REUNION: Day One - Evening Celebration // Dom Bird

Dom Bird

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

It is so good to be in this room together. Thank you, team. Thank you for leading us so well. Appreciate you guys. Isn't it great to be in West Brom? Once again with conviction, please. I said, Isn't it great to be in West Bromage? Just shout out to the church on the corner, Posse, over there. And the Wolverhampton Assembly somewhere. Brian over there, Pastor Brian. Legends. For those of you that don't know, I grew up in this area. And so when I get really excited in worship or really angry at the children, I kind of revert to a Midland style kind of dialect. I go, Jesus, I just love you so much. Poor my heart before you, Lord, because you're worthy of everything. Or it's like, dude, to get to your room. Like it doesn't matter what it is. If I've got kind of engaging passion, then I find that I sound more like a brummy. And uh I'm okay with that most of the time. Uh unfortunately, I now live on the south coast, and um, you know, when I first moved down south, people struggled to understand me, so I spent a few years trying to just oppress that like Midland kind of tone just to make my life a little bit easier. But it does get out every so often. In fact, I remember like a couple of years ago, I remember saying to my oldest son Caleb, I said, uh, Caleb, I said, do you want to go on the grass and like uh play footy? And he was like, on the what? And my middle son Judah said, he said, uh, uh Caleb, Daddy's trying to say grass. So I want to smack you on something that rhymes with grass, I'll tell you that. Um I uh have one cheeky little joke for you. I can't resist. The NLT have heard this joke too many times, but I've got to say it because I'm I'm in the land where this joke was forged, I'm sure of it. And uh so bear with me. I think I heard it from Tim Jones many years ago, Pastor Tim Jones. And uh so if you don't like it or you're offended, go and talk to him, please, if he's here. Um so there's this elephant at Dudley Zoo. I mean at Dudley Zoo, okay? And uh this elephant he calls over Tony the zoo keeper. He says, Tony, come here. You can talk, by the way. It is a joke, it's not real. And Tony comes over to the elephant, he says, All right, mate, what can I do for you? And the elephant says, I quite like life here, it's alright. He says, but I think about my ancestors just like roaming the African plain in the wild, and kind of I want some of that action to be honest. I'd like to live out some time, like where I was from originally. So, like when I get old and I'm about to die, will you like put me in a shipping container and send me over? I like Dudley, but I'd really like to be in Africa, like for my closing days. And so Tony goes, Yeah, mate, that won't be a problem. And so, anyways, the elephant's good in the zoo for the next 15 years, but then he's aging out just a little bit. Tony, true to his word, puts the elephant into a container and sends him over to the African plains, and the elephant comes out, comes out of the uh the uh the container and he's walking around. And he's walking around for like 24 hours or so, and then this giraffe comes over to the elephant and says, Ah, I heard you came here to die. And the elephant says, No, I came here yesterday, actually. And that's a that's an applause from the church on the corner. They appreciated that. Love that. Hey, thanks for coming to reunion. We look forward to seeing you at ACMC. Hey, no, it's a real pleasure to be sharing tonight. And uh I'm preaching on this theme, Rebels with a cause. To be honest, I've been grappling with it for the last few days, and even out back before the service, I was like, Lord, what is it you want me to say and imparting to these people? I just want to bring to your attention just a verse in Hebrews 10.24. It's not where we're gonna sit tonight, but I guess it gives context to what I want to do tonight because I want to provoke faith in the room. Hebrews 10 24 says this don't give up meeting together. Don't give up meeting together as somewhere in the habit of doing, but stir one another up all the more as you see the day approaching. Don't give up meeting together, but stir one another up, encourage one another, build one another up all the more as we see the day approaching. What day is the writer of Hebrews referring to? Well, we know it's the day of our Lord Jesus' glorious return. And the writer of Hebrews is appealing to a church, saying, Listen, if you take your eyes off the return of Christ, what's going to happen soon is you're gonna find people not kind of committed to the gathering as they should be. So connected and coupled to the temporary things that do not satisfy our soul. And so the writer of Hebrews says, Listen, don't give up meeting together, but stir one another up all the more as you see the day approaching. What I feel in my spirit, and I felt it from my own church, Sunny Hill, back in uh Bournemouth. But what I feel in my spirit is that our eyes have been taken off that. The glorious return of Christ. The glorious return of Christ. And let me tell you what that does. It affects everything we do for the Lord. Because all of a sudden we become we become comfortable, we become settled, we become lethargic. In fact, I would say that the the biggest threat to the Western church, it's not persecution. And contrary to popular belief, it's not even Islam. Let me tell you what it is. The biggest threat to our church is is apathy, it's indifference to the gospel, it's indifference to the lost. Somewhere we come uncoupled from the assignment on the church, and we take our eyes off the prize, which is the glorious return of Jesus. And actually, much rhetoric we hear often is this I'm excited about Jesus coming back, but I just want to get married first, or I just want to have children, or I just want to do this job, or I just want to graduate. It's like, don't you understand, church? That everything is building to that moment, the consummation of all things, where Jesus returns for his church and we meet him in the air. I just feel like somewhere we become uncoupled from that burden, and the writer of Hebrews says, all the more as we see the day approaching, got to get a vision, a vision not for a bigger church, not for a better church, not for a snazzy kids' ministry, not for a bigger platform, but a vision for the glorious return of Jesus. Full stop. Because when you get a vision of the coming king, the returning king, it affects everything in our churches, it affects our worship. Because you begin to go, oh no, this means something. Like we're not just doing Christian karaoke today. This means something. When I declare these words of truth, I believe we are storming the gates of hell. I believe that people are getting delivered in the congregation. I believe that things are shifting in the spirit and we are building faith into the people. And so as we lift up Jesus' name as a community of committed, committed, humble followers of Jesus, there's something that happens, but the best worship we can offer is in the light of the glorious return of Jesus. Guys, we've got to think about this. Pastors in the room, we've got to think about this. What are we modeling to the next generation? What are we demonstrating to our children and to our children's children? A wise friend once said to me, Is that you know what we do in our worship? We either give our children permission or we give our children an excuse. Let me unpack that just for a minute. We give them permission to be crazy about Jesus, to be uncoupled from their sense of self-awareness, to be totally abandoned in praise and worship and just going radical for Jesus. We can give them permission to do that, or we can give them an excuse to sit down and disengage. We have to model this culture to our children. We have to show them and teach them what it means to praise the King of Kings in the light of his glorious return. We have to understand that in many ways, this is speaking to pastors and leaders in the room, we become the ceiling for the culture of our fellowships. Can I get a witness? Awfully quiet. We become the ceiling. And we sit in our congregations and we're like, why isn't my church more lively? My question is, why aren't you more lively? Why aren't you more lively? You want to see a passionate expression of praise? Bring it. Bring it. I've learned this the hard way because I'm a white, I'm not middle-aged yet, and I rebuke any notion, anyone who suggests that I might be. But I'm white, male, stale, and pale and all that, right? I know what I look like when I dance. I own a mirror. I've practiced. I know that my timing isn't quite on point. But when I see my three boys in church, I think, no, I want to give them permission today. I want to give them permission to be wild for Jesus, to shake off any limiting factor that the school is impressing on them, the world is impressing on them. God forbid the church is impressing on them. I want to give them permission to become the biggest version of themselves in the house of God. To dance as though Jesus is coming back by lunchtime. We've got to stir the church. And the way we stir them is to give them a vision for the glorious return of Jesus. We need to make the return of Jesus great again. Should have got little red hats, little merch. Make the return of Jesus great again. At the back end of last year, I felt really, I know, it was actually more like halfway through the uh 2025. I felt the Lord in one of my quiet times saying, Dom, you've been preaching for like 20 years and you've never preached on a series on the return of Jesus. And I grappled with that and I prayed, Yeah, but Lord, it's really complicated. There's loads of views and loads of opinions, and what am I supposed to do? Like it's gonna be a lot of hard work to try and do that. And I just really felt the Holy Spirit kind of, I guess, convict me, challenge me. It's like, Dom, if you don't, if you don't give the church knowledge, they will perish. Because people perish for a lack of knowledge. So I felt the Lord say, You've got to teach them about the fact that my son is coming back. And as I went on that journey, what was amazing is I was kind of expecting the church to empty out. Because it's almost like, oh, conspiracy central. You know, what does this number mean? You know, let's all wear tin four hats. What does that mean in Revelation? Ah, what's that woman on the dragon? What's she doing? You know, we have all these thoughts. But what I found is that people were compelled. We're compelled because people want what is real and what is deep, especially when we live in an age of that which is fake and shallow and superficial. They want something real, something they can build their life upon. And so for us, I believe the greatest challenge, getting serious right now. I believe the greatest challenge, that might look messy on the camera, I'll put that over there. Um, the greatest challenge in our churches is to stir that that gift of faith to contend for this moment in which we're living. You know, when I was doing the series, I asked my oldest son Caleb, he's doing mock GCSEs this year, and trying to get him to do homework is like trying to get me to do homework. It's very hard. When I was younger doing my GCSEs, my teacher wrote a report that said Dominic has several pieces of outstanding homework. And I honestly got my mum to believe that it meant Dominic has done, has got several pieces of outstanding coursework. It was only when my brother Adam, who was playing keys tonight, came home and said, Mom, you know Dom's lying. I was like, Adam, you've moved out, bog off, get lost in Jesus' name. Mom was like, is that true? And I'm like, well, kind of. I still didn't do much coursework. So I know that trying to get a teenage boy to do homework is hard. But I was like, Caleb, please, just do your homework, please. That would be great. And he looked at me with great sincerity and he says, But Dad, Jesus could come back any moment. Fair play. I was like, you're right, suck it. I'll stop prepping my message. Let's just play FIFA until the great Lord comes, you know, until this great day. You know, and it's a weird tension. Because I guess what I had to coach in my child was this idea that, like, no, the return of Jesus doesn't mean that we down tools. It means that we live with greater urgency and greater intention. It doesn't really get out of our sunbed and just wait for it. It's like, no, there is work to do. It's a weird tension because we know that he comes like a thief in the night. So we live with that sense of on the edge of our seats, when's he coming? When's he coming? When's he coming? But we also read in Proverbs, we read, I think it's Proverbs 13, but don't hold me to it. It says that a righteous man builds up an inheritance for his children. So on the one hand, I'm supposed to live with a sense of openness and urgency and immediacy, but on the other hand, I'm supposed to be building an inheritance for my kids. It's a weird tension. Because Jesus could come back tonight before we go to bed. But he may not come back for a hundred years. And so we have to do two things. We have to build immediacy into the church, and we have to build longevity into the church. We have to build strength. We have to think, I need to store up that which is of wealth and value for my children and their children. And I'm not just talking about finances. I'm talking about mindset, I'm talking about attitude, I'm talking about community, I'm talking about power, I'm talking about substance, I'm talking about that which is real. And I've got to I've got to build up an inheritance for my kids because Jesus may not come back in my lifetime or their lifetime. So I need to pass on a church to the next generation that is just smashing it for the kingdom. But at the same time, I've got to keep my church on the edge of their seats going, well, it could be tomorrow. And maybe some of you resist that message a little bit because you just enjoy life a little bit too much, and therein lies the problem. Our affections realign to things which cannot satisfy our soul. And we long for things buying into the false promise, the deception that if I just get this, then I will be happy. If I just get that, then I will feel at peace. Not realizing that what it means to be a follower of Jesus is that we have become uncoupled from all of the pull of the world and culture, and we have decided to be yoked to Christ instead. And let me just tell you, following Jesus doesn't always mean that you lose that. It just means that all of a sudden I'm now seeking first his kingdom and his righteousness, and then all of these lesser things that normally take the priority in our attention, in our in our vision, in our in our set of affections, like all of these secondary, tertiary matters actually get addressed because we've made the main thing the main thing. Following Jesus. And so for me, I think there's three things we need to build into the church. Very TD Jakes. Can I get a witness with Mohan K? If that's offensive, Craig told me to do it. Believe there's three C's that the Lord is uh calling to the church in this moment: clarity, understanding the times in which we live. We need clarity on that. Let's not be ignorant, let's not be stupid, let's not be moronic, let's be engaged, we don't put our fingers in our ears and just stop listening to all the crazy stuff coming out of the US or Russia or wherever. We're aware of it, we see it, we discern it, we discern the spirit that drives it. So we become, we get that clarity. Clarity, we understand the times, but we also need conviction. We need conviction to know what is it that I believe? What is it that I believe, and how does that belief inform how I outwork my faith? How do I respond to that clarity? And finally, we need courage. We need courage to preach the gospel and extend the kingdom of God. Amen? Listen to this. We do not assimilate into the culture, we cannot assimilate into the culture. Turn to your neighbor and say, we cannot assimilate. It is not a good strategy for the church. If you want to reach the world, you don't want to look like the world. Did you hear that? If you want to change the world, stop trying to appeal to the world. Thank you. Appreciate that. If you look like the city, you can't change the city. Because you can't transform what you've conformed to. That's singing. I can't transform what I've conformed to. Isn't it funny? In ancient Rome, the way that they would conquer a culture is they would invade a land and then they would kill off any kind of influences and they would then impress their footprint on that culture. Which is why the church was such a stone in the shoe to the Roman Empire. Because the church couldn't receive the imprint. The church had to not just resist it, they had to reject it, they had to rebuke it. As Paul says to the church in Romans, what did you say? Do not conform to the pattern. Do not conform, but be transformed by the Renew Green Mind. So tonight, if you're up for it, I'm calling you to a holy defiance. Does that sound good? A holy defiance. Rebels with the cause. Some of you are like, I don't like being a rebel. I'm called to be righteous. Well, that's good news. Because if you are righteous, you're gonna be a stench to the world. In many ways, like being righteous. Yes, we're the aroma of Christ, but in many ways, if we are righteous, it is rebellion to the world and its systems. I've found living righteously is hard, it's challenging, it's uncomfortable, but I understand that the greatest thing I can do for the kingdom of God is to become a holy rebel. And to do that, I confess Christ as Lord. That's my first act of defiance. Christ is Lord. So I love that moment in worship where we just declare, Jesus be the name. Oh, yeah. Christ is Lord. Imagine the context of that where they're like, Nero is Lord, you know, the Emperor is Lord. No, Christ is Lord. There's my first act of defiance. My second act of defiance, listen to this, is to build a godly home. It's to build a godly home that resists and rejects the Kool-Aid of the world. Raise Jesus-loving, church-building kids who know how to think and don't care about being cancelled. You know, Satan tried to squeeze the early church. He's still with me tonight. Satan tried to squeeze the early church. Didn't work. Didn't work. The Sanhedrin, the Jewish governing council, working in the interest of Rome, out of jealousy, noticed they couldn't stop the church. Look at this with me, Acts chapter 5, verse, can you put 40 to 42 up, please? John. Acts 5, verse 40 to 42. John, can someone just wake him up? John? Jonathan. There we go. His speech persuaded them, referring to uh Gamaliel's appeal to the Sanhedrin. And the Sanhedrin, they called the apostles in and had them flogged. This brutal, horrific, torturous reaction to the church being an irritation to them. Had them flocked, whipped within an inch of their life. And then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus. That was the order. Not to speak in the name of Jesus. This is the local governing authority over the church. This is what you are to do. We're going to beat you up and we're going to shut you up. You need to stop preaching the name of Jesus. You need to stop speaking the gospel. You've got to stop. You've got to stop. And so they intimidated them with flogging, ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus and let them go. And so the church thought, well, we had a good run. We did really well. We had a nice time. Had some good brings and like good bringing chairs. That was fun. Had some nice church camps, that was great. No, it doesn't. Look, the apostles left the Sanhedrin rejoicing. Rejoicing because they'd been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the name we've been singing about tonight. Go back, Jonathan. Stop getting ahead. They were rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the name. I just picturing them just coming out like, like, I don't know, coming out of a round with Conor McGregor, just looking absolutely swollen and bruised, and they're walking out and like, wasn't that great? You know, dragging the foot. Wasn't that great, guys? You know, Peter's like, not really. No, there was a sense of rejoicing. Because they understood that in order to advance the cause, they had to resist the world. And so they they come with their intimidation tactics. They try to impress the spirit of the fear of man. And the church leaves that place rejoicing. What I should have called my message the mental ones. I don't know if that's PC actually. Take that out. Jonathan, delete that out of the podcast. Being counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the name. Thank you, Lord, that we can identify with you in your suffering. Thank you, Jesus, that we got to take a beating for the kingdom today. Thank you, Jesus. And then look what goes on. Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stop teaching, never stop proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah. Come on. You can beat them, but you can't stop them. You can flog them, but you can't silent them. Day after day. It's almost like they get back from this, oh, that was great. Sorry, my imagination's pretty vivid. Oh, that was brilliant. Alright, should we go and preach the gospel then? Yeah, let's do it. Okay. Day after day in the temple courts, in the public spaces, proclaiming that Jesus is the Messiah. Listen, the apostles were not compliant. They were defiant. If rebelling against the world systems is a problem with you, take it up with the Lord. Because the invitation to follow Jesus, yes, we do everything we can to live at peace in our society. But let me tell you, there is a greater authority we live under than the authority of the earth. We live under the authority of Jesus. And so what that means is that, yeah, I submit to the laws until they confront and oppose obedience to God. Oh, I'll be obedient until it makes me disobedient. Do you hear this? Do you ever wonder? This could be quite controversial, but I'm gonna put it out there, and if you're offended. Sorry. Do you ever wonder how the early church would have responded to the imposed lockdowns in 2020? Alright, guys, we've got to stop meeting now. Because they've told us to. Now listen, I'm not making any statement about COVID. And what that season was. I've got my thoughts, I'm not gonna share them because I love Ivan too much. I don't want to get in trouble. But is it really that easy to shut the church down? Yeah, but our risk assessments and policies, yeah, I get it. But the church has to be open. The church still has to, we may have to find creative ways to do this, but stopping isn't an option. We have to keep showing up. We have to keep rocking up, and we have to keep preaching and proclaiming the gospel even when it makes us unpopular. What makes me so sad is like I just feel like there's an insecurity in the British church which makes us like need or want to be liked. Oh, please like us. Please like us. Like, how does that stack up? How does that stack up with the early church? You know, the greatest commandment that Jesus told them, he says, like, you love the Lord, you love your neighbor, and you love yourself. Nowhere in that does he say, and be loved by your neighbor. What if you can't reach your neighbor until you stop caring about what your neighbor thinks? I have this saying in the church in leadership. I say, if I need them, I can't lead them. What that means is if my insecurity longs for approval and affirmation, I actually undermine the platform on which I preach the gospel. The strongest posture I can be in is not giving one what you think about what I'm saying. And it's not because I'm trying to offend you, of course not. That would be ungodly. I'm just preaching a message that has the potential to offend you. I'm just saying something of God's word, maybe, or God's truth, that may offend you. And so this is what makes the church grow exponentially in the book of Acts. If you jump earlier on in this story where they get a beating and they continue to proclaim the good news, look in verse 18 in chapter 5. Jonathan, can you go to verse 18, please? They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail. Go on, please. Jonathan, come on. But just playing, we've got a good relationship, I think. But during the night, an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out. Even the angels are defiant. Who's orchestrating the angels? It's like, oh, we're not allowed to leave. You know, they told us we had to stay here. And the angel's like, come on, get out. No, because we're you know we're good, we're good citizens, we're compliant. Jails for naughty people, we've obviously been naughty. An angel comes, he's like, come on, he brought them out. Verse 20, look at this. Go stand in the temple courts, he said, and tell the people all about this new life. Like, don't stop, don't stop preaching, don't stop speaking, don't worry about cancer culture. Keep going, keep talking to the people about this new life. At daybreak, they entered the temple courts as they had been told and began to teach the people. I just imagine they're like, you know, proclaiming the gospel, this good news of Jesus. And when the high priest and his associates arrived, they called together the Sanhedrin, the full assembly of the elders of Israel, and sent to the jail for the apostles. Right, go and get the apostles. On arriving at the jail, the officers did not find them there. So they went back and reported. Uh bad news. Uh though the apostles that we locked up, uh, they've gone. Yeah, so am I sacked? Like, that's not good, is it? And then it goes on. So they went back and reported. We found the jail securely locked. Now that thing makes me laugh. Like an angel unlocks the door, leads the church out, and then shuts the door, locks it the back up. Have you ever thought about how crazy that is? It's like, yeah, come out. Yeah, I'm just gonna deal with this door. You know, the apostles probably come on, angel. Come on. Why on earth did the angel lock the door after the disciples, after the apostles were taken out? Let me tell you what I suspect. I suspect that the Lord wanted them to know, these authorities, that this was not a conventional jail break. This was an intervention of heaven. God is in no rush. God's chilling, God be chilling. God's not stressing. This heaven intervention, no chaos, no craziness. No, let's shut this door. Let's show them who's in charge. Let's show them who has all authority in heaven and on earth. The Sanhedrin, pshh, please. Nero? Come on. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples. Well, now all of a sudden, I'm no longer coupled to the burden of being compliant. There's actually an invitation to become wholly defiant for the cause of Jesus Christ. I feel like you're a bit quiet. I may have offended you. I'm really sorry. Really, I'm genuinely sorry. I don't want to offend you. I want to provoke you. I want to stir you up. That's what I want to do. I want to stir you up, and I guess who needs it? Just a bit of a kick as well. Just come up. Come on. I teach my boys this because they're confronted with absolute croc at school. That that comes from the Greek word crocos, which means nonsense. Which is from the Latin word noncianus. Okay. And we move on. These things always happen. Follows me round like a bad smell, man. I'm telling you. I think I did it last time when I preached. We found the jail securely locked. Move on, Dom. With the guards standing at the doors. Can I get a keys player, please? Come on. Seriously. Keys player, come up, help me out. It happens, mate. It happens. We found the jail securely locked. With the guards standing at the doors. But when we opened them, we found no one inside. Come on, go on to the next one. On hearing this report, the captain of the temple guard and the chief priest were at a loss, wondering what this might lead to. Verse 25. Then someone came and said, Look, the men you put in jail are standing in the temple courts teaching the people. Again, breaking protocol with the standard jail broke procedure, which is like get out of jail and run for your lives. Like they've got out of jail and they're just speaking and preaching the gospel. They're not running. Why? Why aren't they running? Because their freedom was never determined by the jail. Do you hear that? Their freedom wasn't determined by the limitations of the physical bricks and mortar that contained their physical bodies. These apostles were free on the inside. I'm not running. Come on, Alistair. Come on. I'm not running. I'm preaching. I'm staying. I'm not running. I'm staying. Why? Because I'm I'm already free. How can I get more free than this? You can put me in cuffs. You can put me behind bars. I'm free. Who the son sets free. He's not free in part. He's not partially liberated. He is totally free. Totally free. Listen, there's. I need to go on. Go on. At that, the captain went with his officials and bought the apostles. Officials? Officials. Officers. And bought the apostles. They did not use force because they feared that the people would stone them. Keep going. There's something else I want to get to. The apostles were brought in and made to appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned. Like, come on, bring them in. We need to talk to them. Like, what on earth are you doing? We put you in there for a reason. What why have you left? And then we gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, he said. Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man's blood. Next, and then this, Peter and the other apostles replied, and this is the thing, this is the vision. We must obey God rather than you. That's the vision. The glorious return of a king that has already won. The submission of an enemy that he's already defeated. We must obey God rather than human beings. Come on, let that just land in your spirit. God help us to make obedience our greatest priority in the face of opposition and adversity. We must obey you. We must obey you rather than human beings. How can we submit to that who you've created? You are the great I am. Peter and the other apostles replied, We must obey God rather than the human beings. There you have it. There you have it. A church that refuses to live under the fear of man. Come on. Come on. Come on. That demonic spirit has been running havoc in the churches. Fear of man. I break it off us in Jesus' name. Right now. Come against every foothold and a strong stronghold established by the enemy that causes us to walk in anxiety and fear when we have been called to walk in conviction and courage. I break off that influence right now, right off this movement, right off our pastors, right off our congregants. I break it off in Jesus' name right now. I break it off. I break it off. I stand in the authority of Christ. God, we mark the doorpost of our churches and our lives and our homes with the blood of the Lamb. The enemy has no right or claim here in Jesus' name. Oh God's people said. Amen. Come on. We're not going to live under the fear of man. So what was it about this church? Come on. What was it about this church? Come on, let's stand to our feet. What was it about this church? Let me tell you what it was about this church. Let me tell you what it was. Let me tell you what it was. This church was Pentecostal. It was Pentecostal. It wasn't leaning in on good ideas. It wasn't personality driven. It wasn't purpose-driven. It wasn't program driven. It was presence-driven. It was a church that was consumed and filled with the Holy Spirit of God. That's the church. If you contrast the church, pre-Pentecost and post-Pentecost, it's like night and day. Pre-Spirit, you've got fearful people locking themselves willingly in a room. Post-Pentecost, the room cannot contain the people anymore. They're spilling onto the streets. Why? Because they are filled with the Holy Spirit of God. Come on, we don't lack resources, we don't lack opportunity, we lack fire. Come on. Come on. God tells us be filled with the Holy Spirit. Don't be drunk on wine. Don't drink the Kool-Aid of the earth. But be filled with the Holy Spirit of God. Be filled to overflowing with the Holy Spirit of God. Be filled with the Holy Spirit of God. Come on, be filled. Be filled, be filled. And this is my closing invitation tonight. Because I just believe prophetically, maybe you're living under a ceiling. Maybe you're living in self-imposed lockdown. Maybe you are living under the restriction of a place that God doesn't want you to be in. Listen tonight, God. God, through the cross and the resurrection, we've just celebrated this, has unlocked that door for good. And let me tell you what he wants to do. He wants to bring you the other side of it and he wants to lock it up. Come on, guys, we're not Wimbledon. This is the Lord. He's worthy of our praise. He's worthy of our affection, worthy of our attention. Come on, just begin to lift a song of worship. Come on, let the Holy Spirit just fill you right now. Come on, Shienna can hand us a planto. Come on. Come on, can we sing that refrain? Come on, come on, let the fire fall, come on.