[SPEAKER_00]: High praise podcasts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey everybody, this is Pastor Josh.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll leave Pastor here at High Praise, and I want to thank you for downloading today's podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: We know that this message is going to encourage and bless you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I want you to open up your heart and proceed with the Lord as for you today.
[SPEAKER_02]: Grab your Bible and go to Acts chapter number one and Acts chapter number two.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm so glad Pastor Josh did the baptism of the Holy Ghost before this.
[SPEAKER_02]: We did not plan that, but I want to preach on the baptism of the Holy Ghost.
[SPEAKER_02]: Acts chapter one and Acts chapter number two.
[SPEAKER_02]: These are some of Pentecostal's favorite verses, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: There is nobody helping me tonight.
[SPEAKER_02]: These are some of Pentecostal's favorite verses.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're Pentecostal, you grew up quoting Acts chapter two, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: You might not know John three, sixteen, but bless God.
[SPEAKER_02]: We know Acts chapter number two.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what we speak in tongues.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're right, Pastor Kenny.
[SPEAKER_02]: We know Acts chapter number two, glory to God.
[SPEAKER_02]: Read Acts chapter number one, I'm gonna read a passage, then we'll look at a passage and Acts chapter number two, and we'll get out of your way.
[SPEAKER_02]: Acts chapter number one, verse one, in the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach.
[SPEAKER_02]: Until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.
[SPEAKER_02]: And whoever is back there, if you can, if you just bump me up just a little bit, thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: After his suffering, he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.
[SPEAKER_02]: While staying with him, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but wait there for the promise of the Father.
[SPEAKER_02]: This, he said, is what you've heard from me, for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit, not many days from now.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, watch verse six.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want you to get this picture.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want you to get this event in your mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: So when they came together, they asked him, Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?
[SPEAKER_02]: He replied, it is not for you to know the times of the periods that the Father has set by His own authority.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and a real building cost of what I felt that.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'll glory to God, right there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just Shandai, kickstart Honda, E-D-D-I-E, it spells E-B.
[SPEAKER_02]: Bars.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you will receive power when the Holy Ghost has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
[SPEAKER_02]: Watch verse nine.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight.
[SPEAKER_02]: And while he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men stood in white robes by them and they said, men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?
[SPEAKER_02]: This Jesus who's been taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now look at chapter two verse one.
[SPEAKER_02]: When the death pinnacles had come, they were all together in one place, and suddenly from heaven, there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.
[SPEAKER_02]: Divided tongues, like as a fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And all of them were filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak in other languages as the spirit gave them the ability.
[SPEAKER_02]: And as we like to say, the rest is history.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: I started reading the Bible like really intensely as best as I knew how when I was about fourteen years old when I was in high school.
[SPEAKER_02]: We didn't have middle school.
[SPEAKER_02]: You started high school as a seventh grader.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I remember reading the Bible just very intensely.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was not paying attention in algebra and not paying attention in science and not paying attention in English as why I sound like this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not paying attention in English.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was reading it very intensely trying to
[SPEAKER_02]: in painstaking detail, take part every line of the text.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it dawned on me at some point during my study of the scripture that really the Bible is ultimately trying to tell us one thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's trying to tell us one story.
[SPEAKER_02]: You remember for some of our interns, I told you a couple of weeks ago that I'm going to solve your purpose.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was that you didn't have one, that's inside joke.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Bible is really telling us one story.
[SPEAKER_02]: Even when you weave through the narratives of Moses or Noah or David or Elijah or Jeremiah or one of the prophets, the Scripture is really telling us one story is telling us the story of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_02]: Can I get a witness from somebody?
[SPEAKER_02]: He's the beginning, the middle, the end, the alpha, the omega.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everything is talking about him, pointing to him.
[SPEAKER_02]: He feels all things, Paul said, and in him all things consist, the scriptures really trying to tell us about Jesus.
[SPEAKER_02]: Before it's trying to tell us about how awesome our generation is, it's trying to tell us about Jesus.
[SPEAKER_02]: Before it's trying to tell us about Russia, in China, and Iran, it's trying to tell us about Jesus.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
[SPEAKER_02]: He is the point.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have missed the point.
[SPEAKER_02]: He is the point.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
[SPEAKER_02]: We read the Old Testament and we find all of these meetings of it apart from Jesus.
[SPEAKER_02]: But even Jesus himself said, all of the law and all of the prophets were talking about me.
[SPEAKER_02]: So when we read it, it's got to point to him.
[SPEAKER_02]: One of my favorite books in the whole Bible is the Book of Hebrews.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because the Book of Hebrews is the stunning exposition of all of these Old Testament characters and all of these Old Testament moments and the writer reimagines all of these characters and all of these moments in the light of Christ.
[SPEAKER_02]: Ultimately, Hebrews is really trying to say this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Moses was good, but Jesus is better.
[SPEAKER_02]: Elijah was good, but Jesus is better.
[SPEAKER_02]: All of the beautiful stories that we know and love in the Old Testament, those are good, but Jesus is better.
[SPEAKER_02]: The very first miracle that Moses ever performed, he turned water into blood.
[SPEAKER_02]: The very first miracle Jesus ever performs, he turns water into wine.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Moses first miracle resulted in death.
[SPEAKER_02]: Jesus first miracle resulted in celebration because Moses was good, but Jesus is better, a good pinocostal nose to amen right there.
[SPEAKER_02]: At the very first pinnacle since we're talking about the holios, the very first pinnacles happen at the base of Mount Sinai.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't have it on the very first pinnacles.
[SPEAKER_02]: Three thousand people died under Moses.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you know what happened in the first pinnacles under Christ?
[SPEAKER_02]: Three thousand people were filled with the spirit and made alive.
[SPEAKER_02]: Moses is good, but Jesus is
[SPEAKER_02]: Better, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: God tells Moses, I'm gonna visit the sins of your fathers to the third and the fourth generation.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm gonna remember the sins of your fathers to the third and the fourth generation.
[SPEAKER_02]: But when we get to the book of Hebrews, he says, I will remember your sins no more because Jesus is the point.
[SPEAKER_02]: You remember when Moses sees the burning bush?
[SPEAKER_02]: And he walks by and the Lord speaks to him and he says, take the shoes off of your feet because the place where you're standing is holy.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're not worthy to stand in this kind of presence.
[SPEAKER_02]: Take the shoes off your feet.
[SPEAKER_02]: But when Jesus retails to the story of the prodigal son, what does the father do to the son?
[SPEAKER_02]: He doesn't say, take the shoes off your feet.
[SPEAKER_02]: He says, here, put these shoes back on your feet.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because now you're worthy to stand in my presence.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, because of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_02]: Bars, I'll help myself.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now we get to this picture in the book of Acts, where Jesus is standing around with His disciples.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you read the New Testament, it is an absolute miracle that the church still exists.
[SPEAKER_02]: We were not handed off into the hands of the most qualified.
[SPEAKER_02]: One of them was a doubter.
[SPEAKER_02]: One of them was a cusser.
[SPEAKER_02]: One of them was stealing the money.
[SPEAKER_02]: Four of them you never hear from again.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't know having to part the all of you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some of you don't even know fatty as well isn't a possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_02]: That even fatty as didn't know fatty as well isn't a possible.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
[SPEAKER_02]: It is a miracle that the church has existed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Jesus does not completely disobey the rule that you got to have leaders trained up and ready to go.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's then two months before Binnacles happened, Peter, what did you follow in the Lord?
[SPEAKER_02]: If you don't know it, I mean, it's been a sketchy history ever since.
[SPEAKER_02]: We just keep adding shades to the pictures.
[SPEAKER_02]: So Jesus is standing around with this rag-tag group of people.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's about to leave with a churchist together because of the spirit period.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the only way we made it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is not because of good leadership.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Jesus is looking at his disciples and he says, all right.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've had enough.
[SPEAKER_02]: At one point in the story,
[SPEAKER_02]: Jesus lays hands on his disciples.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he says, I want you to go out and I want you to cast out devils.
[SPEAKER_02]: He oversit, raise the dead.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, everything that just gets our gears going, glory to God.
[SPEAKER_02]: You gotta put that church of God in the God.
[SPEAKER_02]: First day out, first day in the encounter, nothing.
[SPEAKER_02]: They come back and they say, the dad comes back and says, I took him, I took my boy to your leaders.
[SPEAKER_02]: Whatever an apostle is, and nothing happened, and Jesus says these works, how long am I going to have to stay here?
[SPEAKER_02]: In other words, if you would get it, I could go on.
[SPEAKER_02]: We think that there's some magical numbers to why Jesus was in ministry three and a half years.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, it took three and a half years for them to remotely catch what he was talking about.
[SPEAKER_02]: He set it around with his disciples and he says, I want you to go back to Jerusalem,
[SPEAKER_02]: And I want you to pray.
[SPEAKER_02]: And as he's speaking, he has caught up in a cloud.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now remember, all of the Bible is talking about Jesus.
[SPEAKER_02]: So when do we see another story of a father speaking into a son and then he's caught up?
[SPEAKER_02]: We see that in the story of Elijah, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Elijah standing there with Elijah and he says, if you will see me when I'm taken, when I go up, you will get a double portion of my spirit.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he has taken up, and the Bible says he throws his mantle down.
[SPEAKER_02]: Fast forward all the way to Acts chapter number one, and we see the same scene playing out.
[SPEAKER_02]: Jesus is standing there with the people he's disciple.
[SPEAKER_02]: He is ascending in the heaven, and then he throws down his mantle, which is the Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Holy Spirit is the Jesus mantle.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he tells them, this is what the Spirit is coming to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: He is coming to give you power.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now we can miss here that.
[SPEAKER_02]: He does not mean he's coming to make you power full.
[SPEAKER_02]: We want the Spirit to make us powerful, which means we can overpower everybody else.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Spirit.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Spirit is there to help to empower us to overpower.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Spirit is there to make us bear witness to the cross of Christ into Jesus.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is why Jesus says, the works that I'll do.
[SPEAKER_02]: He will do, and greater works, and as soon as we hear that, we think miracles.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Jesus raised it then.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's back to get a double portion.
[SPEAKER_02]: In the world, I grew up in we so perverted that we called it our Spirit.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want your Spirit.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't even want my Spirit.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want the Spirit of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_02]: When Jesus says, I'm going to send down my mantle, and you're going to do greater works than these, our mind immediately runs to feats of heroism.
[SPEAKER_02]: If there's been anything running through this conference, it's been this.
[SPEAKER_02]: We need to raise up a generation that has completely given up on heroic Christianity.
[SPEAKER_02]: We need to completely give up on this idea that the history books are going to know your name and they're going to write songs about you and you're going to be scented.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is how my man.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is how I was taught growing up.
[SPEAKER_02]: They would say something like this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Believe great things from God and attempt great things for God.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if your life was anything less than epic, you were a failure.
[SPEAKER_02]: Go change the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: Turn it upside down.
[SPEAKER_02]: Go make Jesus famous.
[SPEAKER_02]: He doesn't need your help making him famous.
[SPEAKER_02]: We think that this power is to make us powerful.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or this power is to give us influence.
[SPEAKER_02]: The early church would have never heard the word power, and thought, we're going to be running this thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: They weren't, our faith was born on the backs of martyrs, not influencers, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Embrose, the early church Father said, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.
[SPEAKER_02]: We don't have the heroes.
[SPEAKER_02]: The people we follow, die tragic deaths.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Christ that we follow, die a tragic death.
[SPEAKER_02]: Humiliation.
[SPEAKER_02]: Embarrassment.
[SPEAKER_02]: We want him to make us powerful, but instead he says something that we miss.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to give you the power to be a witness.
[SPEAKER_02]: Meaning
[SPEAKER_02]: The Holy Spirit is gonna come and enable you to bear witness to the crazy, strange, wild, countercultural life that it is to follow Jesus.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what we need the power of God for.
[SPEAKER_02]: We don't need the power of God to win elections.
[SPEAKER_02]: We need the power of God to stay faithful when our guy or God doesn't get elected.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what we need the power of God for.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not the, let me think.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, last couple of Wednesday nights ago when I preached here, it was a disaster.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm trying not to recreate it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been grieved about it ever since, and I preached the sermon.
[SPEAKER_02]: The power of God is it demonstrated by our might.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's funny.
[SPEAKER_02]: We call ourselves people of the word, and then you hear these people talking, you know, have you own a Bible?
[SPEAKER_02]: You ever ran the Bible?
[SPEAKER_02]: The power of the world is foolishness with God.
[SPEAKER_02]: So when we flex our muscle as a people, scripture calls that nonsense.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because it's not by my, or by power, but by the spirit.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now we hear that as it's not by my, it's not by human, or human power.
[SPEAKER_02]: but it's by the power of the Spirit.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's not what the text is.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not by might or power.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's by the Spirit.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Spirit is doing something different than what power does.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_02]: We need power to be witnesses.
[SPEAKER_02]: You want to say what we need powerful.
[SPEAKER_02]: We need power to obey absurd commands like, bless your enemies.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, no, no, no.
[SPEAKER_02]: We hear that and we're like, yeah, we're supposed to do that, but yeah, whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: That has a tendency to wash over us.
[SPEAKER_02]: Pray for your enemies.
[SPEAKER_02]: Think of them right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: The last thing that bubbles up is a petition.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's an intercession.
[SPEAKER_02]: The last thing that bubbles up.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because that takes the power of God at work.
[SPEAKER_02]: to demonstrate radical forgiveness when we've been wrong so deeply.
[SPEAKER_02]: You want to say what the power of God looks like?
[SPEAKER_02]: The power of God doesn't look like us winning and coming out on top?
[SPEAKER_02]: The power of God looks like us saying, Father forgive them because they don't even know the wrongs that they're doing to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what the power of God looks like.
[SPEAKER_02]: It looks like you being able to stay pure all through high school.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the power of God at work.
[SPEAKER_02]: You being fifteen years old and not being addicted to pornography.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the power of God at work.
[SPEAKER_02]: God's power is not just manifested in when we tell all the stories about how we got delivered.
[SPEAKER_02]: God's power is manifested when we tell all the stories of how he kept us.
[SPEAKER_02]: I used to feel bad as a young man, because I didn't have a testimony.
[SPEAKER_02]: I went to church, never stopped.
[SPEAKER_02]: Stola Airplane when I was seven.
[SPEAKER_02]: My mom, he'll build it from Alabama, who wasn't safe, abused me in front of Walmart, and everybody watched.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I never did it again.
[SPEAKER_02]: It went back to church.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the life that we're called to be a witness to.
[SPEAKER_02]: But oftentimes when we hear that kind of preaching, it comes off as weakness.
[SPEAKER_02]: Denying ourselves, taking up our own cross, as assigned to the world that Jesus is Lord and the kings of this earth are not.
[SPEAKER_02]: Taking Jesus did not down the cross so you wouldn't have to.
[SPEAKER_02]: He'd down on the cross to show you how.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is why Paul says, I died daily.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the power of God at work.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we hear this stuff and we'll say foolish things like, that's not really practical.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I agree, I could not agree more.
[SPEAKER_02]: If your enemy wants you to give them your shirt, give them your jacket.
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not really practical to expect a fifteen-year-old with the phone, not to do something dumb.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why not?
[SPEAKER_02]: Look at the standards we give our kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's handing them, it's like handing them a loaded gun, I know you're going to shoot somebody, but don't make it too bad.
[SPEAKER_02]: Boys will be boys.
[SPEAKER_02]: It depends on what you define as a boy.
[SPEAKER_02]: They just young and I did it when I was a kid.
[SPEAKER_02]: That doesn't mean he asked who?
[SPEAKER_02]: Good lord.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the power of God at work.
[SPEAKER_02]: But when we hear that kind of preaching, we give all these excuses, that's not normal, that's too weird, that's too radical.
[SPEAKER_02]: Listen to the, and we're good at church.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're good at church about combating the wisdom of the world, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: The world will tell you things like, go find yourself.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And all the parents are like, my God.
[SPEAKER_02]: Forty-five, steal that in family, myself.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just gave up looking.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hit thirties, just gave up looking.
[SPEAKER_02]: Said it is what it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
[SPEAKER_02]: The wisdom of the world tells our generation, you know, go experiment with everything.
[SPEAKER_02]: And as soon as we say it, we're like, oh, bless God.
[SPEAKER_02]: The devil is a liar.
[SPEAKER_02]: Start annoying my whole house.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not my house.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
[SPEAKER_02]: We call it the wisdom of the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: But then when somebody gives a radical call to pick up your cross and follow Jesus,
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't really, you know, we gotta find a middle ground.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want them to be, I want my kids to be good kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want them to be godly kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the trade-off.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want my kids to be good kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want them to get pregnant now in school.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if they don't get arrested, that's a plus.
[SPEAKER_02]: But godly kids are the ones that will challenge you and say, mom dad, I don't think that's right.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think the way you're talking about those people, I don't think that's right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Godly kids, you hear that way, you up in the middle of the night praying.
[SPEAKER_02]: We won't good kids, we don't want godly kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: We won't go.
[SPEAKER_02]: We don't want Godly kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: That'll look at us and say, Mom, the way you're thinking about that might not be right because this is what Jesus says.
[SPEAKER_02]: Who are they?
[SPEAKER_02]: But when we hear the wisdom of the world, we say things like this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it's demonic.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's demonic.
[SPEAKER_02]: Every, every thing's demonic.
[SPEAKER_02]: All of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Every brand you buy.
[SPEAKER_02]: My wife went grocery shopping and then all the devil's.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then all the devil's.
[SPEAKER_02]: They got cheap groceries though, so you go ahead.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll pray over it for we eat it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It'll be sanctified by the Word of God and prayer.
[SPEAKER_02]: You keep going with your whole food to count.
[SPEAKER_02]: We call it whole paycheck at my house.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is a difference.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let me see if I can say this in it makes sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd say this all the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you hear me preaching your confused, that's part of the experience.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just enjoy it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just take it all in.
[SPEAKER_02]: We call everything.
[SPEAKER_02]: When we hear the radical call of the gospel,
[SPEAKER_02]: I believe it was Pastor Josh that quoted at the other day in his message from Bonhoeffer.
[SPEAKER_02]: When Jesus bid to man to follow him, he does not bid him come and die.
[SPEAKER_02]: He bids him come and die.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, now we're all like, oh, yeah, so good, Bonhoeffer.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, he died.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was murdered.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, it wasn't a metaphor.
[SPEAKER_02]: He calls us to come and die.
[SPEAKER_02]: And those sorts of stumbling dots, we explain away.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a difference between the demonic and the satanic.
[SPEAKER_02]: All the HPSM students are like, yeah, get it.
[SPEAKER_02]: The demonic,
[SPEAKER_02]: is total darkness.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know when Jesus gets off the boat on the island, and there's the man, Legion, full of demons, cutting himself with stones.
[SPEAKER_02]: Y'all know this story.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And he casted levels out and they go into the pigs and they drown themselves.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the demonic.
[SPEAKER_02]: Total chaos.
[SPEAKER_02]: Shear darkness.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the Satanic isn't total darkness.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's false light.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a matter of fact, Paul says Satan transforms himself into an angel of light.
[SPEAKER_02]: You all remember when Jesus is talking to his disciples?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll be done here in a minute.
[SPEAKER_02]: Remember when Jesus talked to his disciples?
[SPEAKER_02]: And he says, who do you say that I am?
[SPEAKER_02]: Some say you're Elijah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some say you're Jeremiah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some say you're one of the prophets from the dead.
[SPEAKER_02]: The problem is, all those people are very troubling figures.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're like, Lord, you don't have a big fan base.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Jesus is whom do you say that I am miraculously Peter gets it right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Even Jesus is astonished.
[SPEAKER_02]: You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.
[SPEAKER_02]: Jesus is like, whoa!
[SPEAKER_02]: I know nobody told you this and you figured it out.
[SPEAKER_02]: This had to be revealed to you by the Father.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then Jesus tells them, in the same story, I'm gonna go to Jerusalem and die.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Peter says, Lord, no, you're not.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Jesus says, get behind me Satan.
[SPEAKER_02]: A couple of verses ago, he was the rock of the church.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like that, he's Satan.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm gonna build on you too.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, get behind me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why does he call him Satan?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because Peter was trying to stand in the way of Jesus and the cross he was called to bear.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when we preach this radical called to follow Jesus, this call of no violence.
[SPEAKER_02]: When we give this call of no gossip, no envy.
[SPEAKER_02]: No lust, no pride.
[SPEAKER_02]: This call of it doesn't matter what you experiment with.
[SPEAKER_02]: Jesus is the only source that you're going to make any sense out of your life with anyway.
[SPEAKER_02]: So stay there.
[SPEAKER_02]: This call says, quit looking for yourself.
[SPEAKER_02]: Go find him and then you will find yourself.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
[SPEAKER_02]: This call that says, we are called to love our neighbors as we love ourselves with no qualifiers, not the neighbors that vote like you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not the neighbors that see the world the way you do, not even the neighbors that believe in the same God that you do.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we immediately jump to defense and say, well, there's no possible way we can do that because then we give all of our reasons.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's the satanic at work because it's standing between us and the cross that we're called to bear.
[SPEAKER_02]: When we hear the call of Jesus,
[SPEAKER_02]: to love your enemies, pray for them.
[SPEAKER_02]: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will inherit you.
[SPEAKER_02]: When Jesus makes these radical claims on our life, and we begin to explain them all of a way, even with our verses, that's the Satanic at work.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we do not realize that the Spirit comes to empower us to bear witness to that crucified life.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hear what I'm saying?
[SPEAKER_02]: Let me say it like this, and I'll shut up.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some of you have a rebellious streak by nature, and that's good.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's my boy Reed Harris.
[SPEAKER_02]: The only thing I said all night, that you agreed with.
[SPEAKER_02]: But before I got up to preach, we've been having this little chat through text messages.
[SPEAKER_02]: Before I got up to preach, he's like, what I think you should talk about is the hypostatic union of the two natures in Christ where we reject both monophysitism and historianism.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's talk about the metaphysical principle of the incarnation as the truth of all reality.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I thought, I probably won't go there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he was like, well, that would be a monster of a message.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some of us have a rebellious street.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what?
[SPEAKER_02]: That's good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Cause following Jesus is just for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you want to be rebellious, this is to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to be rebellious.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everybody else in your school is having sex before they get married.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why don't you rebel against that?
[SPEAKER_02]: Why don't you use that rebellion?
[SPEAKER_02]: Why don't you use that?
[SPEAKER_02]: Ain't nobody going to tell me what to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: You need some of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everybody in your schools are digging the pornography.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why don't you rebel against that and say, I'm going to set a covenant with my eyes, but I'm going to look at no impure thing and I'm going to keep myself holy and clean for the rest of my life.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what?
[SPEAKER_02]: This church is going to be rebellious.
[SPEAKER_02]: If the rest of the world is operating in divorce, we're going to rebel against that and say, you know what?
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to live together happily for the next hundred and fifty years.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to train our kids in the nurture.
[SPEAKER_02]: and adminition of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're not gonna tell them to find themselves.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're gonna rebel against that wisdom.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're gonna say, you go find Jesus.
[SPEAKER_02]: Can I get a witness from somebody?
[SPEAKER_02]: We're gonna rebel against that.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're gonna rebel against the river.
[SPEAKER_02]: God, I want you to be a little bit rebellious.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want you to be rebellious.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want you to be a little bit now.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I want you to have some of that, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I want you to rebel against all the hate you hear on one.
[SPEAKER_02]: Tell us who you guys come on.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want you to rebel against all the hate you hear on one.
[SPEAKER_02]: All the nonsense you hear about what we need to be doing.
[SPEAKER_02]: What needs to happen?
[SPEAKER_02]: Bro, you work at Sonic.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're not an expert on anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: And neither am I.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want you to rebel against that eight.
[SPEAKER_02]: All that vitriol, all that tongue.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why don't you rebel against that?
[SPEAKER_02]: Why don't you bless when others curse no matter who it is?
[SPEAKER_02]: When everybody else is shopping for churches the way they shop for cars,
[SPEAKER_02]: Why don't you go get planted in the house?
[SPEAKER_02]: It stays stable.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's saying, you know what?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm gonna let this place work on me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm gonna let this place change me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm gonna let this place form me.
[SPEAKER_02]: When I have an encounter with somebody and they get on my nerves, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I get offended.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or I don't like what's going on.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't agree with the decision this being made.
[SPEAKER_02]: Good, that's gonna work on me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Why don't you start thinking instead of this person bothers me?
[SPEAKER_02]: Why don't you start thinking this person sanctifying me?
[SPEAKER_02]: when we were a bail against them.
[SPEAKER_02]: When we were a bail against them, when we'd be witnesses, when everybody else is saying, blow them all up and kill them all.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, fix it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why don't we say, place it over the peacemakers?
[SPEAKER_02]: When everybody's calling for violence, why don't we say, let's beat our swords into plow shares, in our spears into pruning hooks.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why don't we rebel against that?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm afraid we're more worldly than we think.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm afraid we're more work-bring that now just a bit for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm afraid we're more worldly than we think.
[SPEAKER_02]: We want the spirit to make you rebellious.
[SPEAKER_02]: The word the scripture uses for this peculiar strange weird.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm on a mission.
[SPEAKER_02]: Keep the church weird.
[SPEAKER_02]: We need to recover our weirdness.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now some of you, some of that weirdness ain't what I'm talking about.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got time to lay it out.
[SPEAKER_02]: You mean there's a group of people over there that's praying for peace instead of calling for bloodshed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, where we are like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: You mean there's a group of people over there that what they do for fun is pray.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a group of people over there that their marriages are healthy and whole.
[SPEAKER_02]: And after twenty five years, they still find each other desirable.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we're weird like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: You mean your kids are twenty years old and they still want to talk to you?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, we're weird like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Stand up on me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Theresa put a lot of pressure on me before service she came on said you better bring and I'm tired.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Spirit comes, the Bible says, like a fire, and it sits upon each of them.
[SPEAKER_02]: The fire does not come to burn us because we don't live right.
[SPEAKER_02]: The fire comes to burn us until we live right.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Spirit is burning everything out of us, unlike Jesus, and making us bearers of His image, bearers of His cross.
[SPEAKER_02]: We should probably explain to people a little bit better than we do.
[SPEAKER_02]: What it actually means to join the church?
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't mean we're going to organize all your outreach and your fellowship.
[SPEAKER_02]: It means you're going to be a part of a weird community of people.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the early church when somebody wanted to join, they would have to go through training for months, even years.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because if we just threw you into the life of the church from the life you came out of, it would be such a shot to your system.
[SPEAKER_02]: You wouldn't be able to process it.
[SPEAKER_02]: We need to have such a radically different way of life.
[SPEAKER_02]: That when people meet us, they're like, are you from another planet?
[SPEAKER_02]: We say yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: The aliens are here.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're us.
[SPEAKER_02]: Our time machine was our baptism.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're other worldly.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're buried witness to a kingdom not of this world.
[SPEAKER_02]: A kingdom that by Paul's definition in Jesus definition makes no sense to our minds.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's what the Spirit was given to you tonight for.
[SPEAKER_02]: To give you power to be that witness.
[SPEAKER_02]: Raise your hands.
[SPEAKER_02]: We pray for your church.
[SPEAKER_02]: We pray for every student here, every youth pastor, every church represented in this house.
[SPEAKER_02]: Father, you've changed us.
[SPEAKER_02]: You've purified us.
[SPEAKER_02]: You've filled us with your spirit.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now you're sending us back out into the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: to bear witness, to carry the cross, to deny ourselves and to follow you.
[SPEAKER_02]: You are the leader of this rebellion, and we're submitted to you in Jesus name.
[SPEAKER_02]: This means that when school starts, people don't recognize you, not because you cut your hair, but because of how you're engaging with them.
[SPEAKER_02]: You used to be the young person that would sit around and make jokes about the kid all dressed in black with black fingernail polish.
[SPEAKER_02]: But now you're the kid that says, you know what?
[SPEAKER_02]: You come sit with me.
[SPEAKER_02]: You used to be the kid making all of the inappropriate jokes that's sporting events and now you're the kid that says, you know what?
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's pray before we go out.
[SPEAKER_02]: Come on somebody.
[SPEAKER_02]: Used to be known for being a player, or at least you try to be a player, ain't nobody here got that kind of game.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now you're going to be known as the guy that's respectful and humble and meek and pure.
[SPEAKER_02]: used to be the kid gripped in pornography.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now you're going to be the kid gripped by the scriptures used to pull out your Bible and scroll and then you're going to pull out your Bible and read and quotes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Raise your hands one more time, Lord.
[SPEAKER_02]: Send out your people.
[SPEAKER_02]: Send out your people to bear witness to your kingdom and to your way.
[SPEAKER_02]: Send out your people to bear witness that Jesus you are Lord and the kings of this world are not.
[SPEAKER_02]: Satan is not.
[SPEAKER_02]: My own will is not Jesus you are Lord.
[SPEAKER_02]: You are the Christ.
[SPEAKER_02]: You are the Son of living God.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want you to take five seconds and give Him the loudest praise you've given Him all week.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks again for downloading this podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: We trust that this message has blessed and encouraged and identified you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We'll be back soon with another incredible message.
[SPEAKER_00]: God bless you and have a great week.