Overflow: Week 2

The Church of Crossing. My name is James.

If we haven't met, And last weekend I was up

in Wisconsin and I was asked to speak at an

outreach event and it was awesome, and just being up

in the north woods of Wisconsin, it was is such

a great time. But I told my good pastor friend,

I said, Man, it is almost as if God created.

You to be of these people. I mean, they just

like were so in sync. And I was just so

happy for him.

I said that multiple times there, Man, God created you

to be with this congregation. And then I noticed on

my flight home last Monday night, I couldn't.

Wait to get home to you. And then I was like, man,

God like I'm created for you and you're creative, were

created for each other. And it's just so good.

Even though I was gone, it's so good to be home.

And I don't think I tell you all this enough,

but I love you. I love you very much, and

just know that I pray for you and care deeply

about you.

Well, let's just take some time now. We're gonna jump

into our second week of our series.

We're going through the Book of Acts right now, and

so let's just go ahead and pray and.

Prepare our hearts to receive from God's word.

Father, God, we give you prayse today we thank you

for the opportunity to study your word, to.

Dive into your word.

But most of all, today God, I pray that you

would challenge us and help us.

To live out your word. In the name of Jesus,

we pray Amen.

How many of you have heard of the phrase day

of days?

Day of days?

Day of days is a phrase that has often used

for a life changing or course changing moment and someone's

life are We mostly speak of it as something that

changes the course of history, and these damn days are

often it's where a few people do something extraordinary that

changes the destiny of many people.

A few people doing something that changes the destiny of

many people.

When I think back through our American history, we have

some pretty significant day of days.

And when I think about these day of days, these

days they change the course of our history. I often

think about that.

There's plenty of them, but three that I often think

about is the Battle of Bunker Hill, Gettysburg, and d Day.

And let me just remind you about why these are

the day of days.

In our history. When we think back to Bunker Hill.

Here's what you need are saying.

Bunker Hill was at the very beginning of a revolutionary war.

We were fighting to become a nation.

And by the way, we were out gunn out man,

how skilled, we were out resourced, and we go up

against this battle against the English.

And here's what you need to know about this battle.

We lost.

We lost, but here's what we learned about ourselves that

changed the course of American history.

We would not go down without a fight.

We learned how to fight against reddible odd As a

matter of fact, that's when everybody found out about Americans.

They found out what was.

Inside of us. That we will not go quietly into

the night, that we will not back down.

That if you're gonna take our land from us, you're

gonna take our freedom from us, you're gonna have to.

Kill every single one of us. And this battle at

Bunker Hill was so intense, and we were so low

in ammunition that the uh, you know, the field commander said.

Don't even shoot, don't waste your musketball until you see

the white of their eyes.

We lost that battle, but we found out who we.

Were, and the courage of that day carried through till

we want victory and won our freedom. Another day of

days is that time where we had the Battle of Gettysburg.

And let me tell you something. That Lee would have

won this battle. I don't know how many nations we

would be right now. Would we be two, three or four?

Will we looked like Europe right now? Will we just

be a union of many nations? We don't know, But

we do know this that fifty one thousand men were

either killed or wounded during this battle, and it was fought,

and it was it was one of the most bloody

battles of American history. But at the end of the day,

the North did win, and not only did it preserve

our nation, but a little while later Abraham Lincoln came

there and talked about why Gettysburg was a damn days,

and he said it wasn't just about preserving our nation,

but what it did was is still the fate and

helped everyone understand that.

We were fighting for a greater cause.

And the greater cause is simply this, that in God's

eyes all men are created equal. And then we come

to d day, another day of days, and d Day

I wentn't doubt in a room with this many people

that there was some of our grandpalls, our great uncles

that were a part.

Of this day.

But here's what you need to understand about D Day

and as Germany had really taken over the world at

this point, but we decided that we were gonna go

and I think it.

Was called an Operation over Lord or.

Something like that, and we were gonna go in and

we were gonna to attack.

The beach's Normandy.

And here's what we need to understand that every time

that door opened up, that for every soldier that got

out with their gun, many of them died. They had

to run past the bulls, they had to run into bullets.

So they stormed that beach and somehow, by the grace of.

God, they overtook that beach, and that led to the

liberation of Europe, which also led to the eventual victory

of the whole war.

These were significant day of days in our history.

That changed the course of everyone, changed all of our destiny.

We're here today because of those days. And again it's

just a few people doing someone a great courage that

changed the destiny the destiny of many people.

Well here's what we're gonna do today.

We're gonna go back and we're gonna look at another

day of days in history. But it's a day of

days and history of God's relationship.

With us, okay.

And it's a day that's impact and still be a

felon experience by.

Followers all throughout the world.

And now before we get into that day, I need

to summarize how we get to this day of days

that I'm gonna talk.

About Acts Chapter two.

First of all, you have to remember that Jesus was

taken to the cross and then he died.

But three days later something happened. He resurrected.

Now, after Jesus resurrected, he gathered his disciples back as

after they've been spread out and from forty days, he said,

let me tell you all about the Kingdom of God.

And then we move into the next event leading up

to the day of Pentecost. And what we have is

the day of Ascension. This is when Jesus is gonna

go back to his father with the right hand. And

he said to his disciples, here's what I want you

to do.

You need to go back to Jerusalem, remain in Jerusalem, untol.

And this is a game changer.

You're gonna go back to Jerusalem until something significant happens.

The Holy Spirit is gonna fall upon you.

Let's look at that verse right here and Acts chapter one,

verse eight.

What does it say.

Jesus said, you will receive power. You're gonna receive power

when the Holy Spirit, in other words, the third person

of the trendy comes on you, and you're gonna be

in my witnesses in Jerusalem.

And Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

And so we go through the resurrection of Christ and

the ascension of Christ. And then that leads us to

the day of Pentecost, fifty days after the Passover, where

Jesus was betrayed. And this is a festival, a festival war.

Everyone comes together to celebrate the harvest. But on this

day something changed the course of history. It was a

day of days, and so lets we jump into our

text to day. There's three things I think everybody should

know about the Day of Pentecost. Number one, Pentecost fulfilled

a prophecy and fulfilled a prophecy.

Now let's go ahead and look at this text, Acts

chapter two.

It says when the day of Pentecost came, they were

all together in one place, just like Jesus told him

to do.

And he said, suddenly, a sound like the blowing of

a violent wind. Where did it come from? Heaven? And

it filled the whole house where they were sitting.

And then they saw what seemed to be tongues of

fire that separated and came to rest on each not

paying attention to each of them, and all of them

all of a sudden, we're filled with the Holy Spirit.

And they began to speak in other tongues that the

spirit enabled them.

Now they were seeing in Jerusalem, God fearing Jews from

where every.

Nation, So all the Jews.

It was three times a year that all the Jews

were called back to Jerusalem, and it's one of the

three times a year that they were called back to

bring an offering, So Jews from every nation under heaven.

And when they heard this sound, the.

Crowd came together in bewildered Midwhy because each one heard

in their own language being spoken.

He heard their own language being spoken, and then I love this.

Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another what does this mean? Somehowever,

made fun of them and said, well, they've just had

too much wine. Amazed and perplexed, two perfect words, two

perfect words to describe us going on. Because all of

a sudden, out of out of nowhere, fire from heaven

came down and rest upon these people, and all of

a sudden, the third person of the Trinity, the Holy.

Spirit filled them. Now what does this even mean?

That the Holy Spirit filled them. It's the first time

in history that the Holy Spirit didn't come in for

an event, or the Holy Spirit didn't come in to

help a group do something or do something with the community,

but the Holy Spirit came upon the individual. See, here's

what I want you to go back and remember. And

let's go back and journey a little bit back to

the Exodus. And if we remember the Exodus, what do

we see? We see God. His presence with the people

of God was by fire by night. And God led

the nation for forty years by showing up as fire

by night. And here's what this civiolize. God is with us.

God is leading us, God has guided us. God's presence

is among us.

But things change on Pentecost.

We go from seeing God's presence or God being among us,

to God being within us.

God gave us his Holy Spirit.

And now the third part of the Trinity is now

inside of us, and we are filled up with this

power to overcome sin, to overcome temptation, this power that

is led by God.

And even someone go would do miracles. This changed history.

This is where the Holy Spirit.

And God's relationship moved from a community based to the

individual to the individual. And this ship formerly function as

the moment where God, having gathered people from all the nations,

spread the Gospel throughout the world. He filled those people

with the Holy Spirit so this group could go out

in the world and something happened, something amazing happened that

no one was expecting.

That day, there was a miracle.

On top of the miracle, it says that people spoken

tongues to each other.

All right, let's talk.

About that for a couple of moments. One, if we

investigate the Greek, it's not talking about tongues where it's

a language that no one can understand. It's actually this

Greek word here is talking about they were able to

speak in a different language. And let me give you

an example of what the Greek is saying here when

it talks about tongues.

Here, it's saying that, say, for.

Instance, I speak English, well Appalachian English, and so I

meet someone and they only speak Arabic.

But I want to share the gospel of Jesus Christ

with them, so I start to.

Tell them about Jesus Us an appellation English. But this person,

who only speaks Arabic, could hear the gospel being explained

to them.

In their own language.

And by the way, this blew everyone away. This was

a miracle that no one could deny that this was

from God. Okay, and this astounding miracle showed that our

God was willing to do whatever it took to reach

people for the gospel so that the gospel could go out

throughout the whole world.

Let's continue on. In this text, it says.

Utterly amazed, they asked, aren't all these who are are

speaking Galleans?

In other words, aren't they just local people?

Then how is it that each of us hear them

in our own native language. And then they go on

to mention many of the countries that they're from, And

then we end up hearing them saying Cretans and Arabs.

We hear them declareing the wonders of God in our

own time. They're blown away, the people who are witnessing this,

They're blown away by the mirror, and here's what they're thinking, Hey,

isn't this a group of losers and weirdos who followed

this guy, this carpenter and they thought he was a

messiah but he ended up being a false messiah.

And he got killed and buried. What's going on here?

I thought these guys were, you know, just some people

that were a little bit off that picked the wrong messiah.

But but now there's this miracle and they're speaking in

different languages, and.

So the people there had to start thinking like, if

this is.

Happening, then maybe, just maybe, just maybe, then they're Jesus

that they were found their messiah that they were folling

is God.

Just maybe they were right and we were wrong.

So here's all of a sudden, they're having this condunctrum

in their head and realizing like, oh, this miracle is

so significant and it's blown over our minds up.

Maybe just maybe you guys were right and all of

us we're wrong. Again. These people are blown away.

And this also reminds us again It says God is

willing to break down barriers to see people come to Christ.

We should be involved in barrier breaking as well. You know,

I've never spoken tongues, and I think there's only one

time that I wish that I did speak in tongues.

It was when I went to Paris, France to help

launch and start a new church. I was on a

mission trip and the goal was simply this, to go

all around Paris and invite people to the start of

this new church plant. And here I am, I'm trying

to talk to these people, and I was really unprepared

because I thought that.

The people would speak a.

Lot more English, because I heard that they were pretty

much speaking a lot more English in Paris. But then

as I'm talking to these people, these people don't understand

the words that I'm saying as I'm trying to speak

in French and invite them, so they keep correcting me

and teaching me how to invite.

Them to church.

Was really an interesting scene where they're teaching me how

to invite them in French.

And I kept thinking to myself, Man, after the trip was.

Over, Oh, I really should have took a class and

brush up.

See.

I took five years of French, and I assumed that

when it comes to just inviting a small talk, then

I would be able to pick it up.

And so there was this.

Cultural barrier, and there was this language barrier, and you

know what, I didn't cross it. I didn't do the

work beforehand so that I could break that barrier.

I always regretted that.

It's one of the reasons why we just started us

some new classes where we are teaching our people how

to speak just basic phrases in Spanish. We have an

awful lot of people that were reaching in our ministries

and awful lot of people coming to Christ that speak Spanish.

And let me tell you, we had a class of

thirty some people that met all last month and it

was mostly greets, nutshers, people working at Childre's ministry or

people working our outreaching ministries. And we're all doing everything

we can just to learn how to break down these

beer says.

Here's what happens.

Let me tell you, whenever a person who speaks only

Spanish comes into our church and they see us trying

to speak their language just a few words, what does

that say to them?

It says we want you, We care about you enough

to try to learn.

And so I loved this class and that did a

phenomenal job teaching and I finally learned a few phrases

and I went up to one of the Spanish gentlemen.

This gentleman, by the way, he feels a call to ministry.

He grew up on the streets.

When he came to Christ, he got kicked outa's house.

There's a young boy in Mexico and his teenage eers

just lived on the streets.

He's an amazing, amazing man of God.

So I walk up to Ghirmo and I and I

say these few sentences in English. And he knew that

I couldn't speak those sentences a few weeks ago.

You know what Girmo did.

Ghirmo surprised me, grabbed a hold of me and hugged me,

and he says, I love you.

Pastor Barrier broke.

You see, the heart of the Day of Pentecost is

for those of us who are filled with the spirit

to say, hey, we're gonna we're gonna do.

What it takes to reach this world.

Remember even his instructions at the very beginning to stay

here in Jerusalem.

But then I'm gonna send you out. I'm gonna send

you out, you know.

So what do we see here at the beginning of

the Day of Pentecost Number one? We have a movement

of God going from his sphere being with the nation

to the individual.

We also have this miracle that blows everybody's mind. But

also what do we see.

We see that one the crowd is stunned, they're amazed,

they're perplexed.

But guess who is not stunned, amazed or perplexed. Jesus

followers are not see.

Hundreds of years before this moment, the prophet Joel and

Jesus would have taught him this. During that forty days,

the prophet Joel prophesied that this day was gonna happen.

Let's look at this.

It says an afterword, I will pour out my spirit

on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, Your

old men will dream dreams, your young men.

Will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women.

I will pour out my spirit in those days. So

this is a shocking moment in this community. But to

Jesus and the disciples, they expected it. Let's look at

Peter's famous sermon here. Let's look at this.

By the way, this is probably the most crazy way

ever to start any sermon in the history of all sermons.

Could you imagine if I came to you, and I

started my sermons today and I said, first of all.

I'm not drunk. That's exactly how he started.

The most famous sermon besides the Sermon on the Mouth,

starts with I'm not drunk, okay, and that's what he says. Yes,

somehow ever made fun of them, and it said they've

had too much wine. And then Peter addresses the crowd.

So when Peter starts the day of payoffs.

This sermon, he says.

Then Peter stood up with the eleven, raise his voice,

address the crowd, fellow Jews and all of you who

live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you.

Listen carefully to what I say. These people are not drunk.

He literally started out the most famous sermon ever with

we're not drunk. That's crazy, as you suppose, it's only

nine in the morning. No, this is what was spoken

by the prophet Joel and the last day, God says,

I would pour out my spirit on all people, yourselves

and your daughter's will prophesy your young men, and we'll

see visions in your old minimal dream dreams.

I noticed this. Do you remember the last time we

saw Peter. Peter was hiding. I don't know Jesus. I

don't know that guy. Jesus is on trial.

And here's Peter denied him three times, completely embarrass himself.

Now, what's the difference.

Peter has received the Holy Spirit? So what does Peter do?

He stands up before all of Jerusalem and doesn't give

a flip what anyone says. He said, let me tell

you about my savior.

What's the difference. He's with the Holy Spirit.

That's to change the Holy Spirit makes and he goes

off to say, hey, we're not drunking, and he said, no,

we were told about this hundreds of years ago. Now

I want you to notice someone with me. Who do we

have in that crowd. Remember, we have people who just said, oh,

you're drunk.

They're making fun of them. What we see in the

crowd is mockers. We see people making accusations.

We see people trying to discredit the disciples by saying

they're drunk in the morning. And that leads us to

our second thing that we need to know about the

day of Pentecost. Pentecost was an answer to prayer. Pentecost

was an answer to prayer. Now, I want to simply

go back a few weeks before Pentecost.

Who do we see being mocked Jesus?

We see someone else being accused of things that he

did not do. We see someone else being made fun

of in front of the crowds. We also see a

group that are running their mouths and making accusations.

And here's what I talk about. I'm talking about the

trial of Jesus.

He's mocked, he's lied about, and false accusations are made

about him.

And what do he do in retaliation? Nothing?

He didn't utter a word, and retaliation said he did

something extraordinary in this moment of great pain, after he

had been tortured, and be he doesn't even defend himself.

And here he is, He's hanging on the cross, suffering

for our sins, suspending between heaven and Earth. And then

all of a sudden, his mouth begins to move. And

I know if you were there, and if I was there,

we would lean in, like what's he gonna say? Is

he gonna rebuke all those who made fun of him?

Is he gonna call down curses upon those who just

beat him? Is he gonna call for a legion of

angels to come rescue him? And you gotta understand and

we talked about this, for that crucifixion is a death

by asphyxiation. So every single word that he would have said,

every single word that would have came out of his mouth.

Would have been incredibly painful. And they're not cheap words.

These are costly words. And what does our Jesus do.

He prays him prayer. He says, Father, forgive them, for

they don't know what they're doing. Jesus on the cross

pray to prayer for his enemies and his mockers to

come into a relationship of God. Now I want you

to think about this. That was his prayer on the cross.

Fifty days later. Who hears the gospel and who comes

to Christ? His enemies, his mockers, those who made accusations.

He turned his mockers into church planters. He turned his

enemies into future leaders of the church. And that day

of Pentecost was as a result of Jesus praying to

his Father and the Holy Spirit. The day of Pentecost

was a day that Jesus prayed for. And the third

thing you need to know about the day of Pentecost

is simply this that Pentecost had already been paid for.

It was a costly day, but it had already been

paid for. Now let's go ahead and jump back in

with Peter's sermon.

Does he say here? He says, fellow Israelites, listen to this.

Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to

you by miracles, wonders and signs which God did.

Among you through him.

As you yourselves know, this man was handed over to

you by God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge, and you with

the help of wicked men.

In other words, he looks at all these guys who

were the one that he was scared of a month ago,

and now he.

Says you, you, you wicked men, here's what you did.

You crucified and tortured our Christ, put him to death

by nailing him to the cross.

But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from

the agony of death. Why because it was impossible for

death to keep its hold on him. The day that

changed the world, the ultimate day of days, was a resurrection.

But this day of days that we're looking at Pentecosta

did not happen overnight.

It was a costly day.

And I just want to take you back for a moment,

and let's look to what led to this moment of Pentecost.

If we go back, we remember that the Bible says

in John three sixteen that God so loves us that.

He gave his only son to us so that if

we come into.

Relation with them and we ask for forgiveness, that we

could spend eternal life with God.

And so what did God do? God send his son

to this nerve his son? What do he know? Why

he was here? He lived a perfect sinless life, He

did the will of God.

And then he had this revolutionary message. Oh, it was

totally against the grain. He went up to people, the

religious leaders of that day. He says, hey, guess what

you are the ones with the plank in your eye.

You are the ones who are wicked. You are telling

everybody how to follow God and how to be a

part of this religion.

You don't even know who God is personally. Oh Lord.

They were not happy when they heard this, and they

decided at this time they got to get rid of him.

They're like, who do you think you are running in

your mouth like this preaching these messages.

Well, Jesus said, let me show you who I am.

So Jesus went around doing miracle after miracle, and.

He would walk up to people who had never even

seen a tree in their whole life, and he would

touch their eyes, and all of a sudden they could see.

He would walk up to people who'd never even heard

a word their whole life, and he would touch.

The ear, and all a sudden they could hear.

And then with one word, he would walk into a

grieving town.

And he would yell out, Lazarus, Lazarus.

And with one word, a man who had been dead.

For days stands up and walks out of the two.

That's who are Jesus?

Say is?

And he proved who he was by all of these miracles.

And guess what happened?

He was betrayed by one of those closest Have you

ever been betrayed by somebody? He was betrayed, And so

they went to this trial, and really this trial was

a complete sham. Matter of fact, the governor of that area,

pilot says, I don't find any fault with this Jesus,

but they would have had anyways. And they had this

trial and they convicted him, and it was all just

a sham.

So then afterwards, what did they do with Jesus?

They tortured him they took our Savior, our Jesus. They

ripped the clothes off of him, and they beat him

with a whip until his flesh was exposing the organs

inside of his body.

They took a crown and they mocked.

And they beat him severely until blood was running over

his face, and his face actually became disfigured. Matter of fact,

let's go look at another old Testament prophecy about what

would happened to.

Our Savior Jesus. Look at this Isaiah.

They two says this, just as there were many who

were appalled at him at his appearance, because it was

so disfigured beyond that of any human being, and his

form marred beyond human likeness. Beat our Savior so severely

that when they looked at him, he no longer even

looked like a human being. And then after they did this,

they took a skeptic, which is like a king stick,

and they hit him on the head with it. They

put a robe on him, they blindfolded him, they made

fun of him, and these Roman guards who were known

for having these huge, huge rings, beat him in the.

Face and they said to him, prophesy, who hit you?

And they spit on him. They mocked him, and they said,

hell the king of the Jews.

And then they forced Jesus, who was almost unconscious at

this point, to carry his cross to the place of crucifixion.

And then they drove spikes into his wrist and his feet.

And after a few hours our saviors succumbed and he

died on the cross. And then he was buried.

But something happened a couple of days later.

See he was buried, but you see death could not

hold him. The scripture says, the grave could not keep him.

The power of death lost in Staate, and Jesus overcame

the epic battle between him and the prince of evil Satan,

and he overcame death. He paid the price for sin,

and three days later Jesus.

Walked out of the grave into our hearts. And here's

what happened.

The world changed, history was divided into His resurrection took place,

and then he is seated now at the right hand

of his father. Jesus paid the cost for pentecost He

paid the costs for Pentocosts.

He paid with his life, his burial, and his resurrection.

So now we come. That's the end of the sermon.

And so now we're gonna look at how the people responded.

And really, when we look at it, at how the

people responded, it should be the same way we respond.

Let's look at this.

It says when the people heard this, they were cut

to the heart, and they said to Peter and the

other the apostles brothers, what do we do now? And

then Peter said, repent and me baptize every one of

you in the name of Jesus Christ.

Why the giveness a sins, and then you too will

receive the Holy Spirit. Now I love this. Here's where

you and I jump into the text.

This promise is for you and your children and for

all who were far off.

There you are, it's us. We were the ones who

were far off, for all whom the Lord, our God

will call. This is our first birthday right here.

And he was looking two thousand years later at you.

You know, I praise God that he is still in

the business of seeking those who are far off. I've

shared this with you about I was so evil before

I came to Christ.

I used to wake up every day and I tell you.

I loved evil, and I love doing the things I did,

and I was involved in so many things that are

just it's just wicked. I don't want to go through

those today. But I do know this that when I

was at a camp meeting. For those of you who

don't know what a camp meeting is, it's where they

put a tent out or they build this thing outside

and everybody comes and you have a lot of worship services,

and it's required that it's ninety eight plus degrees and

at least ninety eight degrees humidity, and then you have

to wear jeans.

Okay, that's a camp meeting.

And at the end of that night, everyone went down

to the altar except for me, and I wasn't going

to go because I'm like God, I love my life,

I love I love what I'm doing. It broke my

pastor's heart. He shared the gospel with me. Afterwards, He

asked me, what would happen if you died? An I

said'll probably go to Hell. Shared the gospel with me

and I said, you know, I might come to Christ

a little bit later in life. And then we have

some other words. And then as I left, he said,

I'm gonna pray for you. A couple of months later,

a couple of months later, out of nowhere. I was

at the pool hall of my friends. We were doing

some illegal things and at the end of the night

I had an encounter of God. I never heard God

speak to me my whole life, and all of a sudden,

out of nowhere on this night where I was out

doing evil, God spoke to my spirits, said, look at

your life. Give me your life and I will someone

with it. For the next two or three days, all

I can think about can I give this life up?

I don't want to give this lighte up. But then

as God continued to work on me, I decided, Okay,

maybe I can give this life up. And all through

youth meeting that Wednesday night, I just thought, can I

really do this?

Can I really do it?

So I finally asked my youth pastor after the youth meeting,

can we talk in your office? And he loves to

tell how he thought I was gonna tell him either

two things, either Gino was pregnant or that I need

a community service, and instead I said I need Jesus.

And he didn't know what to do with that. At first.

To be honest, giving me community service would been a

lot easier than disciple on me.

So I kind of understand that. And Jesus changed me.

I mean I was changed. I was transformed.

Why because it was no longer I who was living

my life, but Christ in me. And here's what I

found over the years. I know that I was saved

so that I could lead others to Christ. So I

can lead others to Saviory.

Last weekend, I preached.

Over fifty people who had either left the church and

been on from the church for a long time got saved.

Are people who had never came to Christ their whole life.

Last week in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, just by

simply sharing that fifty people came to Christ. I am

so glad that our God is still saved as you.

Just this past Thursday, when I shared the gospel on

Thursday Night service, multiple people came to Christ.

And right now we.

Have over thirty people speaking of those who speak Spanish,

We've got about thirty of our Spanish speaking congregation waiting

to be baptized. Our God, Amen, Amen, Our God is

still in the soul saving business. And so now they've

come to Christ. What's their response? So here's the response

for all of us. So here's your application for the day.

I love it when the applications already in the sermon.

Here it is. What did they do?

It says those who accepted his message talking about you

and I baptized. About three thousand were added to the

number of that day.

So was the first thing they do. They decided to

grow in Christ. What did they do?

They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching. They devoted themselves

to the Apostles teaching number two. They grew in their

relationship with each other. Let's look at this and to fellowship,

to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. Everyone was

filled with awe and many wonners and signs performed by

the Apostles.

So here's what they did.

Not only did they sit under the teaching, but then

they got together.

So what are we talking about.

They went to worship services and then they did life together,

small groups, Sunday school groups, whatever.

They did like together, they worshiped together. They did life together.

You know, we're ab ready to hit my favorite two seasons.

A lot of people have these thing too. But I

love the fall, and I love winter, and a couple

of the big things I love. I love in the

fall of the fire pits with my friends in the

winter every nineteen and I try to close our night

out by having a fire in our fireplace.

I just love it.

But if you ever noticed that when you're gathered around

with a group of people, and you're gathered around a fire,

and you start to.

Get a little warm whatever, you can fill it on

your body.

But then as you walk away, you can still kind

of feel that warmth on that side of your body.

He ever knows that.

But the further you walk away from the fire, you

stop feeling that warmth, and the more dissan you get,

all of a sudden, you don't feel the warmth of

the fire at all.

My friends, that's what happens whenever we're sporadic in community.

That's what happens whenever we try to just you know,

take our faith into our own hands instead of coming

together weekly, we get further and further and further away

from the fire.

See, this.

Represents the fire of God, and we need each other

to stoke, to keep each other warm and our hearts

close and our hearts to glow for Christ, was the

Bible saying. Hebrews It says this, do not give up

meeting together, as some are in a habit of doing

but encouraging one another. And all the more, as you

see the day coming, we gathered together.

The third thing that we see the disciples, the brand

new Christians do, they became the hands and the feet

of Christ.

It says all the believers were together and had everything

in common almost south right. There. A lot of people

like to use the scripture for communism. It's not talking

about communism. We'll get to that hairy another.

Okay. It says they sold the property.

And possessions to give to anyone in need. Again, this

is not about communism. What happened was you have three

thousand people come to Christ one day, which meant for

a lot of them that their families shunned them, which

meant they lost their job. And as a church came together,

they realized that a lot of them they're brothers and.

Sisters just because they came to Christ. Now they no

longer had any income. So what did they do. Well,

they sacrificed for each other.

The scripture doesn't teach communism, but what it does teach

is radical compassion and radical generosity towards the body of Christ.

And here's what they did.

They literally became the hands and feet of Christ. And

we've talked about how we wanted our church. Our ultimate

goal has become the hands and feet of Christ. As

I got off the airplane Monday nine, I'll close with this.

Oh, I literally lamed the plane with this.

Okay, sorry, I got off the airplane.

Gino was up here helping a small group.

So I got an uber and the uber picked me up,

and I knew that the guy was not from America,

and I said, hey, where are you from? Because that's

what I do. I asked people awkward questions. And he

said he's from Afghanistan. And we started talking. I explained, Hey,

my house that I bought, I bought it from some

people from Afghanistan. And that led to a conversation about

how our church has a lot of people who speak

Arabic in it, and we're talking about how those people

tell how much I love them and all sort of stuff,

and the barrier is being broken a little bit. And

then I said, how long have you been driving uber?

He goes, oh, just this week. I got what's going

on and he said, well, you know, And how he

got to America was he was an interpreter for our

army for many years over in Afghanistan during the conflict.

So then he came here. He's very educated, got a

great job, but just last week he got laid off.

He's got three kids, a mortgage.

And a wife.

I said, okay, okay, he goes, yeah, I can't waste time.

I got I gotta work, I got I got kids

a feed. I said, hey, well, let me tell you something.

If you would like our our church will get you

a job. He's like, what, so no, No, our church

has gotten like twenty five hundred people in new career.

That's called a ministry called Passport to Employment. Would you

would you like a job? He goes, yes, I would

like a job. I'm like, great, we'll get you a job.

Okay.

Gave him the information and I said, man, how is

it you know?

Is you're not mean? Right now? Yeah?

Well feed you. Hey, we got a market this Saturday.

We've got markets coming up. And so I gave him

all the information about our market and said, we'll feed

your family during his time.

We can do that too. He dropped me off of

my house and he just looked at me and we

don't even you know.

He was telling me about this god that he serves

and it's not the same God that we serve in.

But he looked at me and said this was a

divine appointment.

And I walked into my house thinking, oh my gosh.

And I was able to help this guy could get

a job or going to take care of his family.

And I walked away thinking, oh man, I'm a part

of a group. As a result of us coming together,

we're seriously becoming life changers. We're seriously becoming the hands

and the feet of Jesus. We're doing what the New

Testament Church did, and that's what we're supposed to do.

And so as I closed today, I feel very lad

to if anyone I want to take a moment that

if anyone will like to come into a relationship with Christ.

Either maybe you walked away a while ago, or maybe

you never came into a relationship with Christ.

What I want to do right now is I want

to give you an opportunity to pray to come into

a relationship with Christ. So can everyone just bow your

head right now to close your eyes.

If you like to pray this prayer with me, either

to rededicate your life to Christ or come into a

relationship with Christ.

Can you just no one will can raise your hands so.

I can see I see those hands, any other I

see that hand any other? Well, just pray this prayer

along with me. Father God, ask you to become the

lord of my life, to lead my life. Jesus, I

believe that you died on the cross for my sins.

Please forgive me for my sins. I also believe that

you resurrected three days later. And because of that you

you've sent us to Holy Spirit. So ask Holy Spirit

please enter and lead my life. I give you my.

Life Lord in Jesus' name. Amen. We give them a

big hand.

We give them a big hand and a message that

talks about community, loving on each other. It's great that

we can end this week. Here's what we're gonna simply

do to end of service. Hey, we're gonna take some

time to love on each other and share more of

God's love with each other, just simply by praying for

each other. And so we're gonna have some of the

prayer partners come up and we're gonna take some time

just for anointing and whatever need you have, we would

love to pray for you with you.

Maybe it's for someone else that you're interceding on behalf

of them. And what we're gonna do.

Is we're all gonna stand up here and a second,

and if you'd like to pray with someone, please make

your way all the way down to the middle row

here and Jenny will hook you up with a prayer partner.

So let's continue on, and let us stand and continue

on and worship the