Overflow: Week 3

So will you pray with me as we prepare our

hearts to receive God's word. God, we want to be

transformed by you, we want to be changed by you,

we want to be challenged by you.

But this world is beaten in this room right now.

So let's just all take a moment right now, cleared up,

stop thinking about outside these walls. Right now, prepare your

heart to receive God's word or your glory for your

honor today in Jesus name, Amen.

Would it be.

Great if you found out that you were related to

like George Washington or Abraham Lincoln or Theodore Roosevelt or

Bob Dylan. Would be great and fun to find out

you're related to somebody famous. And you know, for me,

I always assume that my family came over from Scotland Scandinavia,

England sometime after the Civil War. They either settled in

Kentucky or Tennessee, and then in their early to mid

nineteen hundreds they all moved up.

Neither word for GM or the steel mills. Because that's

all my.

Family talks about, and we don't know much of our

history beyond that. Well, there is an expert in genealogy

who goes to our church a great man, and he

offered to do my family genealogy. Now I wasn't expecting much.

I was hoping to not be embarrassed too much as well,

and he actually my biggest hope was to find actually

a couple of pastors.

I thought that would be really really cool to find

in my genealogy.

Well, when we met a couple of weeks ago, he goes, hey,

I got some surprises for you. First of all, I

share a grandfather with Daniel Boo. Now some of you

are like duh. I mean, not only do I sound

like I'm from Kentucky, but my family helped settle Kentucky.

And you know, if you don't know who Daniel Boone.

Was, he was a great revolutionary war warrior.

As well as many books, many movies have been made

about him. And just so you know, it is a fallacy.

He did not wear a coon skin cap. And I

only say that because I don't want twenty coon skin

caps showing up at the office. Okay, Actually he slicked

his hair back and wore a man bun because.

He was awesome.

When I was telling my mom and dad about this,

my mom goes, oh, yeah, your dad's grandma used to

talk about this all the time, how we were related

to the Boons, and I'm like, oh, my lord sor right,

there's another confirmation. Another cool thing I found now on

my dad's side was his fourth grade grandfather was one

of Marion's men during this c Ovil War.

Now you might not know who Marian is, but let

me share with you who Marian is.

Marian is the guy who is depicted by Mel Gibson

in the movie The Patriot. And my fourth or fifth

great grandfather was one of his soldiers. And so he

signed up at seventeen and he was with Marion for

three years, and they were famous for guerrilla warfare. They

brought guerrilla warfare to this revolutionary war and it had

changed the landscape of that war.

And here's what they would do. They would go and

sneak up and they would.

Attack the British soldiers and then they would retreat back

into the swamps, and the British soldiers were not going

to follow them into the swamps. Now, you're probably not

surprised that my family invented his swamp warfare, but it

was just such a delight to find out that he

was a faithful soldier and also helped.

America win the Revolutionary War.

Now, when he turned ninety and he eventually passed away

to Washington, d C. I got to read the article

picked up his obituary because he was the last living

Marion's Men and so it was a really cool thing.

Made me very very proud of my family. Now on

my mother's.

Side, found out that we were a part of what

we call the seventeen fourteen Colonists, and it was a

group of forty two Germans who came over to Virginia

to settle a German colony and they actually built a

fort and on that.

But here's what's interesting. That side of my family.

Came over and they were indentured servants and they worked

for four years to earn their freedom. Now, after he

shared all this stuff with me, it took me a

little while to like retool, like my whole legacy, my

whole heritage, and I to be honest, I was very

proud and honored to be even associated with these men

and women. And by the way, I've always said to people,

DNA runs deep. I'm extremely patriotic and I love to

go out in wilderness and just shoot stuff you know

it makes sense.

Now, I'm not alone in this. I'm sure there's a

lot of you have great heritages.

I met one man who walked out of service Thursday

night and he's explained to me his genealogy, how he

was related to.

George Washington, and I was like, that is so awesome.

And some of us have great heritages. And also knowing

do we have great heritages, but you know, we have

this thing called a family heritage. But I also have

something called a spiritual heritage. A lot of you who

grew up in church, you have a spiritual heritage. See

my spiritual heritage is.

Church of God. Okay.

So I grew up in the Church of God Anderson

and my family attended church at Yaker Road, First Church

of God in Middletown, Ohio.

And that was a preacher's church, okay. And that was

a church of the.

Word, and if you did not preach the Bible, you

were not welcome in the pulpit.

And we worshiped passionately. We had a great Sunday school system.

If you grew up at our church, a small church

about two three hundred people, if you grew up in

this church, you knew.

The Bible by the time you graduated. And let me

tell you something. Holiness was a part of our upbringing.

We had camp meetings in a summer, spring revivals, fall revivals.

And also we have the spiritual heritage that I'm just

so thankful for. And I think that's why I'm a

Bible preacher, because that's what I.

Grew up hearing.

And I still love him, I still believe in holiness,

and I still love Sunday School.

It's part of my heritage.

Now, our church has brought in many heritages. You know,

we're not only Church of God, but we got some Baptists,

we have some bedside Baptists.

You'll figure that out in the moment. We have Pentecostals,

we have I mean, we're all over the place and

it's a beautiful thing. And so many of us have what.

I would call a spiritual heritage. Well, today what I

want to look at as not only do we have

a family heritage and a spiritual heritage, but if you

look closely, as we begin Acts Chapter three today, I

want to talk to you, every single one of you

who is a believer, every single one of you who

have received the Holy Spirit, you have a kingdom heritage.

And the kingdom heritage is a heritage that.

No matter why your background is with your family or

your spiritual heritage, whether it was good, bad, or messed up.

One thing we can know about our kingdom heritage is

when we look at the Book of Acts, it says,

here's what our family, the family and the kingdom.

Here's what we look like. Here's what we are to do.

A matter of fact, as we go and look at

our kingdom heritage today, a couple of things I want

you to know about our DNA that you and me

share when it comes to our kingdom heritage.

One, we look at the Book of Acts.

First of all, it's called the Book of Acts because

this is how our spiritual forefathers acted when they received

the Holy Spirit. Okay, so this is the response of

being filled with the Holy Spirit that you have been

filled with.

Secondly, it was recorded. Now pay attention to this. It

was recorded so we could not only see what they did.

But here's the point.

We're not just observers, but so that we will do

what they did. Do you understand that we're to look

at the Book of Acts and we're to say, all right,

we're gonna.

Align ourselves to this. This is our.

Kingdom heritage, and we don't only observe it, but we're

gonna learn from it. And then the challenge today is

to reshape our lives to the Kingdom and Heritan. Here's

what we're gonna do as we look at our spiritual

heritage as the church begins. So in Acts chapter two,

the church began, the Holy Spirit came down, they preached the.

Gospel, people came to Christ. Acts chapter three and four.

We're gonna look at today. It is the beginning of

the church. In other words, it's like future church. Look

at what we did.

Now, make sure we're still doing that two thousand years later. Okay,

So we're gonna look at this, and then we're gonna

look at ourselves. You got that, all right, Let's look

at our spiritual heritage today. First of all, the first

thing you need to understand is we are engagers.

We are inngagers.

Let's look at Acts chapter three, and it says here

one day, Peter and John, we're going up to the

temple at the time of prayer at three in the afternoon.

Now, a man who was paying attention to this lame

from birth was being carried to.

The temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every

day to beg from those going into the temple courts

when they saw, excuse me. When he saw Peter and

John about to enter, he asked them for money, and

I'll pay attention to this because I'm gonna get into

something here. Peter looked straight at him, as did John.

And then Peter said, look at us. Pay attention to that. Okay,

this is big here. Look at us, he said, look

at us. So the man gave them attention. Now why

did he give him attention because he was expecting to

get something from them.

Then Peter says, silver and gold I do not have.

But what I do have, I give you in the

name of Jesus Christ. And now's a walk, And taking

him by the right hand, he helped him up, and

instantly the man's feet and ankles became strong. He jumped

to his feet, and he began to walk. And then

he went to the temple courts. All right, now, le's

get crazy, walking and jumping and praising God. Now, when

all the people saw him walking and praising.

God, what do they do?

They recognized this is the same guy we've been seeing

begging for a long time at.

The gate called beautiful, and then all.

The people were filled with wonder and amazement at what happened.

See him.

Now here's the first thing I want you to pay

attention to. Okay, Peter and John they're walking up to

the temple. The churches just began and Peter John they're

walking up to the temple and they look at this beggar,

this man who was crippled, and they said to him, hey,

look at us. Now you might not find that to

be significant at all, but you need to understand something

about the culture during that time. See back in the day,

if you were set up as a beggar in this culture,

what you would do is you would.

Sit there and you would beg all day. You would

ask people for things. But if someone made.

Eye contact with you, then that was almost like a contract.

If we make eye contact, that means I'm going to

receive something from you. So if you don't want to

give me something, don't make eye contact.

Okay. So if I make eye contact, I'm gonna give

you something.

If I don't make eye contact, I don't owe you anything.

So what did this create? It created a culture of

thousands of people every single.

Day, walking by those who were suffering, those who were

in pain, those who had nothing, those who were desperate.

It created a culture of looking away.

Culture of looking.

See.

If you just look away, you don't have to do anything.

You don't even feel bad because you don't even see

the pain.

You just look away.

Churches and Peter and John, they are filled with the

Holy Spirit. So when they walk by this man, they're

no longer looking away. And let me tell you something.

To Church, let me tell you something about us, Church

of the crossy, we don't look away. Peter and John,

they said, what do they say? He said, looked at us,

look at us, and he expected to receive something.

Now he didn't receive exactly what he expected.

He wanted money, But they said, we got something way

better for you. They said, in the mighty name of

Jesus Christ, stand up and walk.

And they healed the man.

Not only did they heal the man, but they gave

him something even better than being able to heal him.

They gave him Jesus.

So then only would he be healed on the surf,

that he would be healed eternally, and it all would

have been avoided if they were have simply looked away.

But the Church of God, the beginning of the new Church,

those who.

Are filled with the spirit.

Of God, we don't look away. We say, look at us,

we have something for you, and by the way, to me.

All same man, I'm too busy.

Are they having agenda too? They were going to prayer time.

They had a place to be and a time to be.

See, they had a prayer time at nine twelve and three.

They had I mit missed that day. But when they

saw suffering, they stopped. Now what does that teach us?

What does that tell us about our heritage, our dna.

Look at this, we don't look away. Here at the

church acrossing, we engage.

Okay, we're making different types of disciples here. Okay, this

is a type of disciple that we are going to be.

We don't look away, We engage.

Now, the beggar could have wondered, now one on earth again,

can you give me better than silver? Gold? And they

gave him Jesus Why because they didn't look away. Let

me tell you some things about how we engage.

Do you know, just last week, after a year of talking,

having conversations, we started our homeless ministry. And during the

market last week, we had a few people go over

to a camp all by thege Ways. You know, in

our community we have homeless camps.

I'm not talking forty five minutes away down town.

They're around here. They're behind some of our stores. And

we went to this homeless camp and they said, we

got some socks.

For you, we got some water for you, we got

some food for you. But then they just didn't throw

that there and then walk away.

They sat down with them and they said, what do

you need?

What do you need? They listened to them, and most importantly,

you know what they said afterwards, We'll be back. We'll

be back.

We're not gonna look away, We're gonna engage. Just this

last week, two young ladies start walking beside some of

our ministry people for Embraced Grace Ministry too, young ladies

who decided not to have an abortion, and they just

started their twelve week Bible study last week. And here

in November, ladies, we're gonna throw them a shower to

bless them and bless them and they're newly born children.

Why because we don't look away. We engage, you know.

And on top of that, last weekend, we fed hundreds

of people. We also help people get jobs of passport

to employment. And just this past week, uh, we say

some things in line to launch a new ministry.

And this new ministry is awesome.

Basically it's passport to employment for Spanish speaking people.

Amen. Amen, you know why because they don't know how.

I mean, they can't fill out a resume and there's

so many complications there. And now we're gonna have people

who's gonna walk inside of them, that's gonna have.

All these connections to all these jobs, and we're gonna

help them get employed. We're gonna take care.

We're not just gonna try to reach them for Christ

and level them.

We're gonna help them feed their families.

Also, where by re a launch of ministry called Celebrate Recovery,

they Celebrate Recovery will change lives for generations.

Generations would be different.

And by the way people think celebrate recovery is just

like I'm addicted to alcohol or I'm addicted to this. Yes,

that's part of it, but a lot of Celebrate recovery

is for those who've been abused, those who have had

messed up lives. Maybe they experienced a divorce, maybe they

experienced abandonment by their family, and they're just dealing with

all kinds of hurt.

And out of that hurt, they.

Got some funky habits in our life that's not helpful.

This is a place where they go and that gets addressed,

and we're going to be helping.

To change lives through this. We don't look away. We engage.

You know, we have people here though we call some

down sometimes say if you need healing, let us pray

for you, because we also don't ignore that. Just a

couple of weeks ago, we had a prayer meeting just

for those who are suffering for cancer. And let me

tell you something else about our church. There are multiple

people in our church. Let me tell you right now

who's been prayed for. And let me tell you, honestly,

God truth, they should be dead.

Right now, but Jesus Christ healed them.

Jesus Christ sealed them through the prayers and the faith

of his people.

We don't look away. We engage.

Secondly, as we continue through and again, these stories are

here for a purpose.

The Holy Spirit put these in place so that we

will follow online. Secondly, we don't.

Look away, but we also as we discover our heritage.

We are evangelists. We are evangelist.

Let's look at this together, continuing on, and I love

this Isn't is so cool?

It says, while the man held on to Peter and John. Wow,

that's such a beautiful picture. All the people were.

Astonished and came running to them in the place called

Solomon's Colonnade.

When Peter saw.

This, he said to them, he said, hey, fellow Israelites,

why does this surprise you?

Why do you stare at us as if it is

by our.

Own power, our godliness that we made this man walk

by faith in the name of Jesus, This man whom

you see and know, was made strong.

And I love this again. It is Jesus's name and

the faith that comes through him that has completely healed

him as you can see. And now just to the gospel.

Now, fellow Israelites, I know that you acted in ignorance,

as did your leaders.

But this is how God.

Fulfilled what was he had foretold through all the prophets,

saying that his Messiah would suffer, and then he goes repent.

Then and turn to God, so that your sins may

be wiped out. The times of refreshing may come from

the Lord, and that he may send them Messiah who

has been appointed to you, even Jesus. Now after he

did this, after he preached the gospel continuing on, and it says,

when God raised up his servant, he sent him first

to you to bless you.

By turning you, each of you from your wicked ways.

In other words, He's coming to you to change your life.

And then the story flips.

The priests and the captain of the temple guard and

the sadducees came it to Peter and John while they

were speaking to the people. They were greatly disturbed because

the apostles were teaching the people proclaiming in Jesus and

the resurrection of the dead. Now we have this moment.

I want you to think about something. Peter has this moment.

Where he could have went in a different direction after

this mirror. Let's go back, just scrap before this.

Remember his first sermon ever, the first sermon of the church.

How did Peter start out the first sermon ever? People

were not drunk.

He had to defend himself, No, we're not drunk.

People bocked them, people made fun of them, people accuse.

Them things and now someone's here. You can't deny that.

You can't act like that is just a coincidence or

or something.

Else is going on.

No, this man that they saw every single day was hell.

Now here's what Peter could have done. He says, first

of all, you.

Guys balked this last week, But now this guy can walk.

How do you like me? Now that's why I'm not

an apostle. That's why a two thousand years later he's like,

you just go over here.

Okay, Peter could have condemned them and condemned them.

But can I show you something.

Let's talk about the three movements of the Gospel on

the Cross. Jesus said, forgive the somebody his enemy the

day of Pentecost. So does he preach to his mockers

and his enemies.

And now again he's talking to his mockers and his enemies.

The church was built.

The church was built by God converting his enemies into

his champions of faith.

I preach to my friends.

I hope you like me. I hope we're friends. I

also notice that we happened to share the gospel.

With our friends.

But here the prayer of the Cross continues to run

through the prayer of the Cross. Father forgives and they

don't know what they do. And so Peter preaches to those.

Who mock him. Why why does Peter preach to those

who mock him. Let me tell you something, Because they're

a change in Peter. He's filled with the Holy Spirit.

And when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, something

happens in you. Your love grows exponentially. You will look

at people, You will look.

At people that you don't like, and through the Holy Spirit,

all of a sudden, you'll be overwhelmed with.

Love for them. That's the sign of the Holy Spirit.

Doesn't work in your life.

You will look at people that you used to not

be able to stand, and God will help you to

forgive them in love. And that's a mark of the

Holy Spirit. And let me tell you, I'm gonna throw

this point out for you right now.

See, our love.

For the lost should transform us into evangelist. See we

have a heritage of evangelism. We're messengers of the good News. See,

if we have the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit dwells

within us. And so therefore God calls us to go share.

This even with our enemies. Now they've preached the gospel.

But guess what, despite their efforts.

We see that many rejected our forefathers. Let's look at

this ready.

Look what happened next.

They seize Peter and John, and because it was evening,

they put them in jail until the next day. But

many who heard the message believe. So the number of

men who believe grew to about five thousand. That's two

thousand more people. So on one hand, they stepped out and

they preached the gospel to their enemies.

Two thousand people come to Christ.

On the other hand, they went to jail. All right,

look at this next point I have here. No one

said evangelism was easy.

It's just what we do. No one said it was easy.

It's just what we do.

You know why, It's just what we do because it's

our DNA, it's our heritage, it's our kingdom heritage.

Can I share some.

Stories with you that I didn't get out of a book,

but I got from our church last week.

Let me tell you something. We are evangelist.

One man, his father kicked him out of his house

and for a while there he had a sleep.

On the beach. He was homeless, he had nothing, he

was living in nicer Roguay. He came to America. He

worked very very hard.

Got himself set up, but he was still lonely, and

he still didn't have any hope.

And then all of a sudden, he got invited to

our church.

He came to our church, and all of a sudden,

the church surrounded him and he experienced the love of

a family. He didn't have a family, but now he

has a family. He has people who have accepted him,

not rejected him. And as he fell in love with

his family, he came to christ. And let me tell

you something.

Right now, he's discipling people and he's even starting to preach.

It's not from a book. This is here a church

at the crossy. Let me tell you about another man there,

another man from our church. His name's Nelson. Nelson was

in the navy.

He grew up with a church right now door to

his house, but he never went to church. He ended

up becoming a professor in his country. Things went hey

wired in his country, and he came to Americas rebuilding

his life. He came to our church a couple of times,

and then we didn't see him for a few months.

And then he came back again, and this time When

he came back, he started developing relationships and all of

a sudden, he has a new family. People start loving

on him, people start encouraging him, people start.

Walking with him. And let me tell you something. He

received Jesus Christ.

In it completely changed his life.

And now he's helping to host a small group.

Did you know just this last month he had twenty

eight people for small group in his apartment apartment apartment.

Who in here's living in an apartment. I've lived in

an apartment.

You can maybe fit twenty eight fish in an apartment.

Do you know why there was twenty eight people? Because

he went.

Knocked on every door has apartment complex and says, I

love you, I love for you to.

Come meet my family. We are evangelists. Another man came

into our church.

Not too long ago, and he had just lost his job,

lost everything. He had a wife and children, and he

got very depressed. He came into our church because he

had decided to kill himself, and he came into our

church service to make peace with God before he killed himself.

The preacher that day decided to end his message a

little early, which is.

A miracle of God. By the way, you know, the

Holy Spirit's real. When that happens.

He received some prayer from some people at our church,

he came to Christ and then he told him. He goes,

I was going to kill myself today, but something just

happened when you pray for me.

I was here at church every single week, every single.

Week now growing in Christ. These are not stories from

a book. This is our church.

Okay. Now let me tell you something.

We as a staff this week we were praying and

talking about how we really want to continue to focus

on being evangelist.

And so here's our goal for this next year. During

the school year.

Starting from August just a few weeks ago, through the

beginning of June, We're going to set a goal among

all five of our services plus our children and youth,

we want to see one hundred people either come back

to Christ or to come to Christ.

And that's going to be our Christ's goal as our church.

So far, just in the.

First six weeks in the school year, we've seen sixteen

people come to Christ.

You know.

Last weekend in our English services, ten people came to.

Christ and I get an amen. Amen.

So our goal this year is to see one hundred

people Christ on what's your part?

That means I want to ask you to be praying

and inviting.

Pray, invite why because our heritage we are evangelists. And

then the last thing today, as we look at the

Book of Acts, you need to know this part of

your spiritual heritage.

We are engagers. All right, here we go. Let's look

at this. Excuse me. We are exalters. We are exalters.

Here we go.

The next day, the rulers and the elders and the

teachers of the law met in Jerusalem.

They had Peter and John before them and began to

question him by what power? Hear this? Because they knew

something happened. They didn't say what trick? They say, by

what power or what name? Did you do this?

Then, Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit. Here's something I

want you to notice. A lot in the Book of Acts.

You're gonna keep seeing filled with the Holy Spirit. Filled

with the Holy Spirit. Filled with the Holy Spirit. Filled

with the Holy Spirit. You might be wondering today, James,

how can I be filled with the Holy Spirit.

It's very simple.

After twenty five years a minute watching people who are

filled with the Holy Spirit, I can easily explain to

you how you can be filled.

With the Holy Spirit. It's very simple. Here's how you

can be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Two things. You seek the Lord and you say yes.

You seek the Lord and you say yes. You say

yes to those little promptings that you get from the Lord.

When you're in a living room, you say yes to

the little promptings you get. When you're in a lobby,

you say yes to the little promptings where God calls

you to sacrifice.

See, these are things that only you and God know about.

But you keep saying yes, yes, yes, yes.

And then when you hear about opportunities where we say hey,

we need help, you say I help. You keep saying yes, yes, yes.

And every time you say yes, God gives you more

of His spirit and God works more through you. Every

time you give yourself an excuse I don't have time

or you say no, the less the Holy Spirit can

work through you.

See, you don't have to come to church, and I

don't have to walk up to.

You go.

And you fall down and start doing the worm. That's

not how you get filled with the Holy Spirit. It's entertaining.

I've been the conferences where somebody did the worm right

in front of me, and I was like, that's awesome,

But I'm just gonna do what this scripture says.

That's how you feel it the Holy Spirit, just say yes,

just say yes. Let's go on, rulers and elders of

the people.

As Peter continues, says, if we're being called to account

today for an act of kindness shown to a man

who was lame, and we're being asked how he was healed,

then know this you and all the people of Israel.

It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,

who you crucified, but whom God raised from the dead,

that this man stands before you healed. Jesus is the

stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone salvation

is found, and no one else, For there is no

other name under a heavy and given to man kin

by which we must be saved. Now, when they saw

the courage of Peter and John, they realized that they

were unschooled, ordinary men. They were astonished, and they took

notes that these men had been with Jesus.

Now let me just talk about this for a second.

First of all, he was arrested out of jealous You

gotta understand that there was a system going on at

the temple.

See all these priests, they were on a rotation. You're

on this big long rotation, and you had to wait

for your chance.

And when it count to your chance to be the

priest at the temple, you got to do the sacrifices.

The prayers, the rituals, the scriptures.

It was your big day, Mom and dad, aunts and

uncles came, they scrolled, they wrote pictures of you, and it.

Was a big day for the family.

So here it is, these people have been waiting this

long time for their day to do the sacrifices.

All of a sudden, Peter and.

John walk in this news who and then they start

preaching to gospel.

And they run the priest's day. So they get mad.

They have them arrested because they're jealous of them, and.

Then they take them the trial. And they happened to

notice some stuff. First of all, these men were not

professional speakers or communicators. They were not ordinating clergy.

They didn't come from the right families or the right towns.

They didn't have royal blood, they didn't.

Have the right heritages.

None of them was related to Daniel Boone. The only

heritage they had was that they had been with Jesus.

They didn't just know of Jesus, but they can tell

they knew Jesus.

And so they had this conversation with these men. Everyone

saw this miracle, and there's too many witnesses.

And they're like, what do we do with these guys.

We just can't kill them, We just can't disappear them.

So here's what they do. They go back and they

brought them in, and here's what they said to them.

Listen this. They called them in again and commanded them

not to speak or to teach at all in the

name of Jesus. Oh Lord, but I love this.

But Peter and John replied, which is right in God's eyes?

To listen to you or to God you be the judge.

As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we

have seen and heard.

Here's a problem. They were filled with the Holy Spirit.

God's DNA was in them. They couldn't shut up. They

were exalters. They couldn't help to talk about him, teach

about him, serving his name, worship his name, behave like him,

loving him, And even if it cost them their life, they.

Couldn't help it. And see, here's what we do.

We are exalters here at the church across it, and

all that we do we point to Jesus. Think about this.

They're looking at Peter. They noticed the transformation to Peter,

and this would have been a great time when they.

Said, Peter, how did this guy get held this?

This has been a good time for Peter to go.

You know, just a couple of years ago, I was

a screw up.

I had a temper. I did dumb things.

Even Jesus made fun of me, even like yelled at

me one time and said, get me behind me, Satan.

Jesus called me satan one time, and it wasn't good.

I deny Jesus three times. But now I feel with

the Holy Spirit, I'm so close to God. God and

I are so close that man, I have enough power

now to heal people. Did Peter do that? No, See,

a lot of people do that. A lot of pastors

do that. A lot of people do that. They write

books and they say, here's look what God has done

through me. But here at the Church of the Crossing,

we don't point at ourselves when.

God does something.

We point to Jesus. We are exalters of Jesus. Now

I want you to notice something here, because there's a

big difference. Let's travel back to the last trial that

we witnessed. Okay, during the last trial, Jesus is inside,

he's on trial.

Peter doesn't even make it inside the trial. He's not

even under the.

Pressure of this anhedron. And Peter goes, I don't know Jesus.

Little girl walks up to him. I don't know Jesus.

He's not with me. Deny, deny, deny. Now he's full

of the Holy Spirit. And now he's on trial. What

does he do? Three times?

Three times? He exalts Jesus. He says, Jesus, heal this man.

Jesus is the cornerstone of our faith, and it is

by Jesus's name that this person can have salvation. And

let me talk about the transformation of the Holy Spirit.

Before you have the Holy spirit, he says, I don't

know him. I don't know him. I don't know him.

And after he has the Holy Spirit, he says, it's

all about Jesus.

It's all about Jesus. It's all about Jesus. That's transformation.

And every single one of you can experience the same

thing because we are exalters. And when we do things

for the glory of God in this church, and God

does good things, we will say is because of God.

Now how do they get this humble?

All right, let's look at this humble people are humble

because they've seen the power of.

God compared to their own weakness.

If you think you're something, you think you're great, If

you think you're impressive, congratulations.

But the Holy Spirit is probably not gonna work through you.

But if you were humble.

And you know you need God's help, God can't wait

to do something through you. See, brother and sisters, let's

look at our shared heritage today. We're engagers, evangelists and exalters.

And even after we engage and exalt and God doesn't work,

at the end of the.

Day, we continue to point to Jesus. I'm going to

close up now on time.

You know, I've talked a lot today about reminiscing and heritages,

but I know.

Some of you don't have some great heritages in your

family line. Trust me, all of my reports weren't great either.

One piece of paper he pulled out, he said, Hey,

did you know your dad's dad, your grandpau was married

ten times.

I'm like I'm thinking in my head, my family thought

it was nine, but ten. That's the line. That's the line.

Oh wow, wow, I can't believe that. I'm so embarrassed.

Ten times at a he showed me the death certificate

of the investigation of my great grandfather, my grandmother's father,

who had been murdered by.

His brother in law.

And then the family split into one part of family

with the Chicago that was came up to Middletown.

See, we're all mixed back. But here's what I'm gonna do.

I'm going to focus in on the ones who inspire me,

and I'm going to live up to their heritage.

I also know that some of you grew up in

a church, and instead of that church giving you a

great spiritual heritage, that church hurt you. Or maybe along

the way you've picked up some bad spiritual DNA. You

sit on the sidelines, or your gossips, or you have

a critical spirit, or you're greedy, and we've picked up

some bad DNA because we didn't have great DNA in

our spiritual heritage. But what I'm telling you today is

simply this. We all have a family heritage. Okay, that's it.

We can't help that. Some of us either have a

spiritual here that's good or bad. We can't help that.

What do we do? We look at our.

Kingdom heritage where we're filled with the Holy Spirit, and

we say we lean into that.

That's your spiritual heritage.

Let us close our eyes today and let us respond.

And I got some questions for you as the band

comes out today. The questions are simply this, where do

you need to grow? Do you need to grow and engaging?

Have you set up your life as a life of

looking away? You need to take some steps in evangelizing.

Do you need to grow in exalting?

Now? What does that mean? The words?

Are you more concerned about what people think about you

or more concerned about what people think about Jesus?

If you're more concerned about.

What people think about you than what they think about Jesus,

you need to humble yourself today and grow in exalting Christ.

So here's what we're going to do today. God, we

come before you, and here we all are. You've given

us your Holy Spirit, you love us, you care for us.

But God, we want to grow in you. We want

to honor you. We want to see your kingdom come

so Jesus help us just go ahead and take some

time now on your own and pray and respond and

let the Holy Spirit talk to you.