but could.

00:49:49

And through that interpreter, the person,

00:49:52

the third person that was there said,

00:49:54

"Hey, I want to thank you for speaking perfect Zulu

00:49:56

while you were teaching music here."

00:49:58

And Maria is like, "I don't speak Zulu."

00:50:01

And he said, "Well, you were.

00:50:03

I heard every word you were saying."

00:50:06

Why? Because of the power of the Holy Spirit.

00:50:07

One of the first things we see the Holy Spirit do

00:50:10

is enable followers of Jesus to speak

00:50:12

languages they never learned, and He still does that.

00:50:14

He did that in 2007.

00:50:16

I was a witness that He did that.

00:50:18

And so I've been asking for some more stories

00:50:20

of witnesses of the Holy Spirit.

00:50:22

I just want to read three to you

00:50:23

that I think are just evidence of them.

00:50:25

And these are all camp stories. We talk a lot about camps.

00:50:28

God's doing amazing things in our camp ministry.

00:50:30

And so here's one of the stories

00:50:31

that came from one of these witnesses.

00:50:33

Person was talking about how they walked up

00:50:35

to someone on a Saturday night at Man Camp

00:50:38

and just said, 'Hey, how's your weekend going?"

00:50:40

And the guy just had this stunned look on his face.

00:50:42

He looked at me and said, "I think my back was just healed."

00:50:46

And he told me this story.

00:50:47

He hurt his back during doing burpees in the morning.

00:50:50

So if you've ever been in Man Camp, we do morning PT.

00:50:52

And part of it is -- it's -- I don't want to give it away.

00:50:54

You should go to Man Camp and experience it.

00:50:56

But this guy was doing it and got injured, you know?

00:50:58

Because when you're like over 40,

00:51:00

that's what happens when you try to do burpees

00:51:02

and you haven't done them anymore.

00:51:03

So but this guy was injured and it was affecting him all day

00:51:06

and the pain was severe.

00:51:07

He went to the Mash tent.

00:51:08

A group of guys at Man Camp just pray for other guys

00:51:12

and they believe in the power of the Holy Spirit.

00:51:13

And he went to the Mash tent.

00:51:15

They prayed over him and he was completely healed.

00:51:18

That's a Holy Spirit story.

00:51:20

Let me give you another one.

00:51:23

This one came from Woman Camp.

00:51:24

Said the prayer team was amazing this weekend.

00:51:26

My entire campsite went into the tent together,

00:51:28

again, the prayer tent and nobody left with a dry eye.

00:51:31

God spoke through this incredible woman,

00:51:33

and I am so blessed to know that each of the campers

00:51:35

in my site left feeling encouraged and poured into.

00:51:38

As for myself, the woman prayed over me

00:51:40

new things I didn't even tell them.

00:51:42

One prayed over my sleep, not knowing that

00:51:44

I've been having nightmares every night

00:51:46

for the past two and a half years.

00:51:48

How good it is to say that since receiving prayer

00:51:51

on that Saturday, I haven't had nightmares since.

00:51:55

It's the power of the Holy Spirit.

00:51:59

I'm saving what I think is the best one for last.

00:52:01

This is crazy, y'all.

00:52:03

This guy goes off to do solitude at Man Camp

00:52:05

on Saturday morning, and we had just sung

00:52:08

the words to this song, great is Your faithfulness.

00:52:10

So this guy decides to walk as far

00:52:13

in the woods as he can to get away from the crowds.

00:52:15

And once he gets into the woods, he stops

00:52:17

and yells out a prayer into the trees,

00:52:19

"How can I know You're faithful

00:52:21

when I'm not always faithful to You?"

00:52:23

Then he sees a place at the bottom of a ravine

00:52:25

and thinks, "I'm going to sit down there

00:52:27

and do my solitude."

00:52:28

He starts down the ravine and slips.

00:52:31

He tumbles the whole way down

00:52:33

and grabs hold of a log on the ground to stop his fall.

00:52:37

He looks over at the log and carved into it

00:52:40

are the words, "He is faithful."

00:52:43

Got the picture right here.

00:52:45

It blows his mind.

00:52:47

So he pulls out his pocket knife and carves.

00:52:49

"Yes, he is," right underneath it.

00:52:52

This is what the Holy Spirit does.

00:52:54

And I'm sharing these stories to build your faith

00:52:56

that God is not done doing transformative things,

00:52:59

that Jesus meant it when He said,

00:53:01

"You'll have dynamic power.

00:53:02

You'll be able to do things you cannot do

00:53:05

in the power of the Holy Spirit."

00:53:07

The Celtics in early Ireland

00:53:09

that were followers of Jesus, I love it.

00:53:11

They called the Holy Spirit the wild goose.

00:53:14

You know, oftentimes if you see the Holy Spirit

00:53:16

in Western art, the Holy Spirit is painted as a dove.

00:53:19

But they said, "No, he's not a dove,

00:53:21

He's a wild goose." Why?

00:53:23

Because the Holy Spirit surprises and disrupts things.

00:53:26

So let me be honest with you.

00:53:27

If you want to have this experience of the Holy Spirit,

00:53:30

you got to be ready to be surprised and disrupted.

00:53:33

It will not happen if you're trying to control something,

00:53:36

but if you're willing to, as one author said, it says this:

00:53:45

And that is what you're invited to do.

00:53:48

When I was 20 something, I decided that

00:53:54

God had called me to ministry

00:53:56

and I was going to go to seminary.

00:53:57

Long story of why that didn't happen,

00:53:59

but I want to share this part of the story.

00:54:01

In applying for seminary, you've got to write an essay

00:54:03

like you do in any, you know, post-graduate experience.

00:54:06

And so I wrote this essay about how

00:54:08

what I really was passionate about

00:54:10

was defending the faith, something called apologetics,

00:54:12

where you, you know, help people see and hear

00:54:14

reasoned arguments for why the Bible is true.

00:54:16

So I got really excited when people say,

00:54:18

"I don't believe the Bible. I think it's a fake book."

00:54:20

I would just walk them through

00:54:21

the bibliographies and all the manuscripts

00:54:23

and all the things that we can point to

00:54:24

in archeology and other things that prove

00:54:26

that the Bible is true.

00:54:27

I was doing that because I wanted people to meet Jesus.

00:54:29

Right? So it was all about defending the faith.

00:54:31

And I wanted to just go to seminary

00:54:33

to get better at defending the faith,

00:54:34

learning the original languages

00:54:36

so I could defend the faith, etc.

00:54:37

One of the people I had read my essay

00:54:38

before I sent it was my dad's pastor.

00:54:40

My dad was going to a different church

00:54:42

than I was going to at that time.

00:54:44

And I sent it to his pastor,

00:54:45

really wanting the pastor to just say,

00:54:47

"This is the best piece of writing I've ever read."

00:54:50

That's really what I wanted.

00:54:52

He's just an old country black pastor.

00:54:55

And he sent it back to me, and he did say,

00:54:58

he was like, "This is a great essay."

00:55:00

He said, "I only have one comment."

00:55:03

And his one comment has changed the way

00:55:05

I think about my life.

00:55:07

It's changed the way I think about being a witness.

00:55:09

He said to me, he said, "Chuck, the only thing

00:55:11

I'll tell you is the gospel doesn't need a defense,

00:55:15

just a witness. Just a witness.

00:55:19

God doesn't need you to be an intellectual superstar

00:55:23

and be able to argue your way

00:55:24

out of any theological discussion.

00:55:26

That's not what God wants. God wants witnesses."

00:55:28

He wants witnesses that can say, Man,

00:55:30

I don't know how to tell you this, but like, Jesus is real.

00:55:33

I don't know, I explain this to you,

00:55:35

but all I can tell you is I was addicted

00:55:37

and I tried a bunch of things,

00:55:39

but I met Jesus and like, I'm free.

00:55:40

I don't know how to tell you.

00:55:42

I don't know what to say to you other than

00:55:43

to tell you that my family was broken

00:55:45

and I didn't have an image of

00:55:46

what a father was actually like.

00:55:48

But God is helping me father my children.

00:55:49

I don't know how to explain this to you,

00:55:51

but I come from a family of people

00:55:53

where marriages didn't work.

00:55:54

But my wife and I are celebrating

00:55:55

25 years of marriage.

00:55:56

I don't know what to tell you, but the doctors told me

00:55:58

I should be dead right now.

00:56:00

And all I can tell you is, as a witness,

00:56:02

Jesus healed me. This is all He needs.

00:56:04

The gospel doesn't need a defense.

00:56:05

He needs a witness.

00:56:06

And He's calling us to be those witnesses.

00:56:10

He's inviting us to be those witnesses in your life

00:56:14

and in the ways that He's calling you.

00:56:16

So the question is, how do we access this power?

00:56:19

Because I don't know about you, but I want it.

00:56:21

Who wants this? I want this.

00:56:23

Oh my gosh, I want this.

00:56:25

I want more of this.

00:56:26

And the way that we receive it is simply that we receive.

00:56:28

I love what Jesus says.

00:56:30

He says, but you will receive power.

00:56:32

He doesn't say you'll earn it.

00:56:34

He doesn't say you'll get highly educated

00:56:35

to the point you understand it, and then you'll get it.

00:56:38

And He certainly doesn't say

00:56:39

you'll coerce God into getting it.

00:56:42

If you want to receive the Holy Spirit,

00:56:44

you will not experience the Holy Spirit

00:56:46

apart from a relationship with Jesus.

00:56:48

It's that simple. It's that simple.

00:56:50

I believe that at the moment of faith,

00:56:52

when you trust Jesus, at that moment

00:56:54

you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

00:56:56

I can give you a whole bunch of scriptures to explain that.

00:56:58

I just want you to trust me on that one,

00:57:00

that you don't have to do anything

00:57:02

for this other than receive Jesus.

00:57:05

Jesus says that when you receive Him,

00:57:09

He doesn't leave you as an orphan.

00:57:12

He gives you the helper. He gives you the Spirit.

00:57:15

And He wants to do that for all of us who would receive Him.

00:57:19

So I want to invite you wherever you are,

00:57:21

if you're home or at another site, just to stand,

00:57:23

just to stand right now.

00:57:24

The song we sung earlier just simply says,

00:57:27

"Come, come, Holy Spirit, come."

00:57:29

And we just want that to be a prayer

00:57:31

as we go into this study of the book of Acts.

00:57:34

As we go into these next couple of weeks,

00:57:35

you're going to hear about amazing people

00:57:37

who had amazing experiences where

00:57:39

the power of the Holy Spirit changed things.

00:57:41

But I want you to know, none of those people

00:57:43

had any pedigree or anything that you can't have.

00:57:46

Everything you're going to hear about

00:57:48

in the book of Acts is accessible

00:57:50

to you and to me today.

00:57:52

So I just want you to put your hands out like this

00:57:55

if you're eager, if you would say, "Yes, I want to receive."

00:57:58

You know, maybe you've never received Jesus,

00:58:02

never said, "Man, what You did on the Cross

00:58:05

you did for me, and it actually happened.

00:58:09

Easter's just not just a holiday on a calendar.

00:58:11

Jesus, You actually beat death.

00:58:14

And you offer me life and power

00:58:17

that I can't have any other way.

00:58:19

Jesus, would you save me? Would you?

00:58:21

Would you heal me? Would you?

00:58:22

Would you allow me to be a vessel where you live

00:58:27

and dwell, and where your Holy Spirit lives and dwells?"

00:58:30

God, I just want to say it for anybody

00:58:31

who would say, "That's my prayer," that God,

00:58:34

in this moment, I know that

00:58:38

they are receiving Your Holy Spirit.

00:58:39

For those of I've been following You for a long time,

00:58:43

I'm so glad that there was always more

00:58:45

of Your Spirit to receive, there's more to know.

00:58:47

There's more freedom You want to give us.

00:58:49

There's more healing You want to give us.

00:58:51

There's more strength You want to give us, God.

00:58:53

You want to give us purpose and creativity.

00:58:54

There's all kinds of things You want to give us.

00:58:56

God, may we have our hands open

00:58:59

to receive what You have for us.

00:59:01

And God, I pray that this song would be a way

00:59:05

to seal that prayer in Your presence.

00:59:08

So I pray this in Jesus's name. Amen. Let's sing.

00:59:13

- Sing these words together.

00:59:15

Just ask Him to come and fill our hearts.

01:00:47

- Man, you want to leave with a simple prayer

01:00:51

that I would just invite you to

01:00:53

open every day with this week.

01:00:56

Just let it be this: come Holy Spirit.

01:00:59

Come Holy Spirit, just those three words can change your day,

01:01:06

could change your week, could change your situation.

01:01:11

Those three words have changed the world.

01:01:13

May it continue and may we be part of it.

01:01:15

Go and be a witness. God bless you guys.

01:01:16

We'll see you next week.

01:01:20

- Hey, thank you so much for joining us today.

01:01:22

And I'm going to say this again,

01:01:24

Crossroads is not just content to watch.

01:01:26

It is a community to belong to.

01:01:28

So please head to Crossroads.net/anywhere

01:01:30

for events and great things that are coming up

01:01:32

to serve you and to chat in or message in

01:01:34

with someone from our team who would love to talk with you,

01:01:37

pray for you and help you get connected with our church.

01:01:39

And you can always just email me directly

01:01:41

at Andy.Reider@crossroads.net.

01:01:43

I'd love to pray for you, answer questions,

01:01:45

whatever I can do to help you get connected.

01:01:48

Now before you go, next weekend we'll actually

01:01:50

be giving away some free Crossroads swag,

01:01:53

including to our online Anywhere community.

01:01:55

If this is your church, you should be here in person,

01:01:58

at a site, or watching online.

01:01:59

We actually have something really important

01:02:01

to share with you about the mission and vision

01:02:03

and where our church is headed,

01:02:05

and we want you tuned in,

01:02:06

in person or online to hear it.

01:02:08

So much so that we're actually willing to bribe you

01:02:10

with this shirt as an incentive.

01:02:12

One like this or one like this.

01:02:14

And you'll only be able to get them next week.

01:02:17

So make it in person or tune in online.

01:02:19

We'll see you back next week.

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