The Name Above All Names - Pastor Otis Amey | Elk Grove

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            Pastor Otis Amey is a former record-setting S.F. 49er wide receiver and punt returner. He was Born and raised in Union City, CA, Otis now lives in Sacramento and serves as the Associate Pastor for Midtown Church overseeing Men's, Young Professionals, and Serve Ministries. He is also a keynote speaker and workshop developer, empowering people everywhere he goes. In addition, Otis serves as the Area Director for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, where he coordinates on-campus events, sports camps, and mentors coaches and student-athletes. As a Life Skills Coach for Sac State's Football team, Otis is dedicated to transforming lives from the inside out, starting with himself, his home, and his community. As a married father of three, Otis strives to be the role model and mentor he never had.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

I know that you guys have been enjoying our sermon series about the Holy Spirit. We are transitioning next week to a sermon about the names of God. I love it. You can do that all year long. You can do that forever. Jehovah Nisi, Jehovah Java, Jehovah Rapha, Jehovah Shalom. But this is the last message in our sermon series called Empowered by the Spirit. So listen to the title of the name of the sermon. The title is The Name Above All Names. The Name Above All Names. What song did we sing, the second song? What a beautiful name it is. Right? It's amazing. So let's dive into this message this morning. What we do today and throughout the week, whatever that may be, it's ordered by the Lord. It's ordered by the Lord. According to Psalm 37, God orders our steps. So just pause for a minute and think about that. When you wake up in the morning or even when you leave from here, God has ordered my steps. So what should that cause us to do? It should cause us to live life with an expectancy that something great can and will happen. That this day is not going to be ordinary, because I'm living with this expectancy that God, because you're ordering my steps, I'm waiting for that moment to tell somebody about you or to receive the blessing or to be challenged in a way that's going to help me grow because you are ordering my steps. We should wake up with the mindset that today will not be ordinary because there's nothing ordinary about the spirit that resides within us. Maybe your days will shift once you shift your perspective about this. But there is a caveat though. It's not as simple as because you're here today at mid to grove, the Lord orders your steps. The caveat is this. That's just a starting point. You can be saved but still not live surrendered. You can give your life to Christ but still not wake up every day and decrease so that he can increase and not die to yourself and pick up your cross. God orders the steps of those who delight in him and seek to walk in obedience to his ways. That means that you find your deepest joy, your satisfaction and peace. It comes from God's presence rather than worldly pursuits. The Christian who's uh truly committed their way to the Lord and seeks to do what's right will discover blessings along their journey. And they'll even learn what seemed to be setbacks were really set ups because God is always working behind the scenes. And we know Romans 8 and 28 causing all things to work together for our good because we love the Lord and have been called according to his purpose. I can't say that without it's not that that's my scripture for the year. I can't say it without smiling, it anchors my soul. Because I'm reminded that God, no matter what I go through in this moment, whether I realize it right now or next week or a year from now, he was setting me up to benefit me. Whether I didn't like the pain or the trauma or the adversity, things I can look back on now and say, oh, because I went through that, I now have a testimony to bless and share with somebody else to help them overcome it as well. So I can say hallelujah in the midst of something that doesn't make sense at the time. Uh let me give you an example. I'm on my journey right now. I haven't even shared this with my wife yet. Um because I haven't I haven't officially decided. So I'm on a journey of potentially getting two masters, one in sports psychology, maybe another one in divinity. I I think I'm gonna do sports psychology first. But either way, I discovered that I needed to take a summer school class that wasn't offered at SAC State. And so, why do I want to do this? I'm mentoring 97 uh football players along with other folks at church and in different spaces. And so, you know, I love learning, I love reading. Um, I bought a couple books about the the mind and dealing with trauma. Um, and then I learned, okay, you have to go to summer school, so I'm going through this process. And then I'm like, man, I I I haven't done that in a while, so I have to go through uh uh Sacramento City College. And so I'm trying to figure out how to go to uh parchment and send my official transcripts to Sacks City and do all these things I haven't done in like 20 years, right? And it's not working, and I'm getting frustrated. But then I discover that a friend of mine who goes to Midtown Sacramento is a professor at Sack City and he teaches the class that I need to take. So I'm like, hey, hey, hey, hey, I text him instantly. But his class is booked, so he's like, yeah, I can I can get you in there. So that was the first step that God was like, I got you, I got you, I got you. So then just a couple days ago, I'm I'm I'm trying to figure out what I need to do, and the people at Sack State that I work with on a on a daily basis, they say, Hey, we're connecting you to some people that are high up. I don't even know what their title there, advisor of something over the entire campus. And they did some digging, some research, and they said, Hey, we've what's they they said something about catalog rights. I don't know what that means, but they went back and said, You took an ethnic studies class like a million years ago, and we've changed the catalog rights. You don't even need to take the class anymore. You're good. It's on your you're you're good, you don't have to take it. So that may not sound like something big or even worth sharing to you, but for me, it's like a nudge again from God saying, keep going. Keep going down the path that I'm calling you to. Trust me, if you know everything that I do, going to school does not make sense. Does not make sense. But I know that God's calling me to go down this path. And now there's a class I don't even have to take, which means what? There's money I don't have to pay. Praise God. That part. Yeah. So I wake up committed to doing things God's way, having the perspective that the trials and adversity are only going to help me grow in my faith and grow as a leader, and then along the way I enjoy little blessings from here and here and there. So, but but one of the biggest blessings in my life, and I know some parents can relate to this, has nothing to do with accolades, nothing to do with achievements. It is literally just coming home. It's literally coming home every single day, and my kids saying, Daddy, daddy, and running up to me, give me a big hug and kiss. And kiss, give my wife a kiss. How's your day? That is one of the biggest blessings in my life. Every day I can't wait to come home and walk through that door and see them. Uh my wife, she sits in the car for about 20 minutes before she comes in, but she has to it has nothing to do with the kids, she has to decompress from dealing with all the patience that she sees. Um but seriously, it's a joy that I can't explain. And it's something that, I don't know if you guys have ever thought about this, it's something that makes me wonder how does God look at me as his child? Have you ever just stared at your children and just been like, man, God used me and my amazing better half to create these little kids and kind of looks like her and kind of looks like me. Like, and you just stare at him, and sometimes they catch you and they're like, What are you looking at? As I delight in God's word and delight in him, I wonder if he ever looks at me how I look at my kids. And says, I'm so proud of him. And filled with joy because he sees me trying, even when I mess up and I have to repent and repent again and I get it right. And he's saying, Look at my son. I wonder if he looks at me how I look at my kids. A little bit of biblical background. This is the last sermon in our series. I said it already about the Holy Spirit, the master teacher, the comforter, the counselor. Holy Spirit guides and directs us if we allow him to. The moment we surrender our lives to Christ, we are marked and sealed with the same spirit. Um, I say this often because, again, it's like Romans 8 and 28. It's something that when I say it, I'm like, wow, God, you didn't have to do this, but the same spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead now indwells our mortal bodies. So every time I say that, I'm like, God, there's no way that I should be living an average and ordinary life of the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead. The reason why I'm saved is because he raised from the dead. That spirit is now inside of me. The spirit that created every single thing, the spirit of the creator is in me. God, what are you? This is why I slow down and say, what are you calling me to do? What are you calling me to create? Where are you telling me to go? It's also a powerful reminder that none of us should live an average and ordinary life. We should not just be existing with God living in us. By the time we get to Acts chapter 4, we've been in the book of Acts for most of these messages. Peter and John had just experienced a miracle. Peter heals a man that was lame and paralyzed since birth. So this is for 40 years. But he's now able to walk. He's at the temple gate, called beautiful, laying there begging for alms for 40 years. So Peter and John respond to the immediate attention that any of us would get if we were out at Trader Joe's in Costco and everyone saw us heal someone. What happens in the story? Everyone comes running up to them in awe, but they pointed people to the source, to the power of God. Have you ever considered if God could trust you to steward something like this? I know a lot of people would have been like, yeah, that was me. I'm I'm here to the 15th. Like, look at look at what I look at what I did. But they got it right. Sometimes I wonder, uh, uh, are there things that God is withholding from me because he can't yet trust me to steward it how they stewarded this? He knew that they were gonna give all the credit, all the glory, right to him. Don't look at us as if we have some kind of power. It was God who did it. So that's one of my prayers, Lord, help me become someone you can entrust with the supernatural, you can entrust with these blessings. See, God obviously trusted the disciples to steward the miraculous because he knew that they were gonna give him all the glory. But as they shifted the attention towards Jesus Christ and him crucified, talking about Jesus is always a problem. It drew the attention of the Sadducees who explicitly rejected the bodily resurrection of the dead. They didn't believe in the resurrection. So this would end up sparking the first recorded persecution of the followers of Jesus post him ascending back to heaven. So Christ has gone back up, the disciples are still on earth, but the spirit is now indwelling them. And understand this, they desperately needed the Holy Spirit. This is the beginning. But for the next 300 years in church history, uh the church would experience some of the worst persecutions ever recorded. Ten different waves of persecution. Think about this and ask yourself would you still proclaim Christ if this was happening now? This began in uh around 67 AD with Caesar Nero. They were beaten and beheaded, fed to wild hogs after having uh animal skins sewn on their skins, and they released the wild hogs. They were uh uh given wax coats and lit on fire. They were made to be human torches and plenty of other crazy and demonic things. Our persecution here in America is not like theirs. Ours is primarily a persecution of our egos. People laughing at us or ignoring us, maybe the loss of a job or a relationship, but the sad reality today is that many Christians don't really experience persecution because many professing followers of Christ don't share their faith with others. A lot of us are too comfortable, and I've been there. You can do your own self-check right now. If you don't feel free to worship, when we're just worshiping God amongst other believers, uh in your own way during the church service, if you care what other people think about you when you lift your hands or come to the altar or cry or whatever you need to do in the presence of God, then of course you're not gonna go tell anyone about Jesus uh uh Monday through Saturday. But praise God for the process of sanctification. Praise God that he does not give up on us. He's with us, and the Holy Spirit helps us as we grow in our faith. He wants us to be free in every aspect because who the Son says free is free indeed. So where we'll begin today is when I like to call them, because there's a lot of them in the Bible, the haters. There's the Sadducees, the Pharisees, uh, Jewish leaders, scribes, all these people are against Jesus primarily because they're jealous and they think he's blasphemy. They don't they know a lot about the word, but they can't recognize the word when the word is in their face. So we'll begin today when the haters arrive in Acts chapter 4. The big question, and this oftentimes we just throw this in there because that's kind of the format of how we structure it, but this is one of the most big questions I feel I've ever put in a message before. And it's this what name is most important to you? I don't think it's on the notes. What name? Think about this. What name is most important to you? Think about this. Many people fight to represent what? Their last name, traditions, family traditions, their skin color, their political ideologies, their teams. More excited about their teams. Side note, I'm sorry, um, Sacramento Kings fans, your old coaches in the NBA Finals, two of your old players in the NBA Finals, but that's going back to my point, people would be so excited about a team that cares nothing about you. Players that go back and forth based on owners and money. Yeah. People fight for brand names, but what name? I'm gonna keep asking this, what name is the most important to you? Point number one is this Jesus Christ is problematic. Why do I put that as the title for point number one? Uh the heading, because people can't handle that name. You can walk into a barbershop, there'll be Hebrew Israelites, atheists, Christians, uh, nation of Islam, everything. And you say, Man, how you doing, man? God is good all the time, all the time, God is good, whole barbershop. But say the name of Jesus. I'm cool, God, he's a creator, he's a higher power. But say the name of Jesus, do it at work. Watch how squirmish people get. There's something about the name of Jesus that makes people have to decide. There's something about the name, there's power in the name of Jesus. In Acts chapter 4, verses 1 through 4, it says the priest and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John while they were still speaking to the people. Understand, I set this up, they already have performed a miracle. Now, God will often use miracles to get people's attention so they can do what they're doing now. Talk about Jesus Christ. So they're proclaiming the gospel and they're talking to the people. So imagine you just performed a miracle of a guy that was paralyzed for 40 years. You would think that someone approaching you would come up to worship God. Say, oh my gosh, that's amazing. While they're still proclaiming Jesus, they come up to them. They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people, proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. They seized Peter and John, and because it was evening, they didn't meet in the evening time, they put them in jail until the next day. But many who heard the message believed. So the number of men who believed grew to about five thousand. As I said in the intro, the Sadducees didn't believe in the resurrection. They believed the human soul perished eternally, entirely, uh, at physical death. So consequently, they denied the existence of angels or demons or anything involving the spiritual realm. So that means they didn't believe in heaven or hell. Now, I don't want to do a deep dive on them right now, but I do want to give you just a little bit of context as to why they were like this. Have you ever looked at someone or a people group and just thought to yourself, why are they like this? I've looked in the mirror and said, Why are you like this? Anyway, um, the Sadducees only accepted the written Torah, which was the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible as being authoritative. So for that reason, uh, according to them, they found no explicit mention of heaven, hell, or bodily resurrection in the Torah, and because they saw that as being authoritative, they completely rejected any of those ideas or concepts. So their beliefs were completely contrary to the Pharisees. The Pharisees believed in all this, but they had a common thread. What was that? They both hated Jesus, they both wanted to get Jesus out of the way. I saw this quote yesterday that really resonated with me, and it relates to this story in Acts chapter 4. The quote says this it says, A dangerous person never wastes time correcting the narrative others build about them. They focus on building something that makes the narrative irrelevant. In other words, they refuse to be consumed by other people's opinions about them, and they remain focused on what they know God has called them to do. Does anyone in the Bible come to mind when you think about that? Of course, Jesus. That's the answer to 90% of questions in children's church. Just tell my kids, just say Jesus. Yeah, there's plenty of people. Comes to mind immediately for me was Noah. So imagine it never rained. You're building an ark that's uh 150 yards, no Home Depot, no Lowe's, no think of think about how wild that is. And people laughing, clowning. Oh, but when it started raining, everybody wanted to get in, right? He wasn't concerned with their opinions. He knows that God told me this is what I need to do. It might look crazy. And there's something maybe for you that it may sound crazy. I remember when I first told my wife from going back to school, it's like, what? You got this and this and this and this. To some folks, it may seem crazy. But if God told you to do it and you know that he told you to do it, then do it. Who cares what anybody else has to say? Because once you build that ark, whatever that ark means to you, people's gonna people are gonna wanna get on it. They're gonna want to be a part of it. Matter of fact, they're gonna say, Oh, that's my boy. I knew him. That's how people roll. Trust me. But how does that quote relate to this story? The Sadducees also didn't believe in miracles. So Peter and John didn't allow any other groups to shape their narrative. Their mentality was, we are going to obey God. I say they had what I call a what I call an ask for me in my house mentality. You can do whatever you're gonna do. You can raise your kids however you're gonna raise your kids. Ask for me and my wife and my house, we're gonna serve the Lord. I got too many testimonies, too many receipts of God's goodness and faithfulness and mercy to deviate and do anything else. It may sound good, it may sound appealing, but we are going to serve the Lord. Not only do they heal a man who was paralyzed for 40 years, his entire life, it says since birth, they performed a miracle. But they continue to do what God called them to do, despite the opposition and adversity. It says, despite all of this, many who heard the message believed. And it says the number of men who believed grew to about 5,000. Now, it just lists the men, but just like the feeding of the 5,000, you can assume that it's around more around 15, maybe 20, considering the women and children that surrender their lives to Christ as well. Uh, they did something that was undeniable. Let me let me make it a little bit more plain. Something that grabbed my attention in this text is that the writer Luke describes what transpires as if it's expected. Please follow me. He writes it as if this is expected. There's no exclamation, because when when when when God, all scriptures, God breathed, wants to emphasize something, he said, verily, verily, truly, truly, say it twice, there'll be exclamations. There's no exclamation in this passage. There's no emphasis, just the disciples were united in obeying God despite opposition and preach the gospel anyway. Then thousands surrender their life to Christ. If I was writing this today, and this happened today at Midtown Elk Grove, preached the gospel, and we went out to the streets into these homes, and 3,000 people surrendered their lives to Christ. If I wrote about it, at the end of every sentence, there'd be three exclamation marks. And we didn't even have enough room to hold everybody in here, I would write with all these exclamations. Wow, look at what God did. Here's my point. Maybe there's something here for us to grasp. When we are united in obeying God despite our differences, despite our circumstances, and we're united in being the church after church and telling people about Jesus, then the numbers of those who are being saved will also grow here expeditiously. I can give you scriptural references. What Jesus says right before he ascends back up into heaven in Matthew 28, verses 18 through 20. All power and heaven and th heaven and earth has been given, all power and authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples. But you can again ask yourself this do I do that? If we all did that, we wouldn't. Not have enough space in here to hold service. Amen. Verse 5 through 7 says the next day the rulers, the elders, and the teachers of the law met in Jerusalem. Annas the high priest was there, and so were Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and others of the high priest's family. They had Peter and John brought before them and began to question them, By what power or what name did you do this? This is something they regularly regularly did to people. By what power or what name did you do this? They wanted to know who authorized you to say and do these things. Verse 8 through 10. Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, Rulers and elders of the people, exclamation. If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being asked how he was healed, you can tell he's like, this is ridiculous. If we're being asked to to be held to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being asked how he was healed, then know this. You and all the people of Israel, it is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom you crucified, but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you, healed. So this is so powerful to me. Silenced between, then Peter said to them are five very important words for our lives, filled with the Holy Spirit. Then Peter, comma, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, When you show up, can those words be said of you? You know, I know when I'm preaching and communicating, I can, it's hard to properly articulate, but I can feel, it's like an out-of-body experience, to be honest, when the Holy Spirit is using me. I'm present, I'm there, my mouth is moving, but he is speaking. Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit. Why are those words so important in the life of a believer? Why should these words that are describing Peter stop you in our stop us in our tracks? Because we have all had Peter moments or even seasons in our life. Let me explain. When Jesus stood trial, there was a Peter that didn't have that five words attached. Filled with some other spirit. When Jesus stood trial, Peter was outside warming himself by a fire, not even with Jesus. And he denied Jesus to a little servant girl. But now Peter is inside, he's not by a fire, he's on fire, and he's filled with the Holy Spirit. He's not denying Christ, he's declaring Christ. He's not timid, he's tenacious, he's not a coward, he's courageous. I say this a lot, the Holy Spirit is the most unfair advantage that we have. It's the difference maker in our lives. There's times, like I said, when I'm speaking, I can feel it. But there's also been times where I remember specifically speaking at a Saturday men's breakfast at real life church in Atonas, and the Holy Spirit was not present. And when I was done, I said, Lord, I'm sorry that will never happen again. I'll never just show up like I got this. I know what it feels like to not have the power and the presence of the Spirit active and living in me and through me. Whatever the biblical or technical term for that is, my response when these out-of-body experiences happen, when the Holy Spirit uses me, is Lord, I want more. That was amazing. And that's one of the many things that's amazing about our God. There's no limit to whatever more means for you. We're usually not waiting on God to give us more, He's waiting on us to come and get it. The question is, how many distractions are you going to eliminate so you can spend more time in His presence? He wants to change your mind so we can change your life. A great theologian once said, the greatest argument for the power of Christ is a change life. It's why? Because it's undeniable.

unknown 27:19

Right?

SPEAKER_00 27:19

When I think about conversations I now get to have with my father who's in town, who's here, it's undeniable. When I think about the fact that when I was 16, 17, I still used to be a thief and stealing stuff, right? And now that doesn't even cross my mind. It's undeniable what the what God will do and what the Holy Spirit will do to change you. But our minds must be renewed before there's any lasting change or actions. And our minds only get renewed by spending time with God in His Word, day after day. In 1 Corinthians 6, it gives a laundry list of things that uh it labels wrongdoers. Wrongdoers do. And it says, they will not inherit the kingdom of God. If you look at this list, you will find yourself in there somewhere. It says thieves. I'm like, oh, that's me. Oh, that was me, the sexually immoral. Oh, that was me. Look at the list and find yourself on there. The sexually immoral, the abusive, the cheaters, the slanderers, the thieves, etc. But then, verse 11 says, This is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. So when someone tries to say, Oh, I was born like this, cool, be born again. I think God made me this way. Even if that's true, He can change you, He can renew you, He can regenerate you, He can be born again. There's ways that I feel some of us have natural propensities towards a number of things, towards violence, towards profanity, whatever it may be, whatever you feel, be born again, be washed in the blood, become a new creation. You can do that through Christ Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. So the big question again is what name is the most important to you? My partisanship doesn't save me. My complexion cannot cover a multitude of sins. Point number two. Jesus Christ is undeniable. Jesus Christ is undeniable. In verse 11, it says, Jesus is the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone. Salvation is found in no one else, for there was no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved. When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished, and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say. So they ordered, so if you're if you're tracking with me, they wanted to hate. So they ordered them to withdraw from the Sanhedrin and then conferred together. So they huddled up together, a little hater huddle, right? Look over here. Don't ever be a part of a hater huddle. So they ordered them to withdraw from the Sanhedrin and they conferred together. What are we gonna do with these men? They asked. Everyone living in Jerusalem knows they have performed a notable sign, everyone living in Jerusalem knows. They have performed a notable sign, and we cannot deny it. But to stop this thing, this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn them to speak no longer to anyone in this name. Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. There's sixteen of the 150 Psalms are regarded as uh messianic psalms. So uh Psalm 118, this is where this comes from. The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. So since ancient times, builders would use cornerstones, which were the more steady, uh, well-crafted rock that would be laid first, and everything that you built on the building will be built from the cornerstone. Every measurement, everything was aligned to the cornerstone. So, this this what he's saying here, Peter, this definitely falls under the category of Christian clapbacks because Peter was directly telling them that everything that they've built, their entire life, was built without the most important thing that anything worth building should be built with, and that's Jesus Christ. And not only is Christ a cornerstone, but his name is the only name by which we can be saved. See, our lives must be built by the Word of God and then lived out. Christ must be not only your cornerstone, but your blueprint. See, some believe this is one of the most easily, uh one of the most powerful scriptures, verse 13, in the entire Bible. It says they saw, they realized, they were astonished, and they took note. What did they see? They saw their courage. It was noticeable, it was noticeable and it was obvious. Then they realized that these dudes were not seminary, they're not like us. Right? They're not seminary trained, they have no rabbinical training. How are they doing what they're doing? They haven't gone through what we've got what we've been through. Then they were astonished, they were amazed that they knew the scripture. It's just flowing out of them so well, and they could quote it on the spot without unrolling a scroll. Then they noted the most important part. Oh man, they've been with Jesus. They took note that these unschooled fishermen who had spent three years with this man named Jesus knew the scripture and had just miraculously healed a man. So their narrative against miracles and the spiritual realm was irrelevant because uh they were witnessing, what they were witnessing was undeniable. See, when Jesus Christ really gets a hold of you, some undeniable things start to happen. We started this thing by faith on third Thursdays where we opened up the doors at 5 30. Long story short, I invited one of my friends, uh Kelvin Truitt. He's born on the same day, same year as me. We call each other Big Bro, and he came and shared. And he was sharing some things I had never known about him before. And he was sharing that he by faith became a barber in South Sacramento. And then he wanted to play football, so he went to CSU Northridge. And I didn't know this uh when I played at Sack State, we actually played against Northridge the last game they ever had before they shut their program down. I didn't know that he was already out there, he couldn't play football, so he got more serious about barbering. One day, some young dude named Nick Cannon comes walking into his barber shop. And Nick Cannon's not the Nick Cannon you know. Uh whatever that means to you right now. He's not he hadn't started wilding out, he's not famous. He ends up, and he would say, I'm not the greatest barber in the world, but as God would have it, Nick Cannon walked into my shop, sat in my chair, I had a spot open, cut his hair. Uh I think a year and a half later, he starts wilding out, and he asks Kelvin to be a part of it and be the barber for wildin' out. So think about all the people that come to Wildin' Out, making all these connections. And he ends up because it's a syndicated show, he's now a part of the uh SAG AFTRA, uh, uh Screen Actors Guild. He's like, they're paying me $1,200 something dollars every day just because I was a part of the Screen Actors Guild. I became a millionaire and I lost it. He was sharing this amazing testimony. Then I got invited to be the barber for the Rams or somebody that won the Super Bowl, then the uh Warriors that won the NBA championships. I have championship rings from being a barber, and it took me back to just the faithfulness of trusting the Holy Spirit's prompting and leading to do what God's called you to do. Think about how amazing what I just shared is. And it just started with having the faith to open up my own barber shop. Undeniable things. I was at um I had a breakfast that I put together uh this past week, and someone that said they wanted some mentoring, and I got somebody else to come and pour into them, and it was just amazing to see this OG talking to another almost OG and just calling things out in him that he didn't fully know. Just speaking to the child that never had a father in him, and just telling him, bro, you can do better. There's greatness in you. And this grown man who's 58 years old starts crying and says, I've never had a man speak to me like this before. I never had this. And he's like, bro, you okay? He's like, I uh I'm fine, I'll be okay. I don't know how to hide my emotions, but what you're doing, I've never had. I'm 58 years old and I never had it. And the person that was pouring into him, I've never seen him like that. It was those five words filled with the Holy Spirit. I was just like a tennis master, like he was saying stuff, I'm like, why he's he's really saying that right now. He was challenging him, he was breaking chains. I believe it started this process of breaking chains of trauma and things that he's been through that he's never dealt with before. And I'm believing that this is the start of a process for this man who never had somebody do this. It was undeniable. And he's the type of dude, he don't cry, he couldn't help it. At some point you begin to realize that it's less about how much Bible you have in your mind and more about how much God you have in your heart. See, there are, there's people who know the word of God, and there's people who know the God of the Word. You can be both, but it's not too not too common. What I witnessed during that breakfast was undeniable. So here's the question as I begin to close is this when you, when people encounter you, what do they see? What do they realize? And if they left and had to take a one-page essay about you, what would they take note of? When they watch your life and examine your life and look at how you move and what you do and how you talk, how you treat others? Do they see someone that lives life and handles challenges different? Can they tell there's something inside of you that's guiding you that they don't have but they want? Will they take note that the things they've heard about Jesus are also markers on your life? Compassion, generosity, joy, and the way you love. What name is the most important name to you? I love my last name. I'm grateful for it. I don't know about having two old man first names, Fred and Otis, but I love my last name. But the name that is most important is the name Jesus. When I stand before him on that day, none of those other names will matter. None of those names will matter. Um, last point. Jesus Christ is a name above all names. But Peter and John replied, which is right in God's eyes, to listen to you or to him? You be the judges. As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard. After further threats, they let them go. They cannot decide how to punish them because all the people were praising God for what had happened. For the man who was miraculously healed was over 40 years old. So they were asking, as I close, they were asking a rhetorical question. At least to them it was rhetorical. Should we obey you or obey Geha? Y'all can go debate about that. Have another hater huddle, right? See, Peter and John appealed to a higher court, to the real Supreme Court. See, the mistake that was made in the Bible is still being made today. Some people want morality legislated by gaining political power rather than allowing the Holy Spirit's supernatural power to work in the lives of those that follow Christ to change hearts, which in turn changes minds, which in turn changes lives. That's God's process. They were all about doing right. But if we profess to be followers of Christ, our ultimate allegiance must be to the Lord. No matter how much a teaching ruffles our feathers or goes against our upbringing or what mommy and daddy taught me, it has to be to the Lord. But we will always revert back to our old ways and old mindsets and old ways of thinking if we're not filled with the Holy Spirit. So the man that was healed had been there for 40 years, which means that Jesus had walked past him before. And so this is starting an altar call. This this part is amazing to me. When you think about God's timing, this means that he was there for 40 years, begging for alms. Jesus has walked by him before. Several times. You might be thinking, well, how come Jesus didn't heal him? That's kind of cruel. Praise God, God's timing. God's timing is perfect. And I often have to remind myself of that. So, what timing does God wait for in this story? Everybody in Jerusalem knows about what happens to this man. All the hater huddles, all the people, every single body knows. God times it up perfectly so that he can get maximum glory. So in your life, it may not happen, the relationship, the business, whatever it is, it may not happen when you want it to happen, but maybe God is setting you up for the perfect timing, his timing, so that he can receive maximum glory because he knows when he blesses you or touches you or gives you that whatever it may be, you're gonna do what they did and say, nah, nah, nah, it has nothing to do with me. I'm just the vessel. It was God. Look at Jesus. I'm proclaiming the gospel.