Cómo Compartir Las Buenas Noticias | Y Por Qué No Puedes Hacerlo Solo

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- Kelvin talks about some of the things that come

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when you get the gospel, which we've been talking about,

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which is good news, and someone who gives good news

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or gives good tidings,

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is known in the Bible as an evangelist,

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and actually known even before

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the New Testament was spoken about.

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Someone who gives the good news,

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whatever the good news is, is an evangelist.

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And we talked a couple of weeks ago about

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when you get the idea that Jesus died on the Cross for you, h

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He literally, physically and historically rose from the dead,

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and that power is available to you.

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It's good news because you get forgiveness.

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It's good news because you get a new identity,

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you become a child of God.

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It's it's good news because the power of the Holy Spirit

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that brought Jesus back from the grave

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is the same power and the same Spirit

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available to you and I today. Yeah.

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I'm going to talk about that tonight.

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And specifically, I'm going to talk about,

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if you want the presence of the Holy Spirit,

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that aspect of God, which is the aspect of God

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that's alive and operative in the world right now.

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When we say Jesus is working, okay, He is.

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There's this Trinity thing,

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God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.

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But Jesus physically isn't here.

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When we say Jesus is working,

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when Christ came into my life

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that we're basically talking about the Holy Spirit.

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The Holy Spirit came and dwelt inside of me.

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The Holy Spirit has been empowering me.

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And the big idea for today is that the main sign

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of the presence of the Holy Spirit

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is your willingness to share your faith.

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The main sign of the Holy Spirit,

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the main way to encourage the Holy Spirit

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to have a bigger role in your life

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is to share your faith.

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And that's why when we look at Kelvin's story,

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something inside of us comes alive.

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Let's pray before I go any further.

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God. I'm thankful for people who share their story

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and for people who help me see things about You

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that I wouldn't have seen without seeing

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how You've operated in them.

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And I'm praying, as I share a bit of my story today,

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that that would help everybody who's with us,

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that everybody would see You in their own lives

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and understand You more because of what You've done

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with me and other people in the Scriptures.

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Help me to be clear, concise, helpful,

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and most importantly, accurate.

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And I pray these things according to

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the character and identity of Jesus. Amen.

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I really connected with that story,

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and my ears perked up when he talked about

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being around the Marines.

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Kyle did a great job last week

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and shared a bit of his story, and I was like,

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"Man, you know, I think maybe I'll share

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a bit of my story today."

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So I'm going to do that as part of this.

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He was with the Marines, he said,

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they gave him a marine uniform.

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And I have a warm spot in my heart for people

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who served our country and for the Marines, especially

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because when I was in high school,

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I was planning on going into the Marines.

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Notice I say planning.

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I didn't go into the Marines.

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I was planning on going into the Marines.

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I had my rebelliousness towards my parents.

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They had their ways, their plans for my life,

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and I didn't want them.

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And so I was rebelling and doing

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the exact opposite of anything that they would do.

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My parents were valedictorians in high school and college.

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Very, very brainy.

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Put all their money into college savings for me,

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just drummed in me, you know,

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how important education was.

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I just said, "No, I don't want to follow in your footsteps.

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No, I'm not going to become an academic."

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[stubbling on word]

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See, that's exactly what I'm talking about.

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Not acrobat. Aca-magician?

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Well, you know what I'm saying, you know what I'm saying.

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That's just not going to be my thing.

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So I said, "No, I'm going to go in the Marines.

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I'm going to go in the Marines."

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And they had this thing in high school,

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way back when, I graduated from 1983.

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They had things in high school that were amazing.

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You could go to shop class

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and cut your finger off on school time.

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God Bless America, it was fantastic.

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Like they had routers in there and table saws and jigsaws.

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Every public high school. It was amazing.

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And so if you look at my yearbook,

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my yearbooks from sophomore, junior and senior high,

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you would see me spiritually progressing

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in all three of those years.

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In my sophomore yearbook there I was

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in power mechanics class in school,

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rebuilding lawnmower motors,

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taking Gran Torino, chopping off the roof,

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making it a convertible. It was amazing.

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And at this point, when I look at that picture

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of my sophomore year yearbook, I remember

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that was a guy who was in rebellion to his parents.

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That's a guy who was wanting to work with his hands.

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That was a guy who wasn't really into education.

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And it was going to serve me, I thought,

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because as I was taking tests and getting ready

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to go in the Marines, I was thinking,

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this is going to help me with answering the questions,

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the aptitude questions and all this stuff.

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And that's where I was.

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And while that was happening.

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In another form of rebellion was

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I was heavily drinking every Friday night,

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every Saturday night was a time to get wasted,

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time to be with friends, time to laugh

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and a time to get drunk.

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And then very frequently, it was time to skip school

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and do day drinking.

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And again, this was a form of rebelliousness

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against my parents who never drank anything.

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It just wasn't part of their thing at all.

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But I found while I was there

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that I started bonding with these other guys,

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with other people while I was at these parties with.

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The Atlantic recently said this:

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Simply put, America is in a party deficit.

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Only for 4.1% of Americans attended or hosted

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a social event on an average weekend or holiday in 2023,

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according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics;

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this is a 35% decrease since 2004.

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So we're going to less parties.

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We're socializing less.

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We're becoming more lonely.

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I actually read one article where the author

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was almost bemoaning the teenagers don't drink anymore,

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don't drink to the excess that we used to.

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Because what means with that

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is they're also not hanging out and having parties.

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Not a good idea to underage drink,

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I want to be really clear, but they're going

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at least when you do that

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there tends to be some social bonds.

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And I had some significant social bonds

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with friends of mine that we would kick around

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doing oftentimes dastardly things.

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If you go to my junior yearbook, there was

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a picture in there of me on the sidelines.

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I was not good enough to start.

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I was on special teams, so this must have been

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after kick off or something like that.

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And they got a photo of me.

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And what I remember of these kind of scenes.

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I would come back after kickoff team, whatever it was,

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and I would be on the bench and there was a guy

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who would stand behind the fence where the track was

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that bordered the the football field,

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and he would say, "Hey, Tome, what are you doing?

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Hey, Tome. Do something. Get in there. Do something."

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He was heckling me and and kind of being,

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trying to be funny.

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He was building a bridge, is what he was doing.

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His name was Denny Patton.

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He was about 28 years old, 27 years old.

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He was a part of an organization called Young Life,

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a national organization that has a mission

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to share their faith with people who were in high school.

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And so he's trying to build a bridge with me

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to kind of get me engaged.

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And there was other kids that I knew,

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I would go to these parties with,

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who would be part of this thing called Young Life.

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I remember going to my first Young Life event

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because someone invited me.

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Someone said, "Come, come and see.

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Come, just, just come and see what's happening here."

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In the book of John 1:46,

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Jesus is starting to build His ministry.

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He's starting to build His mission.

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And He's doing this by socializing

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with a bunch of different people

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and then inviting them into relationship

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with Him to change the world.

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He doesn't go out and just say,

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"Hey, you, follow Me. Be My disciple.

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He was in relationship with a lot of people.

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And then Halls the question and says,

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"Will you come into relationship with Me?

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Will you go on a journey with Me?

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Will you help Me change the world?"

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And as people come into the circle, they reach out

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and they bring people into the good news circle.

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John 1:46 talks about Nathaniel who talks to Philip.

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Philip says, "You gotta, you gotta, you gotta see this."

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And Nathaniel said to him,

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"Can anything good come out of Nazareth?"

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Think about the least respectable area of town

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you can think of, wherever you grew up

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or wherever you live right now,

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the least respectable part of town,

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that was basically Nazareth in the 1st century in Jerusalem.

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Jesus of Nazareth?

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What good comes out of Nazareth?

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Why? This guy can't be that good of a teacher.

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He can't be. What?

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And Philip says this.

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Philip said to him, "Come and see. Come and see."

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I had some friends that said, "Dude, you just--

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You just come and see. Just come and see.

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There's this meeting. Just, just come and see."

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I'll never forget going to Lisa LeBlang's house.

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She was a year older than me.

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And going in and there was,

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instead of when I went to church,

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because my mom, my mom played the organ,

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my dad sang in the choir.

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And so I want to rebel against church.

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I want to rebel against God.

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I just wasn't into it at all.

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And I walked into this thing and there was guitars

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and there was singing and people were having fun,

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and there was a stupid skit.

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And then this guy comes up and he holds a Bible

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and he starts talking out of a Bible.

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Denny Patton, the same guy

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who had been heckling me while I was on the sideline,

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and I sat there mesmerized.

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It was like I'd heard the words before,

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but I never had the harmony.

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The harmony melody never makes sense.

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It was the first time someone spoke about the gospel,

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the good news in language that I could understand,

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and it enraptured me.

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Somewhere over that next process,

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through a bunch of different things,

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I ended up giving my life to Christ

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and the Holy Spirit came into my life.

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That's what we say when Jesus comes

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and dwells inside of us.

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More specifically, the Holy Spirit fills us.

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The immaterial aspect of God that's still alive

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and working right now came and filled me.

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And dudes, I can tell you things changed massively.

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If you take a look at my yearbooks

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sophomore, junior, senior and back in my day --

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Do they even still have paper yearbooks anymore?

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Does that still happen? All right.

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Back in my day, we had paper yearbooks

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and you'd hand them out to your friends,

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and people would sign them and everything.

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If you looked at the things people would say

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in my sophomore year.

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Hey, remember the time we blah blah blah blah blah blah?

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Versus what happened in the senior year.

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It was a 180 degree difference

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because that's what Jesus did to me.

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Totally changed me.

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Good news happened inside of me.

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And I wanted to share the good news.

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My senior yearbook, as I was looking back

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over this recently, there was this picture,

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which is pretty significant.

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I got my number changed because I became a starter.

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They changed my number because they moved me to the line

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so I couldn't catch well enough.

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So now I'm the center

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and I would play passing downs on the defense.

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And I would actually be tired, very, very tired.

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And I would sit there.

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And here beside me are friends who I prayed for

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and friends who I shared the gospel with.

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The guy on the far right, his name was Bob

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and I wanted to have a Young Life club at my house.

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So I asked Denny, who had become a friend of mine now.

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"We should have Young Life in my house."

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He said, "Really? Yeah, yeah. Okay."

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So they came and I was a rabid evangelist

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saying to everybody I could come and see,

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come and see, just come to my house.

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Come and see, come and see.

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It was the biggest Young Life meeting of the year

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jammed in my house.

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It was so big it was like furniture broke

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and my parents were not happy.

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People were standing on chairs in the dining room

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and one of them got snapped.

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My parents were just not happy because

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this was a messy kind of faith they weren't up for.

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They were up for like a nice, like,

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denominational thing wear your robes.

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They weren't up for a bunch of sweaty kids,

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half of them who were drunk two nights earlier,

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who were in and breaking furniture in their house.

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It just kind of got out of control, in a good way.

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It was a really good way.

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And leading up to that, I went to Denny, I said,

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"Hey, I'm, uh, I'm -- I'm supposed to give my story,

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right? I'm giving my testimony. Aren't I?"

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And he said, "I wasn't planning on it. You want to?"

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I said, "Yeah, I do."

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And I got up and I gave my story about

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how Jesus had radically changed my life.

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And it was the first time, first time in my life I cried,

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other than when I got paddled.

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I would cry when I got paddled.

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And God bless America, they used to do that in school.

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I mean, kids, we toed the line in school

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because you get an ass whooping

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with a big wooden paddle this long.

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I'm not kidding around.

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That's all our problems in public schools

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and private schools come down to putting away the paddle.

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It was wonderful.

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No, it was not wonderful. It was horrible.

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It was, yes. Some of us who actually got one.

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Who ever got an actual spanking in school,

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literal spanking?

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And we're all alive. What do you know?

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But this situation, I cried, I wept,

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and I didn't know what was happening.

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I was trying to talk about what Jesus had done in my life,

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and I wept and I was humiliated.

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I didn't know how to handle emotions started coming out.

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It was like a spiritual wave, an emotional thing.

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It was a very, very freaky thing.

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Afterwards, Bob came up to me and he said,

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"Hey, bro, uh, that, uh, what happened to you up there?"

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He said, "Was that God?"

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I said, "Yeah, that was God."

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The guy to my right, nickname was AT,

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was the strongest guy in high school,

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biggest guy in high school.

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And I was part of this church on the side.

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It's kind of this radical church was meeting

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in rented facilities and stuff,

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and they had some ex-outlaw biker gang guy

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who also had become a professional arm wrestler,

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and he was going to come and give his story

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and do a little exhibition.

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And I was asked, "Hey, is there --

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Is there anybody you know that would come

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and arm wrestle him?"

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And I thought, "Yeah, I know somebody. AT."

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AT had never gone and would never come

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to anything I invited him to.

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I would stay on him.

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We had a lot of, a lot of crazy times together.

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And AT came and I'll never forget

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he obviously got put down immediately

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this professional arm wrestler,

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but I'll never forget this guy, David Story was his name,

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reached down his hand, shaking his hand.

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And I was like, "Man, AT's having an interaction

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here with a godly man."

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Now, I don't know where those guys are.

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I didn't see them come to faith while I was in high school.

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I don't know where they are, but I know

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me sharing that with them was some of

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the most, some of the most, um,

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spiritually alive moments of my life.

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When I came to Christ, there were things that changed.

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I wasn't going to underage drink anymore,

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but I also wasn't going to forsake my friendships

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because I knew something enough.

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I didn't have this vernacular, but I knew

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something in me came alive when I would go to parties

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and I would build relationships.

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So I would go to parties with my red solo cup.

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I'll fill you up with apple juice,

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and I would have an apple juice

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I wanted to look like beard everybody.

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But I would hang out and still try to be funny

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and build relationships, because I knew

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I loved these people and I needed these people.

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I wanted these people to have the good news.

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And in Acts 1:8, this is a sign, by the way,

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of what happens when the Holy Spirit

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is active and vibrant in your life.

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Here's what it says, Acts 1:8, this is Jesus, He says:

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You will receive power

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when the Holy Spirit has come upon you,

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and you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem,

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Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.

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Kyle talked about this Jerusalem, Judea,

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Samaria, ends the earth. He talked about this.

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But one thing he didn't talk about, though

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I want to tease out right now, is look at

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the presence of the Holy Spirit.

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You will receive power

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when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And what?

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According to Jesus, is the Holy Spirit

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going to give you power to do? To tell the Good News.

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That's what the Holy Spirit gives you power to do.

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And so when we're not telling the good news,

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we're not going to get the power of the Holy Spirit,

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which this is a big, huge thing of what He wants to do.

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Isaac Adams said:

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It's not the mailman's job

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to make people like the mail, but to deliver it.

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Likewise, it's our job to deliver the gospel to people,

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and God's job to cause them to believe the gospel.

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We share the faith, and God grants the faith.

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Maybe, sometimes, sometimes He doesn't.

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But it's about being on this adventure,

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in this journey, and having the thrill

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of being used by God and the Holy Spirit in you.

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And it's going, maybe this is it.

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Maybe, maybe this one here, right now.

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I've been looking so forward to giving this talk,

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because I know I am unleashing a power

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and a presence of the Spirit on a number of people

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who are connected to our church

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you never encountered before,

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because you've never been engaged in

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the things the Spirit is really interested in,

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which is this. It's this.

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Acts 2:1-7. Let's read about this.

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Jesus comes back from the dead.

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The disciples are kind of licking their wounds.

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They're not sure what to do.

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They go back to the upper room.

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They're in the upper room,

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and they're commiserating with one another.

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They're sort of going inward.

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They're kind of afraid of the outside world.

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They're not sure what's going to happen.

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And then, and then the Holy Spirit comes,

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the one that Jesus has talked about,

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that I don't think they really understood

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what He was talking about or what it was about.

00:18:03

And let's just read it. Acts chapter two.

00:18:07

When the day of Pentecost arrived.

00:18:09

The day of Pentecost, this is a Jewish holiday.

00:18:12

And so all the Jews who are within walking distance

00:18:16

or camel riding distance come into Jerusalem to have this.

00:18:19

It's a Jewish high holiday.

00:18:21

And so they're Jews and so that's what they're doing.

00:18:23

When the day of Pentecost arrived,

00:18:25

they were all together in one place,

00:18:27

and suddenly there came from heaven

00:18:31

a sound like a mighty rushing wind. [wind sound]

00:18:37

And it filled, and it filled the entire house

00:18:42

where they were sitting.

00:18:47

And divided tongues of fire appeared to them

00:18:52

and rested on each one of them.

00:18:57

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit,

00:19:00

and began to speak in other tongues,

00:19:03

as the Spirit gave them utterance.

00:19:09

Now that we're dwelling in Jerusalem,

00:19:11

Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven,

00:19:15

and at the sound the multitude came together.

00:19:19

And they were bewildered, because each one

00:19:24

was hearing them speak in his own language.

00:19:30

And they were amazed and astonished, saying,

00:19:35

"Are not all these who are speaking Galileans?"

00:19:39

They're amazed and they're astonished.

00:19:42

All these Jews of different nationalities

00:19:45

who've come in in different, different tongues,

00:19:48

they come in and the Holy Spirit is unleashed.

00:19:52

And what's the first thing the Holy Spirit gets out,

00:19:55

gets to work on? Giving the good news.

00:19:57

That's the first thing He does.

00:19:59

He gives the good news ability because

00:20:02

they can supernaturally now speak languages

00:20:06

they've never formally learned.

00:20:09

And you could just imagine as all the different areas

00:20:12

with all the different dialects, it's just this mumbling.

00:20:14

It sounds like -- it sounds like a crazy party

00:20:17

is what it sounds like.

00:20:18

It sounds like a drunken party.

00:20:19

In fact, people on the outside looking in,

00:20:21

other Jews who were there that aren't

00:20:23

really interested in Jesus,

00:20:24

but they're kind of in the area,

00:20:26

they hear all these people who are just babbling

00:20:28

this and that, and they're going,

00:20:29

"There's some massive party happening over there.

00:20:32

They're day drinking." It's the morning time.

00:20:34

They're day drinking.

00:20:35

And so Peter gets the microphone, the apostle Peter,

00:20:37

he gets up and says, "Hey, hey.

00:20:39

You guys think we're drinking?"

00:20:41

This is actually in the Bible, just read it yourself.

00:20:43

He says, "Hey, we're not drinking

00:20:46

because it's only 9:00 in the morning."

00:20:49

I mean, he doesn't say we're not drinking

00:20:51

because you know us. We don't drink.

00:20:52

He goes, "no, it's only 9:00 in the morning.

00:20:54

Come on. We we got some standards here."

00:20:59

And the Holy Spirit is unleashed in the word of Jesus,

00:21:03

The good news of Jesus spreads in a profound way.

00:21:07

Why is this?

00:21:09

Because the Holy Spirit empowers us for evangelism.

00:21:13

That's the main thing the Holy Spirit does.

00:21:16

Now, I love everything the Holy Spirit does.

00:21:19

I love every -- I love how

00:21:21

the Holy Spirit gives us spiritual gifts.

00:21:23

I love how the Holy Spirit whispers things to us.

00:21:27

I love how the Holy Spirit comforts us.

00:21:29

He does all of these things.

00:21:31

But it's important to notice that Jesus said,

00:21:35

"You'll get the power of the Holy Spirit. Why?

00:21:38

So you can be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria."

00:21:41

And when the Holy Spirit comes, He comes

00:21:42

why right now and then?

00:21:44

He comes there and then to empower

00:21:47

to be His witnesses to all people.

00:21:50

There's a kind of relationship with the Holy Spirit

00:21:53

you will never have until you share your faith.

00:21:57

There's a kind of power you will never experience,

00:22:00

there's a kind of spiritual life

00:22:02

that you'll never be able to understand

00:22:04

until you do what the Holy Spirit is most excited about,

00:22:09

which is talking about Jesus.

00:22:12

John 15:26-27, Jesus talks about the Spirit,

00:22:17

and He says this, "But when the Helper comes,"

00:22:19

capitalized, notice that because Jesus

00:22:21

is talking about the Holy Spirit.

00:22:23

"When the helper comes,

00:22:24

whom I will send to you from the Father,

00:22:27

the Spirit of Truth, who proceeds from the Father,

00:22:31

he will bear witness about me.

00:22:33

And you also will bear witness,

00:22:36

because you have been with me from the beginning."

00:22:38

Here it is again, the Holy Spirit's coming

00:22:40

and what's He coming for?

00:22:41

So you can bear witness.

00:22:44

And what's the Holy Spirit about?

00:22:46

Holy spirit is about giving us a spiritual feeling,

00:22:49

though that can happen.

00:22:50

Holy spirit isn't about giving,

00:22:53

isn't about us getting great visions,

00:22:55

though you may get great visions.

00:22:57

Holy spirit isn't about giving you an amazing,

00:23:02

crazy spiritual gift, though He may give you

00:23:05

an amazing spiritual gift.

00:23:06

The Holy Spirit isn't about giving you

00:23:08

some crazy personal moment of intimacy with God,

00:23:11

though you may get

00:23:13

a crazy personal, intimate moment with God.

00:23:17

The Holy Spirit comes because He's not into Himself.

00:23:20

Jesus himself, "He's into Jesus."

00:23:22

That's what He says. He says,

00:23:23

"He will bear witness of Me."

00:23:25

The Holy Spirit comes. And actually, quite frankly,

00:23:27

I think the Holy Spirit's a little uncomfortable

00:23:29

I'm talking about Him right now

00:23:31

because he's not about Himself. He's about Jesus.

00:23:34

So when we get fixated on the Holy Spirit

00:23:37

and think that's the thing that the Holy Spirit's like,

00:23:39

"No, no, no, that's Jesus."

00:23:41

It's getting people into relationship with Him.

00:23:43

That's what Jesus said. That's what we do.

00:23:48

Every, every person has to have their own Pentecost.

00:23:53

Every person has to have this moment

00:23:56

where the Holy Spirit kind of solidifies you,

00:24:01

and the Holy Spirit does come into you

00:24:03

when you give your life to Christ.

00:24:04

When God comes into your heart, that's what we mean.

00:24:07

The Holy Spirit comes into your life.

00:24:08

But there's also an ongoing filling of the Spirit,

00:24:12

an ongoing presence of the Spirit.

00:24:14

And you read the book of Acts it talks about

00:24:16

and they went in filled with the Spirit.

00:24:18

And what do they do next?

00:24:19

They tell people about Jesus.

00:24:21

The ongoing empowerment is that, that's what He does.

00:24:26

And all of us have to have a Pentecost moment

00:24:29

or Pentecost moments.

00:24:31

Good friend of mine from England, Paul McConaughey,

00:24:34

would say every church has to have its own Pentecost.

00:24:37

I believe Crossroads has been having

00:24:39

a Pentecost for a while.

00:24:40

We've been having a Pentecost.

00:24:41

We've been for the last three years or so

00:24:45

we've been baptizing 2000 people

00:24:49

every 12 months on a rolling basis.

00:24:51

That's a movement of the Holy Spirit.

00:24:55

We've been having healings

00:24:59

like I never thought I would ever see and experience,

00:25:01

literal physical healings.

00:25:04

And, you know, one, one guy,

00:25:06

I got to be a part of his healing.

00:25:07

Like, he uses that healing all the time

00:25:10

to tell people how God healed him.

00:25:11

He just keeps, "I had this thing and the doctor,"

00:25:14

he's using it because he's being a witness

00:25:16

to try to bring people to Christ.

00:25:18

And despite -- in the midst of the amazing things

00:25:23

that the Spirit has been doing in our midst,

00:25:25

I believe there's another level He's taking us to.

00:25:28

I believe there's something different coming.

00:25:31

I believe there's more that's coming.

00:25:34

I believe Crossroads hasn't even fully experienced

00:25:37

the Pentecost that God has for us.

00:25:40

And every church, every community has these moments

00:25:44

when the Spirit comes in and does something unique,

00:25:48

and it is unique to the culture of those people groups.

00:25:51

If you look at the first century Jews,

00:25:54

there was a unique thing there.

00:25:55

They were all Jews, all of them were Jews,

00:25:58

and they all came in from outside.

00:25:59

And if you read Acts 2:42-47,

00:26:02

it almost sounds like communism,

00:26:03

that they're all living together and sharing things.

00:26:06

No one owned anything.

00:26:07

Well, yeah, because they all came in

00:26:09

and were hanging out in a unique time period,

00:26:11

and that's the way they were operating.

00:26:13

It wasn't saying that nobody ever owned anything

00:26:15

or nobody ever had any land.

00:26:17

No, but it was just a unique thing

00:26:18

was happening in this Pentecost.

00:26:20

And every church is going to have a unique Pentecost.

00:26:24

The revival that took place down

00:26:27

in Northern Kentucky about 100 years ago,

00:26:30

known as the Cane Ridge Revival.

00:26:32

There was 20,000 people.

00:26:35

People came in from all over the place

00:26:37

on horseback and walked in, and it was in Bourbon County,

00:26:42

and it said that the spirits flowed

00:26:46

as much as the Spirit flowed,

00:26:49

because it was a rip roaring party.

00:26:52

And the Holy Spirit came down and whomped people.

00:26:55

And it said, as people came in from miles away,

00:26:58

they thought they were coming to Niagara Falls

00:27:00

because of the rushing of the waters

00:27:02

and the cacophony of the sounds.

00:27:04

There was a unique thing that happened there.

00:27:06

And you can go other places

00:27:07

where there's a Pentecost moment

00:27:08

and there isn't a lick of alcohol

00:27:09

or anything like that at all.

00:27:11

There's different things that happen

00:27:13

in different cultural contexts.

00:27:14

I believe there's a new and unique thing that's coming,

00:27:19

and I want you to want it.

00:27:21

I want you to be thirsty for it.

00:27:24

I think it also may be related

00:27:27

to the coming Revival that's coming up.

00:27:29

It's coming November 1-3, or something like that.

00:27:33

You can come and camp one night.

00:27:34

You can come and camp two nights.

00:27:35

You can come and not camp at all.

00:27:37

Just come up and go home for an hour or three hours.

00:27:40

Come up at midnight when your kids are sleeping

00:27:43

and stay there worshiping the woods till 4 a.m.

00:27:45

if you want, and then go back.

00:27:47

Powerful things I think are going to happen

00:27:50

in that place because they happened last year.

00:27:52

And just maybe, just maybe, it could be the thing

00:27:54

that God uses to revive us.

00:27:58

He wants to revive us. Why?

00:28:01

Because He wants the good news to get out.

00:28:03

And the good news can't get out

00:28:05

if you and I look like everybody else

00:28:07

and are stuck just like everybody else.

00:28:10

There's a fresh thing that the Spirit

00:28:11

has to do for that to happen.

00:28:16

The Holy Spirit is about people receiving Jesus.

00:28:20

That's the main thing the Holy Spirit's about.

00:28:23

All the other things are all important.

00:28:25

All of them contribute to that,

00:28:27

according to Jesus and everything else,

00:28:29

that's the focal point of the Holy Spirit.

00:28:32

So if we're hesitant to share our faith,

00:28:34

we don't want to share our faith,

00:28:35

we're going to be hesitant

00:28:37

to sense the power of the Holy Spirit,

00:28:38

because that's just what He's into.

00:28:40

That's just what He does.

00:28:42

That's when He gets most amped up.

00:28:44

Yeah, when I say He, yeah, it's a He.

00:28:46

There's a definite masculine article

00:28:48

in the Greek before spirit pneuma,

00:28:50

meaning it's not a it. It's not an it.

00:28:53

It's not an aura. It's not a mist.

00:28:55

He's a he. He is a person with a personality

00:28:58

who has a drive.

00:28:59

And the Holy Spirit's drive is Jesus

00:29:01

and letting people know who Jesus is.

00:29:04

And this is all the power you see in the book of Acts

00:29:07

as the acts take place.

00:29:11

That's why that guy who was on the fence,

00:29:14

Denny Patton, I think we have a picture of him

00:29:17

and me and some other guys he was training for ministry.

00:29:20

Denny came after me because

00:29:24

the Spirit was doing something in him,

00:29:27

and I was on his bathroom mirror.

00:29:29

I was on his paste list.

00:29:30

He was the one who told me what a paste list was.

00:29:33

"What's a paste list?"

00:29:34

"Well, I just have people I'm praying for

00:29:36

to come to know faith and I have my toothpaste

00:29:38

and I'm praying for you." He prayed for me.

00:29:41

I was on his bathroom mirror in 1981.

00:29:45

He said, "Now once you come to know Christ,

00:29:46

you get pasted. I take you off and I put somebody else on."

00:29:50

And I still do that to this day,

00:29:53

45 years later that still happens.

00:29:55

Right now I have names on my bathroom vanity

00:30:00

and I can't -- this is the adventure of the Holy Spirit.

00:30:02

This is good.

00:30:03

There's a guy I've been praying for for two years,

00:30:05

and I've gotten nowhere with him. Just nowhere.

00:30:08

Invite him to stuff. Invite him to Super Bowl.

00:30:10

That's an easy thing, right? Not interested.

00:30:12

Interesting, based on what the Spirit's doing

00:30:14

in many people's lives today,

00:30:16

they're not interested as much

00:30:18

in some of the fun things that we do, which are important.

00:30:20

They, like, want to go right to the goods, like right there.

00:30:23

So I have a friend of mine who asked this guy

00:30:25

I've been praying for for two years,

00:30:27

"Hey, do you wantto go to Man Camp?"

00:30:29

Which is not a Tough Mudder.

00:30:31

It's like, it's gotten pretty spiritually intense.

00:30:34

And he said yes.

00:30:35

I'm like, "Oh my gosh. He is?

00:30:37

Like wouldn't do all the easy fun stuff.

00:30:39

He's going to Man Camp? Wow, wow."

00:30:43

I just ran across a statistic from Relevant Magazine.

00:30:46

80% of everybody surveyed, 80% of Americans said

00:30:51

if somebody asked them to church, they would go. 80%.

00:30:57

Think about that, eight out of ten people you know

00:31:00

might have an encounter with God

00:31:03

if you allow the Holy Spirit to use you

00:31:05

to do what Philip did, to say, "Hey, come and see,

00:31:08

come and see. I don't have all the answers.

00:31:11

I can't maybe answer all of your questions.

00:31:13

Some, I'll do my best, but just, just come,

00:31:17

just come and see."

00:31:19

This happens again and again and again

00:31:23

in any environment that we're in.

00:31:27

As you probably know, if you've been around

00:31:29

for several weeks, Lib and my main journey

00:31:31

has been her in on cancer mode.

00:31:34

So she's deep into chemo,

00:31:35

she's got two more treatments left.

00:31:37

And realized going into chemo room that

00:31:42

we can't be about ourself here.

00:31:44

Because Christians, as humans, we're about ourselves

00:31:47

and churches, Christians are about themselves.

00:31:49

Like give me more teaching, give me better worship,

00:31:53

give me more this, give me more this.

00:31:55

You know, no one ever says give me better training

00:31:58

to bring my friends to Christ.

00:32:00

No one ever says that.

00:32:02

No one ever says, no one ever says

00:32:06

I want the church to create things for me

00:32:09

where I can bring my friends to Christ.

00:32:11

But that doesn't -- We're like, we're inward.

00:32:15

We're thinking about ourselves.

00:32:16

And I'm still that way.

00:32:18

I think about myself all the time.

00:32:20

So when you have cancer, your wife has cancer,

00:32:21

it's the automatic reason to think more about yourself,

00:32:24

just play the cancer card. Just talk about me, be about me.

00:32:26

And so we've been coming against this.

00:32:28

And one of the ways we come against this

00:32:29

is when we go in the chemo room is like,

00:32:31

how do we bless people who are in here?

00:32:33

Go in and take bananas to people, take orange juice.

00:32:35

I was going to take mimosas in and the nurses said,

00:32:37

"No, we cannot have any alcohol in here."

00:32:39

I was like, damn.

00:32:41

Last day of chemo, I told them, "I'm getting out.

00:32:43

I'm getting in here for mimosas at some point.

00:32:45

I'm going to do that."

00:32:47

Also fascinating, fascinating -- this is not about me.

00:32:50

I know I'm about me. I'm not trying to tell --

00:32:53

This is not the story of me.

00:32:55

It's just one guy with major faults

00:32:58

who wants to be used by the Holy Spirit.

00:32:59

You know? That's all. That's all it is.

00:33:01

I'm trying to just be an example.

00:33:03

My daughter knows a nurse, has a friend of hers

00:33:08

who's a nurse in the same kind of practice,

00:33:10

but is in a different part of the city

00:33:13

and was never, like, with us with all

00:33:15

the chemo nurses in the chemo room.

00:33:17

And she said, "Mom, the nurses there love you and dad."

00:33:23

Like, why? "It's like you call them by name.

00:33:27

You go in, you take bananas and orange juice.

00:33:30

You look them in the eye. You talk to them."

00:33:34

Yeah. We don't only want to be caring of people,

00:33:38

but maybe, just maybe, God's going to use that

00:33:41

and use our words to maybe bring somebody else

00:33:43

into the family of God, you know?"

00:33:46

So I last time I was in, I got subs

00:33:50

and I went around, there's about 20 patients

00:33:53

and friends and another ten staff or so maybe.

00:33:56

So I'm going around serving subs.

00:33:58

I've got different one subs.

00:33:59

And I come to this one woman and she starts mumbling.

00:34:03

She starts mumbling and I go, "Sorry, excuse me."

00:34:05

I mean, she's there. She's thin.

00:34:07

She's you know, she's not doing well.

00:34:09

People in chemo generally aren't doing all that well.

00:34:11

And she starts crying and she says,

00:34:13

"I wish more people were like."

00:34:15

You know, when that happens, I don't take that as,

00:34:19

"Yeah, I'm pretty awesome, aren't I?"

00:34:21

Because I just tell you

00:34:22

the nice parts of my life right now, right?

00:34:24

But when someone says that, I go, "Hmm, here's an opening.

00:34:28

Someone says that is open to be prayed for."

00:34:31

"Can pray for you?". Yeah.

00:34:33

Put my hand on her knee. Prayed for her.

00:34:36

She didn't get baptized in the room or anything like that.

00:34:38

But there was a connection.

00:34:39

She was moved a little forward.

00:34:42

We're sitting there just trying

00:34:44

to bring good news wherever we can.

00:34:46

They've got this thing the first round of chemo,

00:34:51

these red vials and the nurses come.

00:34:54

They come and inject these red vials into Lib.

00:34:56

And they go, "Well, you know what this is?"

00:34:58

"No. What's that?" They go, "They call this red devil."

00:35:01

We're like, "Red devil?" "Yeah, yeah.

00:35:04

You have to chew ice, ice or ice cream,

00:35:06

because it's going to get a metallic,

00:35:08

horrible burning taste in your mouth.

00:35:11

And that's what people call this, the red devil.

00:35:14

It's just horrible."

00:35:15

And we're going, we thought about it when we went home.

00:35:17

We thought, "We don't like this red devil thing.

00:35:19

We're not calling a red devil.

00:35:21

We're going to call it the blood of Jesus,

00:35:23

because we're going to believe that's going to bring healing.

00:35:25

That's what's for."

00:35:27

So going the next time, we're ready. Come in.

00:35:29

"You want the red devil? You want the Red devil?"

00:35:31

Said, "Well, we don't call it the red devil.

00:35:33

We call it the blood of Jesus."

00:35:35

[indiscernible]

00:35:37

And we tell them, "Well, we believe this is for healing

00:35:39

and we believe Jesus brings healing.

00:35:41

So we're just calling it the blood of Jesus."

00:35:42

She looks at us going, "I like that."

00:35:46

And then she injects the blood of Jesus inside of Lib.

00:35:51

It was good. These are all Holy Spirit moments.

00:35:54

That's part of why I actually look forward

00:35:57

to Lib getting chemo.

00:35:59

I don't know if I would look forward to me getting chemo,

00:36:02

but I look forward to a new playground

00:36:04

where the Holy Spirit might do something of significance.

00:36:06

One last one. This isn't about me.

00:36:08

This is just about some people in our church.

00:36:11

This one's crazy.

00:36:14

We had somebody in our Dayton community thought

00:36:16

we should go serve people who are in strip clubs.

00:36:22

So they go up and they talk to the manager.

00:36:25

And said, "Hey, would you be okay if we set up

00:36:27

a coffee truck outside of here and gave people

00:36:31

the ability to kind of, you know, get a little jolt

00:36:34

before they drove home after this?"

00:36:35

And the guy's like, "Yeah, yeah, fine. Yeah, fine, fine."

00:36:38

So they're out at like, I think 2:00 in the morning.

00:36:42

They got a Crossroads coffee truck out there.

00:36:45

I don't know if they had to go inside

00:36:48

for reconnaissance work or not.

00:36:49

I'm not -- I'm not sure of that.

00:36:51

But, one guy walks up and they say,

00:36:53

"Hey, can we give you coffee?"

00:36:54

It's like 2:00 in the morning. "Can we give you coffee?

00:36:57

He goes, "No thanks, I got cocaine."

00:37:00

"All right. Okay. All right."

00:37:02

Next person comes up, next person comes up

00:37:04

and they go, "Who are you?"

00:37:05

"We're with Crossroads Church."

00:37:08

And they go, "Hell, yeah.

00:37:10

That's my freaking church in Oakley."

00:37:18

I've been talking to our Oakley staff.

00:37:19

That's kind of good news and bad news. You know?

00:37:21

Good news, we're getting folks like that.

00:37:24

Bad news, is that a normal thing with people coming to Oakley?

00:37:26

I don't know, but you never know.

00:37:29

And then what do you know?

00:37:31

This woman comes out and they offer her coffee,

00:37:37

and she bursts into tears because she's a dancer inside.

00:37:41

And she said earlier that day she was just praying

00:37:45

and asking God if He was real, and would He give her a sign?

00:37:54

She's been going to Crossroads Mason ever since,

00:37:56

not Crossroads Dayton because she's afraid

00:37:58

she's going to bump into somebody.

00:38:00

She's worried about.

00:38:01

She's been going, going, going, going down,

00:38:03

and the Spirit is working in her life.

00:38:05

That is good news. That is good news.

00:38:09

You should want to be on the greatest adventure

00:38:12

that the Holy Spirit has for you,

00:38:14

and that is to be a good news bearer wherever you are,

00:38:16

whatever your Jerusalem is, Judea and Samaria.

00:38:19

That's the greatest thing you can ever do in partnership,

00:38:21

which is the most exhilarating thing

00:38:23

and the most meaningful thing.

00:38:26

I want that for you. Let me pray for you.

00:38:28

God, I pray that You would right now

00:38:30

come into many of our lives right now.

00:38:31

Some of us want to give our life to You right now.

00:38:33

Some of us are going like, "Man, I need that good news."

00:38:36

Just say, "Jesus, come into my heart right now.

00:38:38

Holy spirit, fill me right now.

00:38:39

I want Your forgiveness. I want Your identity.

00:38:41

I want Your peace." We say it right now.

00:38:43

And others of us you want to say, "Count me in.

00:38:46

I need to get back on the horse with this.

00:38:49

I need to get back on my game

00:38:50

just talking about my faith in a bit."

00:38:53

And those of us who just feel compelled by that,

00:38:55

we want to do something physical.

00:38:56

Just raise your hand like, God, put me in. Count me in.

00:38:59

I need to up my game in this area.

00:39:00

Just raise your hand if that's you.

00:39:01

If not, don't do it because you have to.

00:39:03

But if you're going like, "Yeah, I want to participate,"

00:39:05

and just say yes, yes.

00:39:07

Lord, I pray for a fresh filling of the Spirit

00:39:11

in those people, those of us who want to be used

00:39:13

by You right in Your wheelhouse.

00:39:16

And I pray these things on them, on us and over us

00:39:21

in the name of Jesus. Amen.

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