Spirit Empowered Witness

Hello and welcome to the Arise Church Podcast.

We are so glad you're here and want to thank you for joining us

today for the audio version of our Sunday morning message.

We want to invite you to join us in person at our Sunday morning

celebration every Sunday at 10 AM.

We are located on Old Jenks Rd. in Apex, NC.

Well, this morning, a great friend of ours who we've gotten

to know over the last couple years has come all the way from

Hawaii. And yeah, he left paradise to

come to paradise, right? But Pastor Kiha Pimentel, he is

one of our just amazing leaders within the Foursquare Church.

His current role is he is the supervisor for all the workers.

That's a a new word that we use for missionaries just to kind of

to help in different contexts where that word will trigger a

lot of security issues. But he overseas, all of the

workers are for the Foursquare Church around the world.

And if I remember right, it's more than 300.

He'll give you maybe more of the accurate count, but that's more

than 300 workers around the world and some of the most

challenging situations. And he's he's a part of a team

that leads them and he's the head of that team of supervising

them. But he's one of the most humble

people. He's such a serving man.

In fact, when my family and I went to Hawaii, he took us

paddle boarding. He hosted us for a family

gathering at his mom's house where they had this big pit with

hot lava rocks, and then we cooked Kahlua pig or pulled pork

in it. It was unbelievably delicious.

And I thought we did pull pork, right?

But I don't know. The whole is pretty good over

there. But I mean, that's that's just

stuff you don't have to do. And he's just treated our family

and our kids so well. So he's just become part of the

fam. So this morning you can even

maybe call him Pastor Uncle. So, in fact, would you help me

welcome Pastor Uncle Kiha all the way from Hawaii?

Good morning Arise Church, so happy to be before you.

I have experienced the Southern hospitality.

Thank you so much. I feel very, very loved.

Feel very at home in Hawaii. We call it the Aloha Spirit.

I feel the Southern hospitality is the North Carolina Aloha

Spirit and it really is the the hidden word for the Holy Spirit

just is an easy way to to say that.

I just want you to know that I get to serve in this incredible

role around the globe. And so I get to meet lots of

leaders, not just across the nations, but especially in our

context in the US. And I want you to know how

blessed you guys are to have Pastor Ty and Pastor Lilia in

this church. They are wanted, loved, known

every like. They are heroes everywhere.

They could be going to any church, any place would want

them, but they chose this place and you guys are blessed.

They're hearing the Lord to to come and serve here.

And and then there is a bunch of friends who followed them, like

how blessed are you guys that they would leave another place

to hear God to follow them. I met some of them today.

And so this is what I want you to hear just about Ty and Lilia.

They're trusted leaders. I put myself under leadership

like that in Hawaii and I just, the first thing they just asked

me to say, would you put away 10 chairs?

And I just started putting away 10 chairs.

And then the next thing I do, hey, would you help put away the

chairs for everybody? And I started doing that.

And little by little, I just got asked and whatever they said to

do, I just followed. I didn't even try to make sense

of it. I wasn't trying to like, hey,

why is he asking me? I was just like following my

leader, trusting my leader and crazy things started to happen.

They said, Hey, would you just start a small group?

And I'm like small group. I, I don't know about small

group. I didn't even read the Bible at

that time, you know, And so I, I, I just said yes.

And next thing you know, I was reading the word.

I started, hey, lucky if I was reading it once a week.

Maybe that's how it is for some of us here.

But then I was under leadership and they said, Hey, would you

join me to do Bibles together? And I just took steps and steps

and steps. And next thing you know, I'm

planting a church. And next thing you know, they're

saying, hey, would you care for all the churches in Hawaii?

And now they're asking me. But all it is is I'm just

trusting my leaders. Really.

I just, so can I just encourage you?

He said, Hey, there's starter pathways today.

Like even if you don't understand why, you don't need

to understand. It says, could you just lean on

the Lord with all your heart, not on your own understanding.

Just follow him all your way and he'll direct your paths.

Watch what happens when you can trust the Lord.

That way you don't have to understand and you don't have to

agree. There are times when I don't

agree. Like, Oh my gosh, you know, it's

Sunday football. Why?

Why would I have to? Why?

Why should I do that when I could be I put that aside and

like, hey, I'm just going to follow my leader because he

asked me Pastor Ty saw me this connection we were in forget

where we were Denver, I think together and he had just prayed

for the whole we're talking about 10,000 some people, I

think 49 countries, 50 country, 51 countries, 49 states,

something like that. And he had just right after he

finished, he came right to me said I have a word for you.

And he said he, the Lord has said that there are things that

are against you given your position, and there are things

that are ailing you and aching and aching and hey, would you

just take seriously the prayer cover?

Like that's the kind of person who hears the Lord and then

immediately obediently delivers. And then I just said, yes, like

I didn't have to process the like, is that true?

That's a guy I know and love and trust.

So I immediately the next day, my wife and I asked some friends

who were there in Denver, hey, would you guys begin to?

I actually recorded him and I'd let them hear the recording.

And they all said, yes, we'll pray from that point.

Miracles have been happening in my own house in my own way with

my own wife. Like I was ailing for two years

with this hip thing. I'd be like this hobbling,

hobbling for like two years. I thought it meant I had to get

a hip replacement. Seriously.

I talked to my doctor about it. Right after those people started

it, the hip thing went away, completely gone.

I don't have nothing. I'm walking.

But that's just because I'm following somebody I can trust,

somebody who says, hey, would you just do this?

This is what I'm hearing. Would you just do this?

So I'm just saying, you guys, you don't even know how good you

have it. I'm going to you're going to

hear a little bit about it in the in, in this in my message

today, we're calling it empowered witness.

Sorry, I'm having trouble with my computer here.

So here we go. We're calling it empowered

witness. Let me see, do we have it on?

All right, Empowered witness. Everybody say empowered witness

and then say spirit empowered witness, spirit empowered

witness, followers of Jesus are spirit empowered witnesses.

That's all I want you to take home.

If you're a follower of Jesus, you're a spirit empowered

witness. I'm a coach.

I've been coaching athletics for many years.

I coached football high school for almost 30 years and I loved

it. I loved what for me was a

philosophy to prepare young men for life, using football as a

metaphor, and it was such a great way to be in and around

young people. And one of the things that I

learned is if I'm going to be a really great coach, not just OK,

but great coach, I'm going to put them in positions or in

conditions like the game, but I'm going to do it during

practice. Do you hear what I'm saying?

I'm going to give them as much pressure in practice so that

when they in the game, it's actually freedom.

They've they've already been there before.

They've they've already felt this pressure.

They felt the emotions, but they didn't let that get to them.

They knew exactly what they wanted to do.

And I want to give you a chance to feel that today.

Would that be OK? So I want to give you sort of

game time pressure situation. But we're doing it in practice

so that when the the game does come and you guys are like in

freedom and there's no like sense of panic and all of the

other things that happened. Are you gay?

All right, so got to imagine with me.

I've now have all of us on this magic ride.

We're all in Hawaii. You're in my home.

Yeah. Can you?

Can you? We're going to eat Kalua pig

together. We're going to get on surfboards

together. All right, We're hanging out.

And this is really what happened. 1 morning.

Oops. Here we go.

This is what happened. Is it came on my phone that a

missile from North Korea, a nuclear warhead was heading to

Hawaii. They said it's going to land in

38 minutes. This is not a drill.

This is not a test. You and I like right now this is

happening like we have that much time left.

I want you to consider what are you going to do?

Like you might be thinking about family members.

You might have family members next to you in the time that you

have. What are you going to do?

Some of you might be thinking, hey, I got to text my son or my

daughter. I got a call.

I got a like, I want you to just even take a minute Now, if you

know somebody can think of somebody, the Lord himself, put

a picture of somebody in your head.

Would you write to them right now on your phone?

Just bless them. Tell them you don't have to say

what's going on here. Just give them a word.

Tell them you love them. Tell them it's going to be OK.

Tell them, hey, we got to reconnect.

Tell them I'm sorry, whatever you got to do.

Would you just take a moment now to do that with a friend, family

member, whoever? 30 minutes left.

There are people here between you, husbands and wives,

brothers and sisters, right? Mom and dad, our son and dad or

son and mother, there are things that you just might want to get

cleared up. This was happening and it was

crazy. In real life.

People were running to put stuff in their cars and they were

racing. We have 3 tunnels under big

mountains. People are racing to try to get

into tunnels. There were mothers and fathers

grabbing their kids, opening sewer manholes and putting their

kids in the manholes. Like people were panicked.

And there were a number of people who are Christian but

still in this panic, like what do I do?

What are what's going to happen? You actually get to see how

people really are. You know, we call it the public

face. Hey, you're nice and unzoomed.

We all smiley and we're all good.

But that kind of position, game time situation, you get to see

what I call the private face. You get to see what people

really are going through. And So what are you going to do?

What do you, I want you to consider your own lives.

What are you saying in those moments?

You just have a few of those left.

It's not a it's not a drill. All right.

We do. We all take a deep breath.

The Bible says we're just a breath.

We're just a vapor. It ended up being a false alarm.

Crazy it took a while but they said it was a false alarm.

My wife was on a plane from China coming to me so I was

thinking that thing passed her already and all I could do is

just leave her a message. But I was with other friends at

a little retreat and I had just off.

I didn't even hear the sirens because I was on the phone.

Just by chance, I was leading somebody to Jesus that morning,

a person who was Korean, by the way.

And I was like, wow, Lord, this is so ironic.

So we're in this place and we get to pray a bit.

And then the news people are saying, is this real?

Is it not? It's like they're all this stuff

is happening on the news and then finally says, somebody made

a mistake. It's a false alarm.

It's a false alarm. You can imagine the relief.

This is the same thing that happens to me sometimes during

the week. I have like 3 o'clock 4:00

meetings in the morning because of where I live trying to meet

other people in the globe. And then the alarm goes off and

I got to get up. But sometimes I forget to turn

the alarm off. So the next day the alarm goes

off again and then I'm like ah, and then I'm like oh, false

alarm, I can go back to sleep. I'm wanting you to know you just

heard a false alarm. Practice false alarm.

But I don't want you to go to sleep.

Go. Don't go back to sleep.

We're asking you to be your name.

Church. Arise.

Like wake up. Hey, something's happening here,

right? Something's happening here.

Let me go to the next slide. Can I do that?

There you go. Oh, sorry.

So would everybody do that with me?

Put up two hands, right. So imagine that's 100 years.

So then put down to fingers. 80 years is what the average

lifespan is for a woman, 80 years, it's 75 for a guy.

So you can put down half for you guys, 75.

And so if you are, you know, I've got some teenagers here.

So if you're, you can just put down the one if you are older

than 20 years or older, you can put down to 30 years and older,

put down 3 on top of keeping the other ones up right, right.

So I'm, I'm 60 and I'm going to be at 75.

So look, I've only got like that much left.

Can you see like look around at how much left you have.

Do you see like maybe you only got one thing like you're some

of us are on we're an extended play, right?

Some of us have run out. We're you hear what I'm saying,

you got some of you. So you have you have that 70 or

80 years, but then how old are you?

2019? So you put down to fingers and

that means really you've got that much life left, right, like

55 years, some everybody. Can you guys see?

So I see that gentleman there, he's holding up one finger like,

oh, you got half there you go. So he's got a.

This is like almost like Shaka almost.

Yeah. So 15 years left.

Really. Like, please consider that you

can put your hands on. Thank you.

Consider that. That's the breath you have left.

If you're living to what's average.

We have no idea if it's today. In fact, my wife and I, the way

that we've been saying goodbye now is I love you, honey.

I'll see you in heaven. And it's a way for us to bring

ourselves to reality. So many of us have been living

this sort of distracted reality, right?

Think about the TV we watch and the scrolling and the the

football and like all the stuff is just distracted reality.

I want this message to make a difference to you today like

come to the reality of the moment right?

Why are we here? Consider your very purpose

right. That's why we're here.

That's why we're going to go to the slides.

Oops Thank you sister. I think I'm messing you up back

there. So let's go to the first one.

I want to look in Acts. We're in Acts.

We'll walk through Acts One. The first 8 verses in my former

book. We're talking about Luke, Doctor

Luke, right? Follower of Jesus.

Guy is accurate. He's a doctor.

Think about the doctors that you have very, very meticulous.

They know they want to get it right, right?

So they're delivering it. He's already written a book,

right? That was Luke.

And so this is the second book. This is the reap, this is the

second chapter. This is the remix for you OG

guys, right? Right.

So we're talking about this is the second book.

And Theophilus. Theophilus is a person.

Theophilus. Have you heard that word before?

Theophilus. Theophilus is a person.

It means lover of God or friend of God.

Any lovers of God and friends of God in here?

Yeah. That book is not only for that

guy. It's for you, you and me.

That's a name in Hawaiian, where we are, where we live.

When we give children names, that name gives a child its

purpose. I'm just thinking, should I do

this? All right, I'm going to tell you

my son's name is Kaliho. Ho na ikeala unapua kiha

piilani. Yeah.

So we call him Kaliho for sure. But it means it means the gentle

rain that brings the fragrance out of flowers.

There's a particular type of rain that is so late that it

brings the best out of a flower. And people are flowers.

And so his job, if you're around him, he does this.

I mean, he'll make you roll laughing.

He's so fun. But his job, his purpose in life

is just to bring the best out of you.

Theophilus, you are Theophilus, your friend and lover of God.

But let me give you another name that has been really rocking me.

This church out of Isaiah 60 is is to arise.

That is a name given you, and that is a call to you.

That is a call to your purpose. That is not just for you to to

arise yourself, but to gather all those around you, the people

who are yet sleeping, the people who are still in this false

reality, the people who are still kind of distracted and

don't know what it's about. Will you help bring them to the

very purpose of their own lives? That's God's calling you as the

church arise. What's amazing to me is as I go

factor, Pastor Tie and I last week were serving at a camp for

natives in Soboba Reservation in California last week.

Do you know what the name of the camp was?

Arise. We just sent 2 missionaries from

they, they're originally from Samoa.

They had come to America to get education and then they found

Jesus and now we've sent them back to be missionaries to

Samoa. They have called their mission

in Samoa called too lucky Tulati.

What do you think Tulati means Arise.

There's something that's happening globally and I'm

wanting you to know that you guys are at the tip of the

spear. Arise Church like we're asking

you, would you be your name begin to live this call to help

people arise, right? Don't don't hit the snooze.

Don't don't turn the the alarm off.

All right. In my former book, Theophilist,

I write to you all about Jesus. What what that Jesus began to do

and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven after

giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he

had chosen. Let's go to the next slide after

his suffering and he's just his suffering, which you want to

read the whole book of Luke to understand suffering and go

through the other gospels as well.

But we're talking about his death, the the torture of his

death, the amazing walk that he did for us.

But he ties it up into, you know, after his suffering,

because it's not just about the suffering.

We're beyond the suffering now. And he's saying that guy came

back to life. He can't.

He walked out of the grave. He's saying he presented himself

to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive.

Like, can I tell you this is the most crazy news ever?

This is reality, you guys. This is the thing that we're

talking about, right? He appeared to them over a

period of 40 days and spoke about the Kingdom of God.

Everybody say Kingdom of God. It's a Kingdom of God, A

Kingdom. You know what?

Americans in general, we're living in this democracy.

We're living in an AI got rights.

Everybody's got a right. I got a right to do this.

I got a right to do that right. No, no, no, no.

We're in the Kingdom, the Kingdom.

The king says to do something. Everybody follows the king.

Like we want to keep coming back to that.

It's the King's voice. It's the King's directions.

We're under the Kingdom. Even Jesus was when he was

living, He got the hall, the empire and all of that, but he's

not submitted to that, although he does what he needs to do,

pays taxes through fishes and all that stuff.

Great. But he's following the Lord's

voice. It's about the Kingdom of God.

Let's go to the next slide. On one occasion while he was

eating with them. This is an amazing thing right

there. I want to say that I want to

stop there because while he was eating with them, I remember

witnessing, I was asking, do you do you know Jesus?

And he said, oh, yeah, we know Jesus.

I'm like, tell me what you know about Jesus.

Oh, Jesus was a guy who, you know, lived.

I'm like, was he a real man? He goes, yeah, he was a real

man. And then I said, do you know

about his death? He goes, yeah, we know about his

death. And then I said, and then what

happened? He said, oh, he came back as a

ghost. I'm like, came back as a ghost.

Where'd you hear that? Oh, yeah, My grandma told me.

And my grandma told me, and I'm like, really a ghost?

I said ghost. Have you ever seen a ghost?

Have you ever heard of it? Yeah, well, I haven't seen, but

you know, on TV they show. I said, did you ever see a ghost

that ate a hamburger? He said no, no.

Did you ever see a ghost eat anything?

I said no. I was like, well, can I show you

this? Jesus was eating, right?

He was eating like he wasn't a ghost.

This is a real person. People would touch him, right?

People put their fingers in the holes, right?

So we say he was real in body. He gave them this command.

Don't leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift of my father

promised. There's some of you need to hear

that again. The gift that my father promised

it wasn't just for those guys back then.

It's a gift for you too. There's some of you don't don't

know God the Father has promised you some things he want to read

it in this love letter that we have as we call the word, the

word of God. He's got promises for you.

There's some of you have forgotten promises made to you.

God always keeps his promises. If you need to hear more

promises, there are elders and and pastors in this room who you

can go to and say, remind me, hey, would you give me a new

promise? Would you, would you tell me,

remind me of the promises that are made for me?

There are hundreds of promises just in the word for you.

And I want you to know the Father keeps his promise.

But this one gift, this one gift that the Father promised, which

you heard me speak about. Let's go to the next slide for

John, baptized with water. But in a few days you will be

baptized with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was the one

promised to you, to you, you and me.

We get the promise of the Father.

It's the Holy Spirit. This is craziness.

You guys, everybody else is going to say, oh, that's non

reality. No, no, no, no, this is reality.

Everything that you catch on your phone and that's non

reality, this is reality that the Father has given you himself

in his Holy Spirit. God the Father who is for you,

Jesus Emmanuel who is with you and now the Holy Spirit in you,

in you at the moment you say yes immediately Holy Spirit is in

you never to leave you like what happened today.

I'm so, so thankful it's Jessica.

God bless you, sister. Like I'm I'm in tears to watch

the transformation. Just watching you.

Just beautiful, beautiful testimony.

You know what the best testimony is, is that when she said yes,

and now doing this in front of us in the same way that Jesus

was baptized, the Father says to you, Jess, you're my daughter,

my beloved daughter, and I'm pleased with you.

Do you want to? Are you a clap for that?

That's what we call identity. You don't have to work for that.

That's you. There's nothing.

There's no think about this. Your kids have to prove to you

that they're your kids. Like do they got to like they

got to behave. Then they're then you say, OK,

you know, you're my kid. That's no good or bad.

You love them. They're your kid, right?

How many, how many miracles did Jesus do before that baptism?

Anybody know? 00, no miracles.

What I'm saying is he didn't have to do anything to be a son.

It's the other guy's Kingdom that makes you do stuff to be

are you with me in the other Kingdom you do to be over here,

you just be and now your son and daughter are now you want to do

if you want to do like now you can be be a son.

You already being a son and out of that if you want to share you

want it like you have freedom now you have choice.

There's there's nothing that's going to cancel that.

All right, he's giving you his Holy Spirit.

Let's go to the next thing and they gathered around him asked

him, Hey Lord, are you at this time going to restore the

Kingdom is of Israel. I love these apostles because

they're just like you and me. We're we're they're still kind

of positioning. They're still thinking, oh

great, all right, finally he's back now he's winning us.

He's restoring us as Israel over the empire.

But Jesus, like I, I, I was trying to think, how does, how

is that be? It would be like if, if you

said, hey, are you going to buy me a hamburger now?

And and I was about to take you to the nicest hotel to give you

the greatest buffet ever. And you're like, Hey, can I get

a hamburger now? Like that's so small, small part

thinking, right? What what the what Jesus is

being asked is, are you giving me a hamburger?

And he's like, Oh my gosh, like it's way bigger than just the

Kingdom of Israel. You guys, it's way bigger.

He's not just going to be over Israel.

It's the whole world for all time.

It's both for you and for me. But this, this passage wasn't

just for these guys back then. It ripples to you and me.

All right, let's go to the next one.

So Jesus says it's not for you to know the times or dates that

the Father has set by his own authority.

That's why I was telling you about the Korean missile.

Hey, we actually don't know if there's going to be one of those

for you today. You don't know if today's the

one that you get to say goodbye, which is why when I say goodbye

to my wife, it's not really a goodbye.

It's like, I'll see you in heaven, babe, see you there,

I'll see you there. Like, would you live your lives

completely with the relationships that you have so

that there's no regrets? There's no regrets for you, and

there's no regrets for those who love you, the ones that are

around you. The next slide, but you will

receive power. Everybody say power, power.

That word in the Greek is dunamis.

Like dunamis, if I say it really fast, don't miss it.

Like don't miss, do not miss this supernatural power.

Not just like the natural things that we see supernatural power

from heaven. You not will receive it.

You who say yes already have received it.

You have it. It's in you now, right now.

Some of us, we don't know that it's there.

We sometimes we got to get stirred up, maybe somebody to

pray baptism, Holy Spirit of you, but it's in you.

If you don't understand any of this that I'm speaking right

now, maybe you're still a watcher and that's OK.

We do want you to know that hey, this is available to you now for

those of you maybe brand new, first time in the church, first

time you ever hearing this good news.

Hey, please let us help you become a believer in this.

As soon as you say yes, as soon as you say, hey, I'm willing to

check this out, then you have been deposited.

This power to the Holy Spirit will come on you.

You will be my witnesses. Everybody say witnesses in

Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the

earth. I want you to know having come

from the end of the earth like the word is true.

It went and it's now circling back and now it's all of us.

That's what we get to do as as missionaries.

Now you are missionaries. Maybe they didn't know that

you're missionaries. Now we're declaring you

missionaries that you get to be the whole church preaching the

whole gospel to the whole world like that's our job.

And so when we just got invitation to help be on mission

to the local mission, right, you're going to hear Pastor Jim

and Melinda Scott be here in just a couple of days.

You heard an invitation. Remember how we were talking

about Pastor Ty just asked you and then some of you didn't want

to look at the person next to you about, hey, you're the one

should be there. This is those places I'm staying

saying is he, when pastor asked you just all right, I'm going to

go, God, what do you have for me?

Like when you get an invitation like that, the Lord is inviting

you himself. Like your question should be,

wow, Lord, what do you have for me?

But I also have that when I ask him for something and he doesn't

give it to me. I thought, hey, Lord, wouldn't

it be great if I had this job? I mean, I really thought that

was going to be it. I'd say, hey, could I have this?

And then I get the answer. Hey, thank you, Kia, for, you

know, your service. Yeah, your time is sunsetting.

And I was like, oh, wow, hey, thank you so much.

I really appreciate the time that I have.

I said, hey, what do you have for me?

And I just let it go. Could we have every

disappointment you have? Every single disappointment.

God has it wrapped. Another gift that says he's got

something special for you, something more.

I hear there are those of you here who've been praying for

prodigals. They've been praying for people

who've been walking away for a while.

Hey, I hear the Lord say, can you just give them time to to

develop a testimony? This is their testimony time.

But you continue to pray not for faith, from faith.

It's just a matter of time, He says to you.

It's just a matter of time. They're coming.

Be ready when they're when you see them be running to them.

Embrace them. Hey, welcome them with the robe

and the and the Kalua pig like bring it.

All right, there's more, there's more.

You having the supernatural power and your witness.

Now witness in this passage, there are, there are a couple

ways to say witness. In the Greek, witness is a verb,

but in this one, witness is a noun.

And I'm saying that in purpose, witness is a noun.

You are a witness. And what happens when you are a

witness, naturally you start to witness because you're a

witness. Kind of like what we're just

talking about. Jessica, she's a daughter and

now she's going to live like a daughter because she's a

daughter. And all these things start to

happen because she's a daughter. Are you with me?

But she doesn't have to do the things of being a daughter to

prove she's a daughter. She's already a daughter.

It goes the other way we're talking about.

That's why I'm bringing this up here with witness.

You are a witness. You don't have to witness, but

what witnesses do is they naturally share, they naturally

invite, they naturally ask questions, they actually engage.

They actually are out to to make and build and repair

relationships. We'll go to the next slide.

We say this is your time. Witnesses you and me who are

followers of Jesus, our spirit empowered witnesses I, I, I

don't have my my wallet with me where I don't have a dollar

bill. If I should show you a dollar

bill, I would show you a dollar bill right now and I would say

anybody, anybody ever use a coupon before?

Like if I give you a coupon to to say a 50% off coupon for

Earpods, is that what it's called Airpods, The thing that's

in your ears? Would anybody use those?

Anybody want one of those? All right, so that's a coupon.

There's an expiration date on a coupon, 50% off.

You with me? You know, the dollar, the money

that you have, it's just a coupon.

It's just a coupon. There's an expiration date.

There's a time when it's not going to be worth anything in

the reality of things. Do you hear me?

I'm saying use the coupon. Make a friend, right?

Build up treasures in heaven. Find somebody you can bless.

Come love on somebody. It's just a coupon.

That's your way to build up treasures in heaven.

Can you say, Amanda, that All right, we can is a Ted.

Yeah. Thanks.

Here's what I want us to do to take this home.

First of all, I want to say again, you're a follower of

Jesus. And if you're not, Pastor Ty

will invite this in just a little bit, but followers of

Jesus are Spirit empowered. Witness when you're Spirit

empowered, he gives you all of these crazy, crazy gifts like

the gift of knowledge that that Pastor Ty would know that

something is against me and my family and that he would speak

it. And then he says, hey, would you

just form a prayer team like that came from heaven.

That was not man made right? That's the reality that you and

I are living in right now. You have access to that reality

and I want us to not go back to sleep.

Don't, don't hit the snooze. Stay in the reality of things.

We don't know how much more time we have.

I do this on retreats when I'm doing couples retreats.

Can I just ask husbands and wives, would you do this

sometime later this week, maybe later today, husbands and wives,

but I'm doing this on retreat. I set it up the same way as

like, hey, this is just practice, but can we make it

feel like real game time? Because when real game time

happens, you know what to do. And I just say, if you have a

spouse, can you like put a hand like just touch your spouse for

just a second or they're there, right?

Hey, so would you do this? I have them.

Imagine that they're in the hospital and I said your wife

has just been in. Some particular accident and

this is the last minute that you get with her.

This is the last one. She can hear you.

She can't say anything. Would you take a moment and say

the things that you said want to say?

Say all the things you want to say, Like all of it, all the

whatever it is, right? So I give people time to do

that. I switch it out and I have I

have it go the other way. Wives say, would you speak to

your husband? Like say the things like we

don't know how many breaths we have left, Like take the time

now with all of our loved ones, not just with our spouses.

So that's a challenge I have. Let's go to next steps, please.

Thanks. So I I challenge you, make a new

friend wherever you are. That's the only thing that we

can take to heaven. Like there are no U hauls

following your casket. You guys like you can't take

stuff with you. It's only friends.

Make a new friend, make an existing relationship that you

have better like pour into it, ask them, Hey, could we go

deeper? Could could we, could we for

those of us what making better sounds like is can I confess

something right? They don't know that this is

going on. But hey, I just hey, I confess

that I spoke I'll of you and you didn't know that of me.

And I just want to apologize when we confess, when you're

reconciling relationships, Can I just tell you amazing places for

spirit to move in. You now are a witness, a spirit

empowered witness, making a way for more glory, more of his

Kingdom. Would you repair a broken

relationship? Right.

Some of us have people we haven't talked about or talked

to in many years. And to the degree that you're

able, it might be, hey, would you write a letter?

Would you make a call? And I believe that you can still

make peace even with those who have passed.

You can still apologize. You can still ask for

forgiveness because Jesus himself is the one that says I

forgive. He can cover that.

And you can be free of any regret or guilt or all of that.

Followers of Jesus are Spirit empowered witnesses.

That's you and me. Pass your time.

We want to thank you again for joining us for the Arise Church

podcast. We hope you were encouraged by

what you heard today. You can find

[email protected] and on Instagram at Arise Church NC.

If you need prayer or support or are interested in learning more

about Arise Church, we encourage you to connect with us online or

in person at our Sunday morning service.

Thank you and God bless.