Speaker 1: Good morning, good morning, good morning.
Speaker 1: This is the best place to be on a Sunday morning, better than any county jail you can find, I guarantee it.
Speaker 1: We got the hospitality of the hospital, without all the needles and bad food.
Speaker 1: We're glad y'all are here today.
Speaker 1: So a month or two ago I had the honor of reversing roles with my father and for the first time in my entire life, instead of me going to his church, he was coming to mine.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so y'all most of y'all know my story.
Speaker 1: You've heard my story.
Speaker 1: He preached he still some reason.
Speaker 1: Let me back in his house after I went to jail and cursed him out on the phone and blamed him for all my problems, because it's always everyone else's fault, right?
Speaker 1: Well then, after I got out of jail, there's a cousin of mine and I confessed to him.
Speaker 1: Y'all don't have to tell him.
Speaker 1: I confessed to him at dinner last night that I may have referenced him as the ugly cousin because I was talking about poison envy we talked about that two weeks ago and then I said it's the ugly cousin to the one today, rage, anger.
Speaker 1: And I said, speaking of ugly cousins, mine's coming next week, so you don't have to tell on me, I already.
Speaker 1: Y'all know I tell on myself.
Speaker 1: Anyways, ask him, I did that as a child too.
Speaker 1: Amen.
Speaker 1: No one ever has claimed that I was smart.
Speaker 1: So when I got out of jail, there was a family that offered me and I was.
Speaker 1: I.
Speaker 1: I was struggling, I was still in the same town.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you literally have to remove yourself out of a physical location so that you don't go back into your sin, and I even did a great thing that we, we won't, we won't say it's of God.
Speaker 1: But I deleted my Facebook.
Speaker 1: That's how serious I got.
Speaker 1: And this man right here came out.
Speaker 1: I remember we were in front of CC's over in Palestine.
Speaker 1: I was getting in the truck with my dad and they come up to the window and they say hey, we're about to move to White House.
Speaker 1: They were leading worship at a church over there, actually, where I met her, which is how he baited me to get there, and God knows how you listen, he'll talk your language Blonde woman was my language, apparently and so they offered their home up to me being out of jail.
Speaker 1: I don't even think I was sober 30 days, if that, even if 10 or 15 days.
Speaker 1: I was so broken I was.
Speaker 1: So I felt like there was no way out for me, and they offered me a way out, and I'm thankful for the people that show love when we don't deserve it.
Speaker 1: I'm thankful for people who will sit down and talk with you like you have not sinned.
Speaker 1: That's what Jesus did, and so Cassie asked him this morning so you're the reason why he is the way he is?
Speaker 1: I said no, he is the reason I didn't get worse.
Speaker 1: So it is an honor and a pleasure today to offer my platform and stage and my congregation to my cousin.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you, so come on.
Speaker 2: You can't make me cry in this.
Speaker 2: What a privilege it is to be here this morning.
Speaker 2: Thank you for the kind welcome.
Speaker 2: I told him he couldn't make me cry and then get me up here and expect me to talk.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry whoever's following me on the camera because I move all the time.
Speaker 2: I am privileged to have a family that loves me.
Speaker 2: This guy right here is just like a brother to me.
Speaker 2: We grew up together and he talks about giving him a way out.
Speaker 2: That's what we offered, but we offered him love.
Speaker 2: That's what Jesus would do and that's what I want to do, and I want to offer love in every aspect.
Speaker 2: And I've been bitter at times and this guy right here has been the one that told me you're kind of negative.
Speaker 2: It hurt, I ain't going to lie, but it was very true.
Speaker 2: We can get so negative at times and I am thankful to have people who love me.
Speaker 2: I know you love him, so let him know you love him one more time.
Speaker 2: So let him know you love him one more time.
Speaker 2: Stephen and Jesse have been a blessing to us.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, we moved away.
Speaker 2: That's what happens when you like people right, you move away.
Speaker 2: We did get transferred, so just to give you a quick tidbit about me and what I do.
Speaker 2: I work for a tool company called Snap-on Tools, and that is not what I want to do.
Speaker 2: I'm called into the ministry and my plan is to be full-time ministry, but God hadn't opened those doors just yet.
Speaker 2: But the day is coming and it's drawing nigh.
Speaker 2: It's very soon.
Speaker 2: I can feel it in my bones, as the word says.
Speaker 2: It was like fire shut up in my bones.
Speaker 2: I just couldn't keep quiet about it, and I find myself in almost every conversation starting to speak about Jesus Christ and his love, starting to talk about my savior.
Speaker 2: You see, I was raised in a Christian home.
Speaker 2: I wasn't a real bad kid.
Speaker 2: I still had sin in my life and I was still just as much a sinner as anybody else and anybody else has sinned.
Speaker 2: But because of Jesus and the blood that he shed for me, I was able to go up and kneel at an old-fashioned altar and beg for forgiveness and feel Jesus touch me in my heart.
Speaker 2: I love to sing and it kind of saddens me that I'm not able to this morning.
Speaker 2: It's not because he told me I couldn't.
Speaker 2: I have been fighting a little bit of voice problems and so I have just decided.
Speaker 2: I little bit of voice problems and so I have just decided I'm not going to try to sing this morning.
Speaker 2: But I am so thankful for the worship this morning.
Speaker 2: Oh man, what a sweet, sweet presence of God this morning.
Speaker 2: No matter what you may think, to get up here week after week and put a song set together that you think is going to please everyone, that's a daunting task, but what an amazing job this morning.
Speaker 2: The worship team did an awesome job, didn't they?
Speaker 2: Amen, thank you all for worshiping this morning.
Speaker 2: I want to talk to you just a little bit this morning and you'll find out I like to talk.
Speaker 2: That's because I spent most of my childhood not talking.
Speaker 2: I was a minister's kid and I was scared to death to look at people.
Speaker 2: I could sing all day long on stage and there could be hundreds of people, it didn't matter.
Speaker 2: But when you met me at the back door and you started talking one-on-one, I was scared to death, grabbed up under my mama's skirt tail and didn't want to turn loose because I was a backwards, shy person.
Speaker 2: But the Lord, when he comes into us, gives us a boldness to speak, and I pray continually Lord, give me words to speak.
Speaker 2: Every day I go to work, when I go out to see my customers, I want words to speak.
Speaker 2: You see, I can't just openly start talking about God, because that'd get me fired, right.
Speaker 2: But when they start talking about God, the door's open.
Speaker 2: And I spent about an hour and a half talking to a fella just a couple of weeks ago, and I don't know who he was.
Speaker 2: I've never met him before, but I was walking out the door, kind of like the one right there you got and I looked over and there he sat and I said how are you?
Speaker 2: You need anything out of me today.
Speaker 2: And I explained who I was and we began to talk, and we talked about God, we talked about the Holy Spirit and how much the Holy Spirit means to us and how much it changes you when you receive the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2: I want to talk to you about a person in the Bible.
Speaker 2: He was a wee little man.
Speaker 2: I want to talk to you.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 2: I already hear his name being mentioned Zacchaeus.
Speaker 2: I want to talk to you just a few moments, and it's not just about Zacchaeus, but about his perspective.
Speaker 2: Perspective is something that each person has their own of and each person sees a different view.
Speaker 2: You see, the people sitting on this side looking this way see something different than the ones on this side looking this way.
Speaker 2: Where we are in life determines what our perspective is.
Speaker 2: If we're in a negative perspective, we're going to see negatively right.
Speaker 2: And if we are joyous and happy and we are in the middle of the most amazing move of God, we're going to be so joyful and our perspective is much different.
Speaker 2: Well, we get lost sometimes in worship, because what we felt this morning was amazing, was it not To feel the presence of God sweeping through the place?
Speaker 2: When we ask him to, when we sing, come into this house, it's yours.
Speaker 2: Feel the atmosphere, oh God, and he begins to sweep through and you can just feel the sweet, sweet spirit in this place.
Speaker 2: Our perspective becomes much different than when we sit there and we refuse to lift our voice.
Speaker 2: And when we sit there and we refuse to lift our hands and surrender, say, well, I don't have to do that to love God.
Speaker 2: You're true, you don't.
Speaker 2: But if you ever want to feel God and you ever want to get closer to him, you've got to have some action, because faith without works is what it's dead If we don't have faith in him enough to trust him enough that, even though our back may hurt us or hips may be hurting us, that we can still stand or still sit and worship the Lord together, then we have an attitude problem, because worship is not about what we feel.
Speaker 2: It's about what he gets out of the worship.
Speaker 2: What we get in return is that nice cool tingle and that feeling of the Spirit sweeping the place.
Speaker 2: That's our blessing.
Speaker 2: The responsibility is for us to worship Him, because that's why we were created.
Speaker 2: We are created to be worshipers.
Speaker 2: You don't believe me.
Speaker 2: How about the TV and the shows that we watch?
Speaker 2: How about the things that we follow?
Speaker 2: And media, social media?
Speaker 2: It becomes our very best friend.
Speaker 2: Before you know it, it's glued to our hand.
Speaker 2: And then what is our God?
Speaker 2: Are we raising our hand to God or are we sitting there scrolling?
Speaker 2: Are we dead set on something to change our life and drastically start a revival right here, right now, because it has to start in me, or are we waiting on somebody three seats over to start?
Speaker 2: You know when they start, I'll start.
Speaker 2: How about you be the difference, you be the catalyst.
Speaker 2: You change what's around you by worshiping the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Speaker 2: There is no repentance from what God calls you to, and he has made us and created us solely for worship to him.
Speaker 2: And what an amazing, amazing honor it is to stand and worship him.
Speaker 2: I can't imagine.
Speaker 2: I mean, as a kid we were just Holy Rollers, right.
Speaker 2: I was raised in Pentecostal church.
Speaker 2: Everybody thought we was Holy Rollers because you were them Pentecostals, you know.
Speaker 2: And a lot of people don't even know what Holy Roller is anymore.
Speaker 2: But I'm thankful that I was raised in a church where, when it got too late and I was a little kid because I wasn't allowed to fall asleep in church okay, you didn't take a nap, that's your problem you stay awake.
Speaker 2: You are going to listen to what's going on in this church and you're going to listen to the Word of God.
Speaker 2: And having an uncle that was a pastor, my dad was a minister, but I remember one night we were in a service so late that my mom and dad let me slide under the pew and my dad took his old long overcoat and threw it over the top of me as a blanket, because the spirit was moving and God was stirring in that place.
Speaker 2: I longed for the day where we would just sit and tarry in the presence of God.
Speaker 2: You see, zacchaeus, he wanted to see something he couldn't see.
Speaker 2: His perspective had to change.
Speaker 2: So when we read the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19, and starting in verse two, it says now, behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus in Luke 19.
Speaker 2: And starting in verse 2, it says Now, behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector and he was rich and he sought to see who Jesus was.
Speaker 2: So he went looking.
Speaker 2: He went looking why?
Speaker 2: Because Jesus was surrounded, he had crowds and multitudes around him, because something was different, something was going on.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like when the police lights are out on the side of the road and everybody starts watching and walking that way.
Speaker 2: It was an attraction, it was drawing people in, and he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not because of the crowd and he was a short stature and he was going to pass that way.
Speaker 2: And when Jesus came into the place, he looked up and saw him and said to him Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must go to your house.
Speaker 2: I want to stop there just for a second.
Speaker 2: Jesus gave a command to him.
Speaker 2: Stop there just for a second.
Speaker 2: Jesus gave a command to him.
Speaker 2: First off, if I'm looking for a man that's in the middle of a crowd and he spots me and he calls me by name and I've never seen him before, my attention's on him.
Speaker 2: He wanted to see something he had not seen.
Speaker 2: He wanted to see what the ruckus was about.
Speaker 2: And when he put his perspective on Jesus, you see, he had to climb up an old tree and he probably you know, as a kid I always imagined him leaning out on that limb and stretched as far as he could past the leaves to see what Jesus was doing.
Speaker 2: What's this man?
Speaker 2: What's this ruckus about?
Speaker 2: What's going on?
Speaker 2: And then we see that there was a hunger there.
Speaker 2: So he went seeking.
Speaker 2: The word tells us, if we will seek, we will what, we'll find it.
Speaker 2: So when we begin to seek God and we really want a true move of God, we will seek him.
Speaker 2: And it won't just be on Sunday morning, it won't just be on Wednesday night, and it won't be just on prayer meeting times.
Speaker 2: It'll be at home, when we start bowing down beside our bed or in our garage or wherever we make our altar, and we begin to seek him, you say, well, I don't have time for that.
Speaker 2: Kids play soccer and then football and then baseball and all these things are just keeping us bogged down and those things are fine.
Speaker 2: My kids have played sports, but at some point we have to make time for him.
Speaker 2: The things that matter in our life we'll make time for.
Speaker 2: What about the people who say I don't have time to do anything?
Speaker 2: How much TV in a week do they watch?
Speaker 2: I'm not one of them.
Speaker 2: Old-time Pentecostals that say you can't have a TV in your house, don't get me wrong, but it might not have been such a bad rule.
Speaker 2: I mean, looking at some of the filth that's out there, I don't know if it was a good idea letting it come in, but you know, we have the responsibility to oversee our home.
Speaker 2: Men, I'm talking to you.
Speaker 2: We oversee what goes on in our home.
Speaker 2: Well, they're just kids.
Speaker 2: So what?
Speaker 2: Well, my parents didn't do that.
Speaker 2: We didn't go to church.
Speaker 2: That's okay.
Speaker 2: You are now Change it.
Speaker 2: Be someone who will stand up and love their kids enough.
Speaker 2: You know how hard it is to want to spank your kid.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's not, but most of the time.
Speaker 2: Why do we procrastinate?
Speaker 2: Why do we keep backing off from that punishment, because when my parents said it hurts me worse than it does you, I didn't believe them.
Speaker 2: I knew what was hurting and it wasn't them.
Speaker 2: But as a parent I understand it hurts in here.
Speaker 2: It hurts in here because I've taught them better and they know better.
Speaker 2: But if I don't correct them and correct them and correct them again until the day they leave my home and then start homes of their own, because I want credible members of society, I don't want this wash off.
Speaker 2: Just do what you want to do society.
Speaker 2: I want God in their life and I want him leading and guiding them and directing them and putting them into a place.
Speaker 2: So what do I have to do to do that?
Speaker 2: I got to live it.
Speaker 2: You know how hard it is to trust God and your kids and your wife are watching you and you're sitting there just wanting to break down and cry in a corner in the fetal position.
Speaker 2: We've all had those moments.
Speaker 2: But then when God breaks through and you can see him through the leaves and you say I have never seen God do that before, but I am so grateful that he did.
Speaker 2: Zacchaeus had a position and it had to be something.
Speaker 2: His perspective had to change.
Speaker 2: We read on in the scripture.
Speaker 2: We find out that he did in fact do what he was commanded.
Speaker 2: Jesus said come down, make haste, let's go to your house.
Speaker 2: The word says he came down.
Speaker 2: They went to his house and what began to happen?
Speaker 2: Grumbling here he is doing what the king of kings told him to do.
Speaker 2: He says, oh, let me jump down.
Speaker 2: I can imagine him grabbing a smooth limb and sliding as quick as he could Because he wanted to please the Lord First off, being called by name and given a commandment Zacchaeus, come down, let's make haste and go to your house.
Speaker 2: Jesus gave him a command he obeyed and listened.
Speaker 2: So many times we refuse to listen to God.
Speaker 2: I was praying this morning and I thought it's been many years and I still get so emotional because God told me to go pray for a young man who was deaf and I was visiting the church, didn't know the young man, but I knew he was deaf because his mama would come up here and worship in sign language and it touched me to see a love like that from a mother that would sit there and communicate those worship songs with him and watch him worship with her and the people in the room just like it was second hat no, no big deal, and watching them communicate worship to the Lord in a different way.
Speaker 2: But the number one thing that bothered me the most was that he was deaf and God was dealing with me to go pray for that young man and watch him be healed.
Speaker 2: And to this day, as far as I know that young man still deaf.
Speaker 2: And I deal with that in my spirit every day because I did not make haste and I did not move when Jesus said move.
Speaker 2: And every day, as a person who wants to be full-time minister, I think, god, when you give me the opportunity, I will go, I will do what you tell me to do, because I don't ever want to feel that again, I don't ever want to cause somebody to miss out on their miracle because I was scared.
Speaker 2: We sit back and we say Jesus used me.
Speaker 2: And we sing that old song and we Jesus used me, jesus used me.
Speaker 2: And then when he starts trying to use you, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, that's not what I meant.
Speaker 2: I didn't want that.
Speaker 2: That's enough.
Speaker 2: I felt it.
Speaker 2: We're good.
Speaker 2: When we ask him, he will supply.
Speaker 2: So when you begin to get hungry and you start looking for him.
Speaker 2: You'll find him.
Speaker 2: But what next?
Speaker 2: Our perspective changes when we begin to feel him.
Speaker 2: Our perspective changes when we know the blood of Jesus and what it means.
Speaker 2: Our perspectives begin to change when we begin to move on in our life.
Speaker 2: We don't want to go back to the old way.
Speaker 2: We want to continue on in the new path where Jesus is guiding us every moment.
Speaker 2: But our perspective will only change when we begin to ask God to lead us.
Speaker 2: You ever been around one of those people that are so negative, like when you leave you're there to cheer them up and you're down, like the reverse.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm supposed to make them better.
Speaker 2: They made me worse.
Speaker 2: Sometimes that happens because in here we're soured, whether it was someone, whether it was something, whether it was just a random bad day.
Speaker 2: We're sour and I have realized that when I'm sour and I say something sour, then my kids will say something sour.
Speaker 2: I have realized if I make a complaint about something I saw in the church in the privacy of my own vehicle, my kids take on that notion that that's what's happening because they see it too.
Speaker 2: But then they get in that bad mood that that's what's happening because they see it too.
Speaker 2: But then they get in that bad mood and maybe my little comment turns into a big comment in their eyes because they continue on thinking about how wrong or how bad that might have been.
Speaker 2: When I am quick to judge, I will be judged in that very same manner.
Speaker 2: When I was a kid, people used to always say you can't judge.
Speaker 2: The Bible doesn't say you can't judge.
Speaker 2: It says when you judge, you will be judged by that same accord.
Speaker 2: So if you are quick to judge and harsh to judge, guess what?
Speaker 2: One day you're going to be judged, and it's going to be a quick, harsh judgment because we are putting in seed to the ground.
Speaker 2: Remember the old story in the Bible where he talks about the seed falling on different grounds.
Speaker 2: Let's make sure we're putting in fertile ground.
Speaker 2: Let's make sure we're receiving a hundredfold each time, a thousandfold, 10,000 times, because this church will be packed.
Speaker 2: You mark my word this church will be packed and you get on board and you back that.
Speaker 2: You may not be happy about every decision made.
Speaker 2: That's okay.
Speaker 2: You don't have to be, because when every church is together in one mind and one accord and it's perfect, you better leave because it's not going to be perfect with you there, because there ain't none that's perfect.
Speaker 2: The word tells us Not one.
Speaker 2: We can get upset at one another, but families do the same thing.
Speaker 2: We're a family.
Speaker 2: I can't tell you how many times I've walked out of the room because that awkward, weird argument was going on.
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't want to be in this one right now.
Speaker 2: But we as families have to work through things and God has given us a voice to do that.
Speaker 2: If we don't express it, we can't get it changed.
Speaker 2: And I don't know why that went in it wasn't in my notes.
Speaker 2: But we can't change things unless we give God a chance to.
Speaker 2: We can't be used unless we give God the chance to use us.
Speaker 2: What do y'all go to?
Speaker 2: About 2.30 or something like that.
Speaker 2: Okay, got a lot to say.
Speaker 2: I said so.
Speaker 2: We.
Speaker 2: We see zacchaeus and we see what he's gone through and we see what jesus called him.
Speaker 2: Jesus calls him by name, brings him out, and he calls him in to salvation, salvation.
Speaker 2: He calls him in to salvation, salvation.
Speaker 2: I'm thankful for it.
Speaker 2: When I was about three years old, I started singing on a platform.
Speaker 2: You can imagine what a three-year-old sounds like.
Speaker 2: Right, I was a plain-spoken kid.
Speaker 2: I didn't have that baby talk.
Speaker 2: I had two older brothers and you learn quick what can I say.
Speaker 2: But I would get up and sing a song or whatever.
Speaker 2: We'd travel and sing as a gospel group.
Speaker 2: My dad would preach and I would get up and sing and the presence of God would move.
Speaker 2: I used to sing an old song to be like Jesus.
Speaker 2: Remember that old song?
Speaker 2: And my dad had come up with a little thing where he would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up and we would sing a couple of songs.
Speaker 2: And when he'd say, what do you want to be when you grow up?
Speaker 2: I'd say I want to be like Jesus.
Speaker 2: And I was foolish enough to believe it.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine that I wanted to be like Jesus?
Speaker 2: I'm a young kid and I'm listening to the words I'm saying To be like Jesus, to be like Jesus.
Speaker 2: All I ask is to be like him.
Speaker 2: And then I'd sing it in Spanish.
Speaker 2: We'd do it as what if the Lord sends you to Mexico to be a missionary?
Speaker 2: And I'd sing it in Spanish.
Speaker 2: I don't know that much Spanish, but I did know that song.
Speaker 2: It was impressive, right, five or six-year-old singing in Spanish.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm white, you can tell, okay, but thank God for the ability to go up and sing, and it changed my life forever because those words to be like Jesus resonated in my spirit.
Speaker 2: My parents allowed me to be marinated in Jesus over and over again and experiencing God move.
Speaker 2: And we're selling our children short when we won't bring them to the house of God.
Speaker 2: We're selling our children short and we're not giving them the opportunity to experience something that's far better than six flags.
Speaker 2: Ok, it's so much better than anything we could ever, ever experience.
Speaker 2: But we have to give that opportunity.
Speaker 2: Well, kids are too young.
Speaker 2: You know well what's the proper age.
Speaker 2: John the Baptist leaped in the mother's womb filled with the spirit Right.
Speaker 2: So I don't think the spirit puts an age on it, but we do.
Speaker 2: Well, they're too young, they're too naive.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you something I remember as a kid and I guarantee you this young man does too that we would be in a church house and we were raising our hands and we might not have known fully what we were doing, but we were in surrender to what was going on in that building.
Speaker 2: We weren't playing with Ouija boards, we weren't seeking demons, we weren't looking for spirits of an unknown world.
Speaker 2: We were looking for a spirit that we knew about, one that we had been taught about and one we had experienced, because when it was in the room it was such a sweet, sweet, sweet anointing.
Speaker 2: But until we begin to seek it he may not even know.
Speaker 2: Stephen, my brother, he may not even know this, but when we were teenagers I always knew I was called to be in ministry and I just always thought it was music.
Speaker 2: I never thought I'd be preaching.
Speaker 2: I don't think I'm the best preacher ever in the world.
Speaker 2: I just love to sing because that's where the most I feel God's presence upon me is when I sing.
Speaker 2: And I love that feeling and I want to be in his presence continually.
Speaker 2: I want to be like Enoch.
Speaker 2: I want to be here today, gone tomorrow.
Speaker 2: He just took me home because we just spent so much time together.
Speaker 2: He said just come on, I want to be there.
Speaker 2: But Stephen may not know.
Speaker 2: When we were teenagers probably I want to say 15, 16, he come and visited for the summer and he would spend a week or whatever, and he had made some comments about what he knew he wanted to do in life, his ambition.
Speaker 2: I don't even know if I believe at that time he was talking about the mission field.
Speaker 2: He loved going on missions trips and it was the mission field and he denounced sinful ways.
Speaker 2: So we're all you know minister's kids and we're just, you know, good old kids.
Speaker 2: You know how the ministers' kids are.
Speaker 2: They're usually troublemakers.
Speaker 2: That was at you, tristan.
Speaker 2: He knows I love him, but we were all troublemakers.
Speaker 2: I mean, we were always into trouble Not the kind that got us in jail, but we were in trouble.
Speaker 2: But he made the comment about purity Not the kind that got us in jail, but we were in trouble.
Speaker 2: But he made the comment about purity and he had no conviction in his voice when he said it I'm going to be pure to the day I'm married.
Speaker 2: That doesn't sound like much, does it Not?
Speaker 2: In our society, not in what's going on today, not when it's nothing important to anybody anymore.
Speaker 2: But it was an encouragement and a shot in the foot for me, because he stood up and spoke of right.
Speaker 2: He didn't encourage to go ahead and do what everybody else was doing.
Speaker 2: He encouraged to do what was right.
Speaker 2: His perspective was different because he had experienced something I believe he had just come from.
Speaker 2: A missions trip is probably what it was and he was on fire about what God had done.
Speaker 2: He had fallen in love with some little girl down there and you know he was.
Speaker 2: He was going to wait forever for her, wait forever for her.
Speaker 2: I guess she wasn't a blonde, so that didn't happen.
Speaker 2: But it was an amazing thing for him to mention what he planned on doing in his life, because it changed mine to know that someone else was out there that didn't want to follow the ways of the world, that didn't want to go down the path that everybody else was taking, because it was fun and easy.
Speaker 2: It ain't easy, y'all understand, ain't right.
Speaker 2: It ain't easy for us to get on our knees daily and beg a God who should not forgive us to forgive us.
Speaker 2: It ain't easy to get on our knees and say God, would you please send a revival.
Speaker 2: God, would you please start it in me?
Speaker 2: Would you please allow me to be a privileged person and be a tiny part of a modern day azusa street revival?
Speaker 2: Would you allow me to feel you like I've never felt you before when we will allow him to move in our life and when we will make time for him to do that.
Speaker 2: He will.
Speaker 2: His word tells us he will.
Speaker 2: Salvation what an amazing tool.
Speaker 2: Sanctification something we all have to go through.
Speaker 2: It's not an easy process.
Speaker 2: But then there's the baptism in the Holy Spirit easy process, but then there's the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2: There's the key.
Speaker 2: You don't want to give up too early, to the brink of your miracle.
Speaker 2: Get into the baptism of the Spirit.
Speaker 2: Well, it's not easy.
Speaker 2: No, it's not.
Speaker 2: It requires sacrifice.
Speaker 2: It requires something of you, the most precious thing you have, which is time.
Speaker 2: You see, if you will study up on Azusa Street and Pensacola, if you will study up on the Kansas City Awakening and all these things that took place, you will notice how they started.
Speaker 2: And it started with hungry people on their knees, making haste, saying I'm tired of this world and all that it has to offer.
Speaker 2: I want more.
Speaker 2: I want more of what he's got for me.
Speaker 2: I want more of him.
Speaker 2: If we seek him, we will find him.
Speaker 2: If you read on into Luke 19, down in verse 8 and 10, it says Then Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord Look, lord, I give half of my goods to the poor, and if I have taken anything from anyone, false accusation, I have restored fourfold.
Speaker 2: And Jesus said to him salvation has come to this house because he also is a son of Abraham, for the son of man has come to seek and to save which was lost.
Speaker 2: He came for you, friend.
Speaker 2: He came for every one of us sitting in this room, standing in this room.
Speaker 2: He came for us and the good news is he came for you in spite of what you were, because I'm nothing.
Speaker 2: But with the blood of Jesus, the perspective changed.
Speaker 2: With the blood of Jesus, I am something.
Speaker 2: I am an heir to the throne, I am a brother to Jesus.
Speaker 2: He is my friend, he is my counselor, my comforter, my present help in time of trouble.
Speaker 2: He's not old, he don't get tired.
Speaker 2: I get tired, he never gets tired.
Speaker 2: He's always looking to improve me and if I let him, he will.
Speaker 2: You see, god's going to do some great and mighty things in your future.
Speaker 2: God's going to do some great and mighty things in your future.
Speaker 2: Connect church.
Speaker 2: You better believe when I say God's doing to do some great and mighty things in your future.
Speaker 2: Connect Church.
Speaker 2: You better believe when I say God's doing something right now.
Speaker 2: We're not waiting anymore, we're going to make haste.
Speaker 2: We're going to make haste, we're going to come down from that tree and we're going to make haste, we're going to go to the throne room of God.
Speaker 2: We're going to press in.
Speaker 2: Remember that old saying Press in until we obtain it.
Speaker 2: And one more thing Once we've obtained it, we don't stop there.
Speaker 2: Our youth minister has been teaching the kids to seek the Lord and talking about Azusa Street and Kansas City and Pensacola revivals, and she's been teaching our kids which is a wonderful thing about the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2: And the Holy Spirit is something that is hard to understand.
Speaker 2: It's just so easy.
Speaker 2: It's hard.
Speaker 2: Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: It's something that we complicate too much.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 2: It's one of those puzzles that seems to have got too many pieces, you know.
Speaker 2: So we just don't talk about it because it's too much work.
Speaker 2: But God wants to do great things.
Speaker 2: He wants to do.
Speaker 2: I mean, he would not have come to the cross and suffered and died and been punished for my sake and your sake, just because there had to be a sacrifice.
Speaker 2: There had to be a change in perspective.
Speaker 2: The old wall wasn't working, but the new one does.
Speaker 2: God is ready to change things.
Speaker 2: He is ready to make you new.
Speaker 2: He is ready to heal those wounds that you just can't seem to let heal.
Speaker 2: He is ready for you to be healed of your disease.
Speaker 2: My mama's got MS.
Speaker 2: She's not going to carry that forever.
Speaker 2: She's not going to have it forever.
Speaker 2: She's going to go from barely being able to limp around and on walkers and in wheelchairs.
Speaker 2: She's going to be healed because of the power of the God that I serve, no matter what you face today.
Speaker 2: You may have cancer and be given one week to live.
Speaker 2: Don't believe the lies of the enemy.
Speaker 2: I serve a God who never changes.
Speaker 2: And Jesus said I have to go, it's my time, but I'm not going to leave you alone.
Speaker 2: He said I'll never leave you or forsake you.
Speaker 2: You're mine.
Speaker 2: I will never leave you.
Speaker 2: I will never forsake you.
Speaker 2: I will not turn my back on you.
Speaker 2: But what I have known?
Speaker 2: I got to go to the father.
Speaker 2: But because I go, I'll send somebody in my place.
Speaker 2: I'm going to send you an advocate.
Speaker 2: I'm going to send you somebody who will come and go on your behalf.
Speaker 2: I'm going to send you the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2: You see, in the Old Testament we see where the Holy Spirit was in people, he was on people, he was there.
Speaker 2: But it wasn't a free gift, it was a chosen gift.
Speaker 2: But what we see now, because of that new covenant and Jesus said, I'll send him to you what we see is a free gift we have to open up and accept.
Speaker 2: You say well, brother John, I was filled with the Spirit years ago.
Speaker 2: I'd say ask yourself this when's the last time you spoke in tongues?
Speaker 2: Well, you know that offends some people, so Do they care if they offend you?
Speaker 2: I'm not telling you to be spiteful.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying, when it comes to God, you shouldn't be ashamed of that.
Speaker 2: We should not be ashamed of the father.
Speaker 2: The word says if you're ashamed of me before men, I'll be ashamed of you before my father.
Speaker 2: I don't want him to say, oh, that's the guy that was kind of embarrassed, I don't know him.
Speaker 2: He wants to use you, friend.
Speaker 2: He wants to use you friend, he wants to heal you when the fruit of the Spirit is relevant and moving and working in this church continually you'll see miracles take place.
Speaker 2: Your decorations around here are gonna be adding some walkers and some crutches and some wheelchairs.
Speaker 2: You're going to be hauling off scrap metal because you don't need them anymore.
Speaker 2: And it'll only happen when we get hungry and we make haste and we get down on his level with him.
Speaker 2: Being humble before him is the only way it'll happen and being willing to be used.
Speaker 2: If God tells you to go speak to a deaf person, go, but what happens if they don't get healed?
Speaker 2: Then you look like you doing something you care to do.
Speaker 2: It's speak faith in the name of Jesus.
Speaker 2: For all you know, that person goes home, lays their head on the pillow and they can hear immediately.
Speaker 2: He'll do it in his time.
Speaker 2: But if you don't give him a chance and you quench the spirit and you back off, then it's on you.
Speaker 2: You see, I have to live with the fact that that young man, to my knowledge, has not been healed of his ears, but I refuse to allow that to ever happen again.
Speaker 2: It may be dumb blind faith, but it's what I got to do.
Speaker 2: And when miracles begin to take place, it's no longer a dumb blind faith, right?
Speaker 2: So what's the worst?
Speaker 2: We'll just let it happen.
Speaker 2: Let God take a chance in us and make it happen.
Speaker 2: God wants to do something in you tonight.
Speaker 2: He wants to do something in you right now.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Jesus right now.
Speaker 2: Thank you, jesus, he's going to move on.
Speaker 2: You, right now, just stand and lift your hands to him.
Speaker 2: Stand up right now.
Speaker 2: I remember when we used to have altar calls and people would come to the front and pray and then a lot of people quit doing that.
Speaker 2: There's no embarrassment in coming to Him for help.
Speaker 2: You're in a room full of people who have done it.
Speaker 2: You're in a room full of people who cared enough and wanted to be forgiven enough.
Speaker 2: They came to the front.
Speaker 2: If you're here this morning and you want to know about this Jesus and this Holy Spirit stuff we're talking about, I'm not going to linger long on this.
Speaker 2: I just want you to come.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to sit around and just beg you to come, because this Jesus I speak of it's true.
Speaker 2: If you were here doing worship, you know you felt something.
Speaker 2: It wasn't just endorphins and things going crazy in your head.
Speaker 2: You were feeling the presence of God in this place.
Speaker 2: You say, well, I didn't feel anything.
Speaker 2: Did you lift your voice?
Speaker 2: Did you lift your hands?
Speaker 2: Did you give him a chance?
Speaker 2: If you didn't, it's okay.
Speaker 2: These altars are right here right now.
Speaker 2: You can feel him right now.
Speaker 2: If there's no one here that will stand up and say I, I need forgiveness in my life.
Speaker 2: I need to know who this jesus is.
Speaker 2: How about?
Speaker 2: Is there someone here who wants to be filled with the spirit?
Speaker 2: This morning, the word tells us that we will speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gives us utterance, but if we don't become a willing vessel, he can't do it.
Speaker 2: It takes you, stepping out of your pew, coming and standing across the front.
Speaker 2: I want you to come across.
Speaker 2: There's going to be some, a handful of us that we're going to come around and pray with you in just a minute.
Speaker 2: I want you to stand here and I want you to lift your hands.
Speaker 2: I want you to praise God and when you feel something in your mouth, when you feel that you want to say something, but you don't know what to say, let God do it.
Speaker 2: Turn your tongue loose and let God do it.
Speaker 2: Just raise your hands, close your eyes and focus on God, and don't sit there and sing songs.
Speaker 2: Just focus on him, praise him, tell him what he means to you.
Speaker 2: Come on, I know there was a couple more hands.
Speaker 2: Come on, come on up here.
Speaker 2: Paul said did they receive the spirit as we did?
Speaker 2: Paul said did they receive the Spirit, as we did?
Speaker 2: And they said no, they did get baptized, but they didn't get baptized in the Spirit.
Speaker 2: He said okay, and he laid hands on them and it was done.
Speaker 2: There's no shame in seeking our God.
Speaker 2: There's no shame in wanting Him in you, his spirit in you, every day.
Speaker 2: Raise your hands, honey, start praising him.
Speaker 2: Same thing I told this young man let him use your lips In the name of Jesus, speak it, speak it.
Speaker 2: Speak it In the name of Jesus.
Speaker 2: If you don't get the words, you don't have to make them up.
Speaker 2: They'll be there.
Speaker 2: It may not make sense to you, but it don't have to.