Jesus, Cornelius and Me

Well, good morning.

Man, that is awesome to watch, isn't it?

Big thank you to everybody who actually stayed after that day to celebrate with those people and everyone that went all in with Jesus a few weeks ago.

Uh man, it it's it's awesome that we get to share those moments as a family.

We're we're so happy with you.

And if you did get baptized or someone in your family got baptized a few weeks ago, we'll have DVDs of that available for you at no charge at the source starting next week.

Um so you can pick those up there and give them to the people that got baptized.

That'll be just be a great way to have that memory.

I've got a few quick announcements this morning before Ken Kington comes out to share.

He's with us this week, which is always fun.

It's a good time.

So Sunday, June 29th.

That's gonna be a really big Sunday, a Sunday that we're really looking forward to.

On June 29th, uh, we're gonna have a man speaking here.

His name's William Paul Young, and he wrote a book called The Shack back in 2007.

It was a really big book.

It was number one on the New York Times bestseller list for 70 straight weeks.

And it's uh it's a fictional story, but it's just something that illustrates God's love for people and his desire to heal people and to give everyone uh that everyone is grace.

It's an amazing book.

If you haven't read it, we've got some copies at the source, but uh we're really excited to have him share with us because he very much gets God's love in an amazing way.

He's gonna be here also that weekend as part of a conference that we're hosting.

It's a three-day conference, it's called the Beyond and Angry God Conference, and it's gonna be Friday, June 27th, Saturday, June 28th, and then right after we're done, it'll be here for a few hours on the 29th as well.

You can grab tickets to that by registering online.

All the registration is online.

There's some flyers at the Connect Desk that'll tell you how to do that, or you can use our mobile app or our website.

There's a link uh on our event page of the app as well as on our website that'll take you right to the registration.

It's$50 for adults and$25 for students, but for a three-day conference, that is that is amazing.

We're gonna have worship.

Our worship team is gonna be here along with someone they're bringing in, and it's just gonna be three days of God's love and some incredible worship together.

Very exciting.

Uh, something we could use some help for if you're willing to help out.

We've got so many amazing teams at this church.

So many of you help out on Sundays, you make everything possible, and we really appreciate it.

We've got two teams right now that could use a little help.

It's our Usher team.

Those are the people that help us get seated on Sunday mornings.

They're always so friendly and so wonderful.

And also our coffee team.

We run on two things at this church: the Holy Spirit and caffeine.

That is what we run on, right?

And it's funny, I'm not a coffee person.

I don't drink coffee, I drink my weight and diet soda, which is better for you, I think.

And so uh so several years ago, I I was asking someone, I was like, Well, do we really need to do free coffee?

And I had like five people look at me like they wanted to kill me as soon as I said those words.

And it was actually pretty amazing.

The person described it to me.

They said, No, no, you're not seeing it the right way.

Every single one of those free cups of coffee, it's like a little cup of love.

Someone comes in, and the first thing that they have is something waiting for them that says, Hey, we we're prepared that you're here, we love you, we just want you to feel loved as soon as you walk through.

And so if you could sign up to help out with either of those teams, the ushers or the coffee team, or any of our teams really, you can do that at the Connect Desk in the main lobby this morning.

There'll be people there to help you out with that.

Uh, one final thing, uh, we have a road trip coming up for our high school students on June 9th through June 12th.

Yeah.

It's uh man, it's always an experience.

And right now we have about 10 open spots.

If you have a student, a high school student that wants to go, uh, and that includes rising ninth graders, or if you know someone that has a student that could really benefit from it, uh, we're gonna be taking 85 high school students with us this summer.

Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Think about that for a second, okay?

At 3 a.m., it's great.

But God moves.

We've had over 110 students get baptized over the last few years on this trip.

Uh it's an amazing experience, and we want as many students to go as possible.

So if you have a student that would like to go, we have never turned anyone down for financial reasons and we never will, but we just want to let you know that we have some open spots if you want to if you want to get someone signed up.

Only other thing I'll say this morning is a big thank you to everyone helping out financially.

God's using it to do incredible things.

I think things like that video and seeing that there are people going all in with Jesus, and and it's funny because we do baptisms two Sundays a year.

And every time we do it, there's 60-something people to get baptized, so over 120 people every single year, and that's just gonna grow over time.

We've had close to a thousand people get baptized here since we started back in 2007.

That's amazing.

That's amazing.

And and really we're we're just we're just getting started.

I was thinking about it a few weeks ago, and that if we just did baptisms every single Sunday, aside from having a huge water bill, what we would have, because that's a big that's a big tank, um, that would be over two people every single Sunday getting baptized.

And so it's not that two Sundays out of the year something amazing is happening here.

It's every single Sunday people are connecting with Jesus, people are getting saved, people are entering into a relationship with the God that created them every single Sunday.

And those of you that are helping out on teams, you're helping us financially, you're making that happen.

You're allowing God to do that, and I know he's gonna bless you for it.

We've got four columns at the back of the room that you can do that through.

That's it.

Let's pray and welcome Ken.

Oh, Daddy, we love you so much.

You are our God, and we love you.

And you are worthy of us giving every bit of our lives to you.

Because we know that whatever we give you, Jesus, you give us so much more back, so much more than we really we really even bargain for.

You are so real, you are so full of love.

You give us purpose, you give us hope.

You surround us with incredible friends to live life with.

And this morning we just want you to speak to us.

So, Holy Spirit, we pray that you would speak through every word that Ken shares, speak it right to our hearts, so that we leave this morning more in love with you than when we came in.

And we ask all this in your name, Jesus.

Amen.

Let's welcome Ken.

Yeah.

Wow.

It is so cool to be back with you guys.

I gotta I gotta open with just a little bit of a confession.

How many of you were here two Friday nights ago, May 9th?

Wow, thank you.

I I gotta just I gotta share with you just really quickly, for those of you who weren't, um I had I had wanted to and needed to film a new comedy project for for a few years, and uh and I just thought, you know what, I I don't want to do another one unless it's around people that I love and love me.

And I can tell you, after 25 years of performing all over the country, I was in uh New Jersey last night doing a show.

I flew back in this morning just because I love being with you guys, and uh and I can tell you this in 25 years, that was the best audience ever.

And uh it's because of you.

Yes, that's you.

Um and it was one of the greatest experiences for me because it literally, I was so tied to just depending on God leading up to it for several months, just very intimately trying to listen to God through his word, through prayer, through feelings of going, God, there's there's just some there's some uh anxiousness in my heart and praying, God, why is this anxious?

And is this is this a red flag?

Is this a window, a closed door?

What is this about?

And and God really just confirmed in my heart, Ken, this is an opportunity for perseverance, this is gonna be great, and uh you just need to persevere.

And that day I opened with that, just that uh I was in an ambulance headed to children's hospital, my daughter had broken her arm, and uh I said, Well, of course it was today.

Why would it not be today?

And uh we had some a couple major technical glitches beforehand that nobody saw because it just worked out, but I was like, wow, of course that's gonna happen.

But God, I'm not I'm not gonna focus on that.

I really want to experience you in the midst of this.

And as uh we talked about this series on Acts, uh Justin said, hey, you can just do kind of a standalone or whatever, but you can be a part of the series.

I'm like, dude, I love being part of a series.

And this particular part is one of the coolest chapters in all of Scripture because it literally unlocks the door of eternity, of God the Creator, to God the Son, to God the Spirit, to it's open to everybody.

And it is just one of the coolest places.

We're gonna look at three guys that are mentioned in Acts chapter 10.

Acts 10 · chapter mention

It's three different people.

And I guarantee you're gonna be able to go, that's me, with at least one of them, maybe all three of them.

And I love this particular passage because it just gets so real, it removes the religion out of the way completely.

And I hope that you and I can really identify with the fact that God wants us to get rid of that.

And one of the tragedies of following Christ is that we can kind of slide into a church, a gathering of believers, and we can almost become ritualistic about it.

And I love what my brother shared about taking communion with it.

We don't do this because it's a ritual, we do it because it's that relationship.

And I literally, I as I stood in the back with my little wafer of uh unleavened bread and my cup of juice, I thought, Jesus, you did this.

You did this a couple thousand years ago with your with your follower.

You you literally did this.

And I want to do it right now with you.

This is kind of cool.

And and I love that we do that every week.

But with that in mind, I want us to look at a couple people in Acts chapter 10.

Acts 10 · chapter mention

And the first one, I'm gonna describe it, and then I want to put one of the key verses up here.

Um at Caesarea, there was a man named Cornelius.

That's the first one, and this is his background.

He was a centurion, a soldier, and that was known as the Italian regiment.

And all I want us to get from that is this guy is not a pastor, he's a soldier.

He's not Jewish, he's Italian.

And just imagine that that background.

But yet, here is his story.

He had heard about or something stirred his heart, and he just went, This God is real.

God is real.

So look at verse 2, and this is the part I want us to be able to focus on.

He and all his family were devout and God-fearing.

He gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly.

He wasn't religious, he didn't know how to be religious.

At that time, even though he was a Italian, there was no Catholic church, so he couldn't be Catholic.

He was he was nothing to do with anything religious, but in his heart he just said, God, you're real.

And I'm gonna follow you.

Devote and devoutly.

Instead of being devoted, not just knowing about God, God fearing, not self-reliant, which he could have been as a soldier, gave generously to those in need.

That's not normal.

We live in a society much like human society for the rest of the time of history.

We are get-oriented, and he lived to give, not just give, but give generously, and prayed regularly.

And there would be those who in the church at that time would go, Oh, you can't pray, you're not Jewish.

Well, you can't pray at home because you got to go to the temple.

You can't do this, you can't.

They would have all the rules, and he was just like, okay, whatever, I'm gonna pray anyway.

And God heard him, and God heard him, and I love this guy's heart.

So God wants the first of us to go, well, uh, if you're here this morning, especially if you're here and you're just like, but I'm I I I do I do believe there's a God, but I'm not religious.

That's what Jesus did it for.

He's like, that you're the one.

You're the ones I did it for because you're the ones I'm looking for.

See, because Jesus was all about being very genuine and real.

And whether we say it the right words or not, God hears every genuine prayer, no matter where we are on the journey of faith.

He hears every genuine prayer.

Every time we turn and have a thought or a conscious word and say, God, I want, I want to know you.

Or what why did you do this?

If we genuinely ask, he hears that prayer.

Now, yes, he wants us to have a relationship with him.

That's the purpose of it.

God is not afraid of any questions so that we can know him.

But he makes it very, very simple for us.

I want to reference if you ever want to see Jesus funny.

I've shared this one other time, Matthew 7.

Go back and see Jesus with his disciples.

I love this.

He gets them around, he's around the fire, and he goes, Okay, we've been, you know, preaching and ministering.

Okay, pop quiz.

Okay, everybody get a get out of pencil, we're gonna have pop quiz.

And Jesus asked these guys, he's like, if your son comes up to you and asks you for a loaf of bread, do you give him a loaf of bread or a rock?

And you can hear him just kind of going, is he kidding?

I mean, just with the loaf of bread?

The loaf of bread, very good.

Now I know Jesus is being funny in Matthew 7 because he doesn't stop there.

He goes, Okay, if your son comes and asks you for a fish, do you give him a fish or a poisonous snake?

Which one, which go ahead.

And you can hear some of the religious ones in the back going, you know, if you cook snake right, it kind of tastes like chicken.

You can hear them, you can hear them back there.

And one of them goes, would it be the fish?

The fish, very good.

And I love his comparison in the amplified verse.

He says, if you being wicked compared to a holy God, know how to give what's good, how much more does God long to give you everything good?

And what he's saying here to Cornelius is, man, you you're get you get it.

You're seeking me genuinely.

Not from your position, not from your heritage.

You just want to know me.

And if you and I were to just take this and go, well, how do I know God?

Well, there it is right there.

Be devout, God fearing, generously giving, and pray regularly.

There it is.

It's not the have-to's, it's the how-to's of getting to know God personally and getting through this process.

Now, the unlock part, so that's who he was, but then here's what happens.

We're not gonna put it on the screens, but I want to read to you real quickly what happened and draw some very, very simple conclusions about what we should do in the same situation.

It says, one day, at about three in the afternoon, I'll refer to that in a minute, uh, he had a vision.

Cornelius had a vision, and distinctly saw an angel of God who came to him and said, Cornelius.

So, in case he didn't have his attention before he called his name, and Cornelius stared at him in fear, and he said, What is it, Lord?

And the angel answered, Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God.

Now send men to Joppa to bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter.

He is staying at Simon the Tanner's, whose house is by the sea.

And when the angel who had spoken to him had gone, Cornelius called two of his servants and a devote soldier who was one of his attendants, and he told them everything that just happened and sent them to Joppa.

Now, one quick aside, um, for those of you, maybe, maybe you're one who does follow Christ, maybe you just got baptized, you're like, I'm all about God, and and I'm devout, and I I love that.

Quick, quick uh lesson of the obvious sort.

If God ever shows up to you as an angel and calls your name and tells you to do something, do it.

Okay?

That's just a good rule of thumb.

If if if God is that obvious to us.

Now I laugh at that too, and as I looked at this and went, well, God, you know, have you ever showed up to me, you know, in the in the flesh and you call my name, you said, go there.

And he did.

He said immediately he got his servants.

He said, Okay, you're going to, I'm gonna do this is what God said, so you guys go do this.

I want to do it exactly like he said.

And here's the cool part.

If we truly want to experience God in reality, what he's opened up through his Holy Spirit, anytime we sense God laying something on our hearts, showing us something through his truth, this is God's word, breathed in perfect.

Anytime I read this and say, Oh, wow, that's that's a that's a good truth, that's a good principle, that's a good truth there.

Do it immediately, whatever it is.

And I love that he shares that with Cornelius, and that's the first person saying, Hey, when God shows me truth, do it.

Period.

Because what I'm gonna do is even if I don't understand it, now he's he's asked to go find a guy he's never met, to bring him back, and I'm sure there's some questions in that.

And when you and I read the truth, there's gonna be some questions of, like, well, uh, how how's this gonna work out?

What exactly do you want me to learn?

Well, it's the process, that's the peace God wants to teach us through his Holy Spirit.

But the fact he did it was someone who was not Jewish, who was not historically in the line, unlocks the door and saying, Okay, that's the first person, the first key.

So then I love what goes on next because the second person we're gonna see is Peter.

Now, Peter, Peter was with Jesus.

And if you know any of the story of Peter, you'll know that Peter was one of the twelve.

And I love Peter.

Out of all the twelve, he's probably my favorite because he was the biggest screw up out of all of them.

This dude screwed up constantly, and yet Jesus said, I'm gonna build my rock on you, I'm gonna build my church on you, and I'm gonna call you the rock.

And I at first glance, all the religious people go, Oh, he he no, he's not the one, he's not qualified.

He's a fisherman, so he smells bad, and then on top of that, he screws up.

He doesn't even ask the right questions, and yet Jesus says, This is it.

So here's my second.

If you're here today, and maybe you had some past where you're like, Yeah, you know what, when I was a kid or in the past, I I didn't give my life to Christ, or maybe maybe you're one of those that were like, you know what, but I kind of fell away and I knew it wasn't right, but I did that.

Guess what?

You you're one of the ones Jesus says, I know.

I you you're the ones I want.

You're the ones I and and I'm drawing you to me because I want to unlock my power, and I'm gonna do it through you.

You're the ones.

And Peter, if you know the story, Peter's beside him, and and Jesus is about to go to the cross, he's in the garden, and he's like, you know, you're gonna deny me.

And Peter's like, I'll never deny you.

And how many times did he deny him?

Three times.

The last time he cussed out a little girl.

I won't use the language translation.

He cusses out a little girl and flipping, flopping, know him, man, leave me alone.

And then the cock crows and he's like, and he's totally dejected.

And I love that God kind of works in threes with Peter.

I don't know if it was something spiritual or just Peter was hard-headed and he just didn't get it the first two times.

But that's what happens in this vision with Peter.

With Peter in verses 11 through 16 of chapter 10 in Acts, this is what we saw.

Peter saw heaven open and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners.

It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles of the earth and birds of the air.

Then the voice told him, Get up, Peter, kill and eat.

And I love the way Peter responded.

Now you remember how you remember how Cornelius responded?

Okay, angel said this, I gotta go do this.

This is what Peter says to God, surely not.

I've never eaten anything impure or unclean, which was the law.

And he says, the voice spoke to him a second time.

Don't call anything impure that God has made.

This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken up.

So Peter, being a little bit hard-headed, he's like, Okay, I get this is important.

It happened three times, but what am I gonna do now?

And then it goes on in 17 through 19, where it's like, okay, here's the here's the purpose.

While Peter was wondering about the meaning of the vision, the men sent from Cornelius found out where Simon's house was and stopped at the gate.

They called out, asking, Is Simon who's known as Peter staying here?

And then it's okay, Peter's what is this about?

And then he hears his name, and these these three guys.

While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the spirit said to him, Simon, three men are looking for you.

So get up and go downstairs.

Don't hesitate to go with them, for I have sent them.

I love that God knows who we are.

I love Peter because of this.

I love him because I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

I love it because I don't have to fear not getting it.

I love it because God loves interaction with us.

He loves it when we go, God, I don't understand.

Okay, I know.

I'll walk with you through this.

I love that.

And I know this because God's favorite name is daddy.

I know this because I am a dad.

I know this because this past couple weeks, my daughter is 10.

She's fast becoming a young lady.

She's a girl.

She can talk.

Wow.

We're driving home from school the other day, and I heard about every kid in her entire school and what they were doing and what they were feeling, what they were feeling about the other ones felt.

And we were on the playground, this kid did something wrong.

He fell, and he said this, and he did this, and the teacher said this.

And she literally she took a deep breath with this big smile on her face.

She goes, Daddy, did you know I love to talk?

And I said, Yes, I just noticed that.

I said, Do you know what?

I love to hear you talk.

I love to hear you talk about everything.

I love to hear you talk about nothing.

I just love that you're talking to me.

Talk.

Talk some more.

And she just laughs.

She goes, oh, daddy.

And then she starts on another tirade.

And I'm like, that's awesome.

And I'm not superhuman.

God is supernatural.

And he's like, that's what I want.

I want you to bring me your confusion.

I want you to bring me your joy, your fears, your anxieties.

Bring them to me and tell me all about them because I care for you.

Bring me your screw-ups.

One, I am not surprised.

Two, I am not condemning.

I will take you from this point forward and show you everything good.

And I will even take that which was not good and work it for your good if you'll just trust me and come to me.

I love that God does that and he walks through that.

So Peter's just like, okay, I think I'm getting this.

So the three guys are there.

Now here's a cool part to this.

And when I say the go immediately part, there's two pieces here.

One, it said about noon they showed up at Peter's, and the other part it said at three o'clock he had this vision.

And I literally, I'm like, why did it why why the times?

Why the times?

Well, I got real spiritual and I looked at the maps in the back of the Bible, and I saw where the two cities were, and they're about 40 to 50 miles apart, if the maps are correct.

40 to 50 miles.

Now I just started doing the wow.

And they didn't have like trains and cars and that.

They walked.

So they left immediately, basically at sundown, or when they couldn't walk anymore, they stopped as soon as the sun got up.

That's the only way they could have covered that ground.

Can you imagine walking today?

If I said, Hey, God told me we all need to go to Macon and walk.

And okay, and we're walking to Macon.

It's like, well, really?

And we had to cover that ground.

We show up at lunch tomorrow and making.

It's like, man, that's a lot of ground.

In other, there was a there was an obedience, an immediate obedience, and a, I don't know, a sense of urgency of this is God telling us to do this.

We're gonna do this immediately, and we're gonna do it urgently with all our heart.

And I love that about that, that interaction with God.

But the final piece of it, the final person I want us to look at, hopefully we can relate to one of those two guys.

But he goes on and they come together in chapter 10 and verses 27 and 28.

Talking with them, Peter went inside and found, they said, Go back to they go back to this town, and he's walking into where Cornelius has brought all these people together.

There was a large gathering of people, and he said to them, You are well aware that it is against the law for a Jew to associate with Gentiles or visit them.

But God has shown me that I should not call any man unpure or unclean.

And in that one statement, God unlocks, He unlocks his full creation to us.

I'm not Jewish, I'm not one of the original Israelites, I'm not there.

But I can look at the Old Testament now and every promise, I can look at every word and go, that's for me.

Because he unlocks it through this one step.

Now you can read on further and you can see where the brethren say, whoa, whoa, what do you what are you doing going in the house?

That's illegal.

You can't do that.

And he said, Well, let me tell you what God showed me.

And there was a sheet and three times, and I tried to argue with him, but he said that it's not unclean, and they were like, Whoa, okay, deal.

This is what God is about.

So the third person in this is really found in verse 43.

And don't miss this one because it's the coolest of them all.

All the prophets, all the prophets, so every part of the Old Testament testify about him, Jesus, that everyone, everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sin through his name.

Everyone.

There's Cornelius, there's Peter, and there's you.

You and me.

We're everyone.

If I choose to believe in Christ, if I choose and say, okay, Jesus, I'm all in.

I get it.

Cornelius was all in.

He didn't know the religious words, he didn't know the synagogue.

He didn't know all of that.

All he knew was, God is for real.

I fear him.

I'm devoted to him.

The evidence is I'm gonna do what he lays on my heart.

And he gave generously.

And he prayed regularly and he connected and interacted with God himself.

And once we choose to do that, we realize that God is in the middle of it.

It's me.

Now I don't know if you're at that step or not.

I love there's a verse in chapter 11, verse 18.

When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, So then God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life.

He told the Peter tells the story, and they're like, they're in.

They're in.

Now, unless you are Gentile, unless you're a Jew, then you're a Gentile.

That means all of us.

All of us have this access and this opportunity.

And I love what he goes on to see, there's this evidence.

And that's kind of where I wanted to end up this morning was just the idea of the evidence of am I a Christian, am I not?

Well, there's a simple question.

Do I did I accept Christ?

Have I got him in my life, or do I just look it?

And I'll give you one example that I God kind of hit me with a couple weeks ago.

Um, Christmas.

I love Christmas.

How many parents are here?

Raise your hands real quick if you're a parent.

Okay.

Do you remember the Christmas where you got the toy for your child and they were old enough to realize this was the toy they wanted?

Do you remember that one?

That Christmas, where they really did, this is the toy I want.

I don't know what age, it's a little bit different for everybody, but I remember that Christmas vividly, vividly remember that Christmas.

And I was so proud because I knew my kids were gonna get up and like, I hope I get this one toy, this one, that's all I want.

It's all I want.

And sure enough, when they open it, they forget about every other toy, and that's all they want.

But you got other toys, you gotta open these gifts.

No, I just want to play with this one.

I remember sitting back going, success.

This is what Christmas is about.

Then I remember the terror about 20 minutes later when my son goes, It's broken.

Oh, what do you mean it's broken?

What do you mean it's broken?

And I look at it, I'm sure I'm looking at this toy going, it can't be broken, it looks fine, it looks great, it looks like it just came out of the box, it looks fine, and he goes, Yeah, but it doesn't work.

And it was in that terrifying moment I realized I did not buy batteries.

Oh my goodness! I'm running through the house pulling them out of remote controls, out of the smoke detector.

I'm just wherever I can find a battery.

Because that toy, as cool as it is, if it doesn't have a battery, it is a failure.

And it is heart-wrenching, and I'm just like, no! And we survived that one.

I'll tell you this: I never forgot batteries again.

I have a storehouse of batteries in my house, and that is life.

You and I will go through life, and we are this amazing, incredible creation.

But without Christ, we will never have life.

We'll never have perspective, we'll never have the purpose that we were meant to have.

It's only when we say, okay, God, put the battery, put life in me, because I want your fullness.

I want to know what I was meant to be.

I want to know what you want to accomplish.

I know you have a plan and you want me to be a part of it.

So, Father, give me your power.

Give me what you meant for me to be.

That is that joy.

That is the evidence.

And I can tell you, those who have faith, we can hang around and we know from the evidence of life, really just watching.

You know, this is a person of faith.

And we saw it in Cornelius, even though he didn't know the right words and didn't join first, second, third Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, he wasn't a member, but he knew Christ.

And that's what it's all about.

And he goes on, and I want to just hit one other piece in verse 40.

He goes down the circumcision, circumcised believed who had come with Peter and were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, for they had heard them speaking in tongues and praising God.

Now, I want to just hit this one side real quickly.

Don't get flipped out about tongues, speaking in tongues.

I want to tell you how to discover exactly what God means by tongues.

One, if you and I sit down, this is with any question we have, open our Bible, and we say, God, show me every part that you talk about tongues.

And we go to the concordance, we look up every passage that, and then we read that entire passage, and we say, God, show me what you meant by that.

He will.

God Himself will individually show us.

You don't need me to tell you, you don't need Justin, you don't need Stephen, you don't need anybody.

God wants to show us what he means by that.

And here's the cool part there are different parts of different times where it meant different pieces.

Now, in this particular passage, if we read it in context, at least one of the clarities is these were people that were not Jewish.

They were the Italian regiment, they were not from that lineage.

There's a very good reality that it was a different language.

Now I can tell you this.

Well, how did they know it was the Holy Spirit?

Well, I can I can give you this example.

I was in the airport, I'm at the airport a lot, but I was at the airport, and I'm walking through one day, I came out, and I'm getting a drink of water, and there was a man there.

He was from uh India.

I'm pretty sure it was either India or Pakistan.

I don't know that language.

But he and his wife were having a conversation.

Well, I say they were, they weren't.

She really was having the conversation.

And I don't know one word, but this poor guy, he was just, this is about his posture.

Oh.

And she was just like, and I'm gonna butcher it, but just for the sake of clarity, she was like, just going after him.

I have no clue what word she was saying, but I know exactly what she was saying.

And that is a very probable sense in several instances in scripture where it says this I have been, I have been in countries where I do not speak the language, and I've sat in a worship service, and I don't know one word they're saying, but I see the worship of the same God.

And I go, wow, it's a different tongue, but I can sense the Spirit is right here right now.

And I just bask in that.

And I can sing in English, and they would look and go, wow, he's worshiping with us, and I have no idea what he's saying, but I know exactly what he's saying.

That is the evidence of those of us who know Christ, we spend time and we can really tell that is it.

And there's the inside.

There's also a personal, and I'm gonna just jump off a little bit, chase a little bit of a rabbit, because as we get to know God, there's gonna be those times where we're reading his truth, and God speaks to our heart through the truth in a way and in an application or in a way and a feeling and a sense or a priority that makes perfect sense to us, but it's hard to explain to others.

I know this is what I need to do.

I just I can't put it into words.

And that is that inside piece of a relationship and talking with and from God, of going, I know I know this is from God.

Most of the time the clarity for that comes to me in retrospect.

As I look like, Lord, I was anxious and I brought it to you.

Now I see what you were teaching me, but it's hard for me to explain.

If I can put it in child terms as well, my son, my oldest son, when he started talking and he started learning letters and words, he would count like this.

He could not say eight.

I don't know why.

Graham, count to ten.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, bopy, nine, ten.

Okay, do that again, and he would count it.

Six, seven, bopy, nine, ten.

Okay, what number is after seven?

Bopi.

Say eight.

Bopy.

No, say, say eight.

Bopi.

It was just this, and it was the most endearing piece to us.

Now, anytime he would say Bopi, everybody else would be like, What is he talking about?

Well, he's talking about number eight.

You know, it's the number eight.

How is that?

I don't know.

I just know that's what he's talking about.

And that's the same connection that God will and does have with several of us in certain areas of life where it doesn't make sense to anybody else except for me and God.

And that's how intimate and personal God longs to be with us.

And there will be pieces that we have with one another because of where we worship, where we serve, where we connect, in our groups that we see God move, and it just makes sense that wow, we're right here with it.

And this is what God's doing.

This morning, I really want us to just have a time to worship in that.

Just take a couple.

Normally we we sing a song at the end and we pray and we go.

I want us to just bask for a moment.

And just ask God, God, can I just have a moment with you?

And as they come up and sing, I'm gonna have you stand in a second and we're gonna pray.

But as they come up and sing, I want us to just have a couple songs to just bask in, God, here's where I've screwed up.

Or Lord, here's where I felt like I don't fit in.

Or maybe it's that third piece of just going, God, I I'm so thankful that today, maybe you're like I was several years ago, where I didn't realize I always thought this the Old Testament was just for the Jewish people, just for Israel and all that.

And God unlocked it and said, No, no, no.

It's for you.

And now it's become fresh and new, and the God who created is my creator, the Jesus who died is my Jesus, the Spirit of God that lives in me longs to speak to me in wherever I am right now.

So go ahead and stand up with me for a moment.

I want to pray and just ask God to speak to us individually during these next couple songs.

Father, as only you can through your Holy Spirit, I ask that you would speak to our hearts.

It may be rejoicing in your presence, it may be just casting our cares upon you.

But I thank you that Cornelius was not historically in.

And yet all he did was turn to you.

I thank you that Peter screwed up and he was hard-headed.

And Lord, I if there's any part of my life I'm hard-headed about right now, I pray that you would show me.

But most of all, you said everyone, and I'm one of those.

So, Father, if I simply turn to you and ask you to come in, you're there.

So, Lord, speak to us during these next few minutes as we worship you.

And it is only through the gift of Jesus and the power of your spirit we can pray.

Amen.

And if you're here, thank you.