Pentecost - Let The Fire Fall - 05/24/26

Acts 2:1-4

1 When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place.

2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.

3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them.

4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Acts two, one through four. When the day of the Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind. And it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as a fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Church, the word of God is alive, it is active, and it is true about every person in this room. This is the word of the Lord.

SPEAKER_03 0:39

Thank you, Father. Jesus. Okay, let's decree over this service. Father, we thank you today. Just get yourself in a place of being submitted to the Lord. Father, we thank you on Pentecost. That is an important day in the history of Christians.

SPEAKER_04 0:57

God, today, as your spirit was poured out over 2,000 years ago, God. God, today I ask that you would renew and refresh and pour out upon us, God. And Lord, we decree in the mighty name of Jesus Christ that the same Holy Spirit who fell on that upper room is present in this house right now. Every dry place is being flooded. Every cold heart is being ignited. The fire of God is not a relic of history, it is a present reality for every believer who will receive. You did not come to church tonight to watch something happen. You came to be a part of something heaven has already started. The church was not born in a committee meeting. She was not born in a building program. She was not born in a doctrinal debate. She was born in fire. She is still on fire tonight. And I walk with victory not to it in Jesus' name. And everybody said, Amen. Now you can be seated. Hey, uh, where are the uh little gatherers, the kids in this room? You all the kids in this room stand up. Not you, Donnie. All the kids stand up. Where are you? I don't know, like uh six to twelve, thirteen, whatever. Stand up. I want to talk to you for just a moment as we head into this service. You guys look at me. Leo, right here. I'm here. I'm here, in the middle. I'm here, over here. Keep coming this way. Boom! There I am. Yes. Awesome. So get your put your eyes on me. Even if you're behind me, keep your eyes on me for just a moment. I just want to talk to you. I want to tell each of you a truth tonight, as little people. But you're not little in the eyes of God. And God, I just want you to know that as what we talk about today, and you hear us talking about it, I just want to take a moment and speak it over you. That you have the spirit and the fire of God, and it lives on the inside of you. And God doesn't see you as somebody that is too young to understand, he sees you as somebody primed and ripe for the future and destiny. And so today I want to speak to that, that the Spirit of God lives on the inside of you, and this is not a regular Sunday night for you. You are a person of God, and He has chosen you to be in this room right now, in this moment. And so I'm going to decree over you as kids. And I put this on the kids' own page so you can find a decree and learn it for yourself and decree it. But kids, just raise your hands for a moment. I'm going to decree over you. These kids are filled with the Holy Spirit. They carry God's fire wherever they go. And they're not ordinary, they're extraordinary. The same power that raised Jesus lives in each and every one of these children. And I declare today that they are set apart by God and that the Spirit of God has a design and a future for each of them. In Jesus' name, and every one of them walks with Jesus in victory. They're not looking for it. Victory is already on their life. In the name of Jesus, and every adult in this room said, Amen. Alright, kids, now you can go to the table and get your activity sacked and uh do whatever the activities are. Now I'll talk to the rest of you. Amen. Praise God. Make sure you go get your sack. They did a lot to put those together. As you can tell from what Anthony said, we're going to be uh in Acts, really Acts 2, Acts 1, 1 Corinthians, but the basis is coming out of Acts chapter 2. And over the last several weeks, we just finished Ephesians. And uh what a powerful chapter book that we did as we just went down just chapter by chapter and dove in and learned a lot of truths. And hopefully you came out of that knowing uh your identity, uh knowing who Christ says you are. If you haven't heard those, we do have podcasts that you can go back and check out and listen to those. But I think they're power. I think you get a lot of knowledge and historical context, and you can understand that when he was when Paul was writing to the Ephesians what he was writing about. And he wasn't only writing to them, he was writing to you, right? And it applies to your life. But today we're going to talk about Pentecost, because it's Pentecost Sunday. And uh it's very important. And I think that how many of you know, I guess all of you know that you know when it's Christmas time, right? You can drive down the street and you can see Christmas lights up and Christmas trees, and everybody knows it's Christmas time. You know when it's Easter, um, you know, pastel colors and eggs and bunny rabbits and all those things. But man, we don't really know when it's Pentecost. A lot of times we miss it. And I just want to tell you today, Christmas is powerful. Our Savior was born. Easter is powerful. Our Savior was resurrected. But without Pentecost, Christmas nor Easter have the same power. Pentecost is what gives the power. The reason being is because when he was resurrected and he ascended, he released the Spirit, he changed the address of the Holy Spirit and said, From heaven to you. And he put himself on the inside of you. And so today, as we're looking at this and we're going into this, we're going to have three movements that we're going to talk about. That's my new word instead of points, by the way. Three movements. We're going to have three movements that we go into, and what we're going to realize is that Christmas is amazing, Easter is amazing, but I don't know why we don't celebrate Pentecost like we do those two. We should. Because he's changed your life. He's changed who you are, and he's changed his address to put himself on the inside of you. And today we need to position ourselves to walk in that power and understand that power. And so Pentecost gets overlooked, and it's it's a tragedy because Pentecost is actually the linchpin of Christmas and Easter and everything that we do. Pentecost changed the dynamic of everything. And so tonight we're not going to uh just be checking the box on a church calendar. Tonight, we're gonna walk the progression of what Pentecost is. Amen. So God set it, he placed it, and then he moved in. So he said he was gonna do it, and then he placed it, and then he moved in. And that's what we're gonna talk about today. So let me set up the um kind of what was going on in that time as this happened so that you will get a good historical context of what was going on when this came about. And so the Jewish feast of Pentecost, which is the Shabbat, uh, was one of three mandatory pilgrimage festivals in the Jewish calendar. And so this particular, one of, there's three of them. Pentecost was one where every male was supposed to come to Jerusalem. And so they would make a pilgrimage to come to Jerusalem for this feast, for this uh festival. And so everybody's coming to town. And this is why this becomes very important. You'll see this as we go on. But as they make this trek there, God does so many things in timing that you may not understand or have maybe maybe never been taught or heard or read. I was talking to somebody earlier. A lot of times we read the Bible as in an instance that's separated from the rest of the Bible. And the truth is the way the Bible is set up, it is all coexistent. It's all equal, it all works together, it all goes hand in hand. And so God always has a plan and he's always doing something. So when you read something out of context, and this is the only thing that this is about, you miss the idea of what God is doing in the entire thing. And so I'm gonna try to lay that out for you today so that you can actually get what why I would say Pentecost is so important to us. And so here they make this uh pilgrimage uh for Shabbat for Pentecost, and every devout Jewish man was required to be in Jerusalem. Acts 2.5 tells us devout Jews were gathered from every nation. And you remember, you'll remember the story as I go through. But Peter comes out of the upper room, and what does he do? He begins to speak. They think they're drunk. Why? Because there's all these people there from all over the place speaking all kinds of different languages, and they're going, wait a second, they're speaking our language. Right? And so they think, well, they must be drunk, which is a weird thing to think. They speak my language, so they're drunk. Doesn't make any sense, but whatever. But it just shows you that everybody came to one spot, that everybody from all around that was a Jew came to this spot. And so this is this is the setup of what's going on. So God didn't choose like a back alley. He didn't choose like some random spot. He chose the most packed out place to show up. I want you to understand he's got everybody there, and it's not like, oh, we're gonna do a little thing over in the convention center with 300 people or so called the gathering, and nobody else is gonna get it. He's like, I'm gonna be out in front of everybody, and I'm gonna bring everybody in and I'm gonna show them. I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna show them. That's what he was doing in this moment. This is how God is set. So all of this is happening. So this feast and Jesus, so the timing was not accidental. God had been unveiling his redemptive plan through the Jewish feast calendar. Excuse me, I'm choking here. Feast calendar in order. Jesus died on Pentecost. It was a feast of the atoning sacrifice. You remember this when uh on Passover, not Pentecost. You remember in the Old Testament, they had to put blood on the doorpost and they would pass over, right? And so Jesus dies on Passover because he's a sacrifice, it's perfect. Fifty days later, it's Pentecost, it's the Shabbat, it's a festival. And so God lines it up. Fifty days later, he's got something else in there. He's he's just doing all these uh miraculous things. He rose on the feast of first fruits. So when he came out of the grave, they were having another feast, the third one. So you had you had the Passover, he died on that time, he rose up first fruits. Why? Because he's the first fruits of the Father. So he comes out, and then Pentecost comes, 50 days, all of them hitting on the day of the festival and the feast. It's important for us to know that because God is perfect in his will and what he's doing. And so he lines all this up. The very next feast on the calendar after this feast of first fruits was Pentecost. And God had been keeping his own calendar, and Pentecost was always the next appointment. Do you know what the Greek is for Pentecost? The Greek word is Pentecost Day, and it's 50th or 50. So 50 days after Passover is Pentecost. 50 days after Jesus had died or had rose from the dead, Pentecost came. Very significant, very important for us to know these things. And so here he is just fulfilling the law. So there's something that amazing that happens. Remember that this about the very first or the uh Pentecost, the Shabbat. They were celebrating Moses coming from the mountain, coming down with what God had given. That was what it was all about. And so Moses had been into the mountain, the fire of God had come, Moses had gotten what he needed to bring to the people, and he was coming down. And so Pentecost is those 50 days that they're now going to celebrate. We're getting something. Fire fell from heaven. You know what happened? When he came down out of that mountain, they had been celebrating something else. They had made other gods. 3,000 people died. I want you to catch the significance of this. Pentecost with Jesus, 3,000 people were saved. So when they come down out of the mountain, Moses, and he came down with the law. The law says, These are the things that you cannot, that I need you to do, but you'll never be able to do. And they died. When the Spirit came, this is what Jesus said. He said, I'm going to place something on the inside of you, and I will produce through you. Man. Becomes so powerful when you begin to see the picture that's being drawn out here. And there's another layer here the Jewish people in this room would have felt uh before Peter ever opened his mouth. In Acts 2, verse 2, it says that there was a sound that filled the house like a mighty rushing wind. It's important for you to know because that word is not incidental. In the Hebrew, it's called the Ruach. Ruach Adonai, the Spirit of God. In the Greek, it's called the pneuma, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. And so when they heard the wind, they would know, because they know Hebrew, they know Greek, either one, they would know that this wind represents, because wind represents breath, it represents spirit, and they would know immediately, whether they spoke Hebrew or Greek, that's the wind of God. That's something. They're in the upper room, and the wind blew. They knew specifically what was happening in that moment. And so when we get to the place where we understand who God is, we understand the Spirit of God working in us. When the wind blows, something should happen on the inside of us. Something should rise up on the inside of us that says, Whoa, whoa. I know that word. That's the pneuma of God right there. That's the spirit of God. That's the ruach Adonai of God. And so they understood this and they were living in that. And so this wind means spirit. It's always been this wind. It's the same wind that was hovering over the waters in Genesis 1. It's the same wind that was the whirlwind that carried Elijah off. The same wind. And this is what they're feeling in the upper room. It's significant. And before the fire appeared, and before anyone, before the tongues of fire landed on their head, before anyone spoke a word in that upper room. The wind blew. The Spirit made himself known. He spoke without them even knowing he was speaking. Where you sit today, the wind blowing of the Spirit in your life. He's making himself available. He doesn't have to speak for something to happen in your life. He doesn't have to be visible for him to change what's going on in your life. He literally can just blow. And life comes. Breathe. And life is there. And so they're in this place. And when Moses, like I said, when Moses came from Sinai and found Israel worshiping the golden calf, 3,000 people died that day. Pentecost, 3,000 were paid saved. It's the same number. It's the opposite outcome. When the Spirit of God was released, it was released to save us, not to destroy us. It was released to redeem us, not to cut us off, but to actually bring us in. The law said, here is the standard, now keep it. The Spirit says, I will live inside you and do from inside you what you could never do from the outside. That's the entire gospel. That is the entire gospel and what God means for each and every one of us is that He has placed Himself, His address on the inside of you, and all I need you to do is tell people what I've done in you. That's it. That's it. It's no big mystery. So let's find out about these three movements. You ready? Are you are you still with me after that little introduction? So this first movement will be in Joel chapter 2. Joel chapter 2, verses 28 through 29. This is what Joel says. Joel says, and it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days, I will pour out my spirit. You see, Joel wrote this around 830 BC before Jesus. 830, 800 years, eight centuries before Jesus. Joel says, What? Your sons and your daughters. Your male servants and your female servants. They're going to prophesy. There's a whole faction in the world that says prophecy is not for today. I know the word is true yesterday, today, and forever. And when he says that it's going to be in the next thing that comes, he means that prophecy will come from your young men and your young and your young women, from your sons and your daughters. It will come. Because I'm going to pour my spirit out on them. This is eight centuries before Jesus was crucified and resurrected. For 800 years, God's people carried around the stories, grandfathers to grandsons, going, listen, God said, You're going to prophesy. Listen, grandmother said, You're going to prophesy. You're going to prophesy. You will prophesy. God's coming. It won't just be prophets, just the ones that are anointed. His spirit's going to come upon you. You will prophesy. 800 years before he was released. Before the spirit was moved into the earth. Are you catching it? One day, they said, God said, one day, he will pour out his spirit, not just on the priests, not just on the prophets, on all flesh, on everybody. And Pentecost was that day. It was that moment. It was it. 800 years. And then Acts 2, 14 to 16, Peter stands before this massive international crown and he raises his voice. He's out there before them. This is, I want to point out, I've told you this before. This is the guy that said, No, three times. I don't know that guy. Uh-uh. I don't know him. That's that guy. So I'm going to get you off the hook here. You've been there at some point in your life where you said, No, I don't know that guy. I don't know Jesus. This is Peter, who walked with him. He said, I don't know him. He walks out after the upper room experience, after the Ruach Adonai, after the pneuma of God was released, after the wind blew. He walks right outside and he begins to speak. And what does he do first? He quotes Joel. He quotes Joel that I just read to you. And he says, Your sons and your daughters. Your sons and your daughters will prophesy. Your male servants and your female servants. They will. This is what he does. And everybody's looking, they're like, oh my goodness. And he says, This, he said, that that was uttered from Joel, this that you're seeing, these drunk people that you think you see, this is that. It's happening right now. Joel's prophecy is released in the earth, and the Spirit of God is moving on his people. We're not drunk with wine. It's nine o'clock in the morning. We're released in the spirit today. Something has changed. My Savior went into the heavens. He rose and he took his rightful place, sitting by the Father at the right hand. And he's never making intercession for me. And he said, when he goes, he would send me a comforter. And this is that. That's Pentecost. And he lays it out. And he says, What they have been waiting for, and standing in the middle of it's standing right here. What they've been waiting for for 800 years, all of a sudden it's here. It's here. This is the moment. This rushing wind and tongues of fire. 120 believers speaking the mighty works of God in languages they have never learned. And they're speaking it. The wait was over. The promise had arrived. Now notice the word God used in Joel. He didn't say give. He didn't say sprinkle. He didn't say distribute. He said pour. He'll pour out. When a dam breaks, it really breaks. People downstream of that don't have to ask if that was a significant event or not. Because when the water is released from behind a dam, it goes where it wants to go and does what it wants to do. We are 2,000 years later, and that dam has never been rebuilt. The river of God is still flowing. And it's doing what it wants to do. Where you sit today is are you positioned in a way that you say, River of God, Spirit of God, Wind of God, have your way. Do in me what you want to do. And this is where we're at. This is what's happened. This is this day, 2,000 years ago. It's Pentecost Sunday. And I Joel 2, 28 through 29, that pour, that word in the Hebrew is Shapak. Shapak means to pour out. Acts 2 in the Greek, it's ekcheo. It means to pour out. And it means to pour out. Hear me. It means to pour out, not easy, not dripping. It means to dump. It means to pour out. And so when it Joel is prophesying, and he says, I'm going to pour out. He doesn't mean he's going to come over and like. He means he's just going to go and he's going to dump it on you. Pour it out on you. Release it over you. Change your life. The image is of a vessel tipped completely upside down until it's empty. Every last drop, nothing held back, all of it. God did not give the Holy Spirit like a pharmacist measuring out a dose. He poured out the whole thing. He wasn't just trying to get you a perfect amount. He said the perfect amount is all of it. Go to pour it out over you. He poured. And the pour hasn't stopped. He's still pouring. There's one more layer that we need to see in this movement to why God chose the particular feast. And it is the one of the most that people miss entirely. What I'm about to tell you. This Pentecost feast. In Leviticus chapter 23, 16 to 17. He gave a specific, there was given a specific instruction for the Pentecost offering. It said, two loaves of wheat bread. Two loaves of wheat bread baked with leaven. With yeast. Everything else is supposed to take the yeast out. You're supposed to remove why is that? The leaven is our sin. So in every other festival and every other feast, you put the yeast in, you put the leaven in. I mean, you keep it out. I'm sorry, you keep it out, the leaven and the yeast, because he wants somebody holy, sinless. And so the whole feast was about having something that was sinless. But Pentecost, he was going to do something different. He already had a plan. And he said, in Pentecost, I want you to put the yeast in it. I want you to make it where, now picture this. All these people come from all over to Jerusalem. They all have yeast. They all have leaven. They've all come from all over. And what God is saying, I want you to bring everybody. I want you to bring anybody. I want you to bring the nasty of the nasty, the ugly of the ugly. I want you to bring whoever's got the most whatever that's in their life. I want you to bring them to them because what I'm doing today, I'm going to make a difference in their life and I'll redeem them, even if they have it in them. This is what he's saying. This is the picture. This is why else would he put leaven in there? Why else would he put yeast in there? Why else would he pull that together? It's the only one. Think about what that means. In almost every other sacred context of scripture, leaven is excluded. It's a biblical symbol for sin. On Passover, God told Israel to move every trace of leaven from their home. They could not have any leaven in their home for Passover. They want why? He wanted no sin in their lives when he passed over. So remove it all. That's what Passover was. But what is Jesus? Jesus is the picture of a sinless life. It's all been removed. The sacrifice was made on Passover. No sin. Are you catching it? This is what's happening. And so there's that feast. He removed all sin in the Pan or in the Passover. All sin was removed. But at Pentecost, he said, I'm gonna now pour myself in. I've already paid the price for all of the I've given the perfect sacrifice, and now everything that has that leaven in it, I paid the price. I'm coming to get it. I'm coming to redeem it. I'm coming to pull it out. Why? Why would he do that? Why would he say, bake it in, put the leaven in, put it all in, offer it, put it in my temple. I don't care. Pour the leaven in. You're the temple. Just pour it in. I don't care. Why would he do that? It's not so that you would keep on sinning, so that he would show you that he redeemed you from your sin. That it's okay that you were a sinner. I want to pull you out of that. I've already made the sacrifice. Why did he do that? Because he was not coming for the ceremony of perfect people, he was coming for the harvest. Pentecost is about the harvest. Pentecost, when they say the harvest was ripe, that it was ready, Pentecost was that day that the harvest was ready and it's still ready today. We're all looking for when is it harvest time? It's been harvest time for 2,000 plus years. Jesus' spirit has been poured out, and our job is to share the spirit. God was announcing in advance that when the spirit fell, he would receive the leavened ones, the sinners, the ones the religious system had been telling for years, they did not qualify. There's people that have walked in this room tonight that have heard those words from somebody, some leader, some church, some place, some place that you've been involved in, that they looked at you and said, You don't meet the standard, you're not qualified. We've already got guys. I'm here to tell you today, this room is not the church, you're the church, and you're not qualified except for he qualifies you. And you're qualified through him and his spirit to leave this space and tell somebody that I had leaven in my life, but God redeemed me anyway. Jesus says the fields are white for harvest. Pentecost proved it, and the harvest God has or that God was gathering was not a collection of the already cleaned up. It was of leaven, broken, marked by sin and failure and everything that should have disqualified us. And God said, Bring them to me. I want them. Nobody in this room is asking you what you did yesterday, last year, 10 years, 20 years ago. What we're asking you right now is, do you know him? And if you do, then you've got a purpose and a place and a destiny. You're called. You are the church. And here's what the scope of Joel's prophecy means alongside that. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy even on the male and the female servants. Religious access in the first century, I told you this in Ephesians. Religious access in the first century was only for the priest. And what we have learned is that he tore the veil. He brought the wall down. He said, I will let you in to the Holy of Holies. To the place that you couldn't get to before, I want you to come. While some of us think we need to go to a priest, I'm telling you, you don't have to go to a priest. I'm telling you, because of the Spirit of God, you can go to the king yourself. He can run right up to the throne room of God and say, I'm here. I'm in your presence. I worship you. I need you. I need to be redeemed. I need to be delivered. I need to be released. God said, He said, Listen, you know, even in that time, you know, we hear it here is so much in our world, in our culture, even in that time you had to have your gender right to be a priest. You had to be a male, you had to go into these places. God said, Listen, I'm not I'm not focused on any of that. What I'm focused on is the Spirit of God is on the inside of you. If the Spirit of God is on the inside of you, you have access to me. That includes the person in the back row tonight who walked in wondering if they're even welcome. You're welcome here. That includes the one who has been carrying shame so long they've forgotten what clean feels like. I want to tell you today, you can leave here clean. You did what you did, but you can leave here clean. That includes the new believer who does not know three chapters of the Bible yet. The fire does not check on your credentials. The Spirit of God does not check on your credentials. He works through you, changes who you are. Think about this. They're sitting in the upper room, 120 people. They're having to wait, which is the hardest thing for all of y'all. I'm a good waiter, y'all aren't. Just kidding. But they're having to wait. They don't know what to do. Matter of fact, I feel like Peter, you know, Peter makes kind of a mistake because I think they jumped the gun and they wanted to replace the um apostle, the the guy that had died. I can't remember his name right now. You know that guy? Yeah. They wanted to replace him, and so he said, hey, let's draw straws. But God said, just wait. He didn't say go in there and draw straws. He said, wait. Because Matthias was the one that was chosen. He got the straw, right? He was the one that, but you never hear another word about the guy. He doesn't do anything else. So I think Peter jumped the gun. We're not good at waiting. We're not. But they're all sitting in there, and here's Peter. Peter's sitting in there. This is the denier of Christ, and the fire still fell on him. Here's the denier of Christ, and the fire still fell on him. Still dropped right on top of him. You see, the fire is not looking for your credentials, it's looking for your heart to be open so he can just land on you and go, it's open to receive me. I will land on you. I will land in you. 800 years before, God prophesied, This is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna pour out. I'm gonna pour out on all flesh. He said it would come, and it would come for all. And when it came, it came exactly the way that he said it would. Every last drop. That's the Spirit. For every leaven, broken, unqualified person who said yes, he poured out on them. The question is not whether God is still pouring, the question is whether you're positioned to receive the pouring. That's what we're talking about tonight. Let's move on to the second movement. Acts 1.8 says this. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will by be my witness in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. This is Jesus speaking. This is Jesus speaking 40 days after the resurrection, just before he ascends into heaven. He just looks at his disciples and he tells them, This is what you're gonna do. You're gonna go to the ends of the earth. You're gonna be my witnesses. What do the disciples do? Exactly what you would do. Okay? They start asking the question, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom? I mean, is this what you're gonna do? You're gonna give Israel the kingdom back? They're so focused on strategy and timing. This is exactly what is happening to gatherings everywhere. Everybody's worried about strategy and trying to figure out the time and not just focusing on the Spirit of God is here and he's moving and he's just gonna lead us right to where we need to go. No, we gotta have. I mean, we need to do this type of group, we need to have that type of program, we need to have this type of thing, we need to lay hands this way, we need to speak that way, tongues need to go over here, worship needs to happen like this. We need to get up on the stage, we need to promote this guy. We maybe we should put a big chair for five or six of them, and they could all sit up on the on the stage together. These are the things that we need to do, we just strategy because it's working over there, and we'll do all these things. That's not what he's asking us to do. What he's asking us to do is allow the pouring to come over us and be children of God and led by the Spirit. So they're thinking strategy all the time, logistics. And Jesus says, You're thinking about the wrong thing. Stop asking about the schedule. Start thinking about the source. Stop asking about, hey, are we gonna get out by 6 30? Is he gonna go to 645? It's a little long for me. But maybe you'll get something. Maybe something will happen. Where's God at? What's he doing? I want the source. If God's not in this, then we'll go, we'll go do wherever God's at. My wife and I are on that ship. The ship that we're on is God. If this is not of you, shut the doors, we'll go wherever you want to go. This is not about this, it's about him. It's not a plan, a method, it's not a manual for changing the world. It's a person. It's a person that's been placed on the inside of you. The spirit has been placed on the inside of you, and that's what it's about.

unknown 34:43

Amen.

SPEAKER_04 34:46

With power that you've never operated in before. I believe it's the hour for it to happen. We have to position ourselves, we have to lay it down. All of our tradition. I love that song. I speak the name of Jesus because we're talking about from mountains in the cities where the shadows will be lit up, all the things. Don't you see? That's what we need. We need to be able to be on top to see everything. We need to be able to be in this place, and if there's any dark places, let light come into it so it can all be exposed so we can be in the truth of who God is. I speak the name. That Greek word for power I've given you many times, is dunamis. It means power, ability, might. But dunamis is not the explosion. The explosion is the release. Dunamis is only the power, it's only what's in there. Dunamis is what's in. The explosion is what comes next. It's when the dunamis is released. It's like uh it's like this. Uh, you got a battery pack uh backup at your home, or you got a generator, a gas generator that's backed up at your home. So when the power goes out, it turns on, right? Now, generator is outside your house or in your garage, and you don't ever think about it until you need it. So you walk by all the time and you don't think about it, nothing happens, nothing, it never fires up, nothing ever happens. And then one day when the power goes out and it shoots on, you're thankful that it's there. What I'm telling you as a person of God, as a believer in God, the power rests on the inside of you. And there have been things in your life that you didn't know that you needed, and something turned on in the moment that you needed it, and it accomplished what you needed. And now I can explain to you that it's the battery packup, it's a backup, it's the dunamous power of God that is resting on the inside of you that lights up when you need it. Here's the thing we need it now in this society and culture. We need it to come on. It's we're at that place where the power in the gatherings has been turned off, and we need it to come on. We need sick people to get healed, we need people that are addicted to get delivered, we need people that are lost to be found, we need blind to be able to see, we need the weak to be strong, we need those that are uh limp to be able to walk straight and get up off their bed and walk out of that place with the power of God evident in their life. And the only way for it to happen is for it to be evident in our life. You see, he's describing to us a permanent resident, a capacity that's on the inside of us that's available. Not just when you feel like it, it's available all the time. Not just when you think everything's right and I'm gonna get it. Even when things aren't right, it's still available. He's still moving. You see, you're walking through your week with this dunamis on the inside of you. You're at the grocery store, dunamis. You're at the office, dunamis. You're at school, dunamis. You're at homeschool, dunamis. You're in you're in the gathering right now, dunamis. You're at home with Casey, Dunamis.

SPEAKER_05 38:15

It's there. It's in you. Live with it. Got it. You have to release it. We have to believe it.

SPEAKER_04 38:27

We have to live it. Talking to me. Take you out of the room. I'm talking to me. I'm talking to Stephanie. That's what we need. It's what the world needs.

SPEAKER_05 38:41

Sitting there now. Dunamis. It's there. It's right there.

SPEAKER_04 38:52

Some of you some of you, the reason you're still standing after everything you've been through is not because you were strong enough. It's because of dunamis. Because of what's on the inside of you. Because the battery backup backup came on. We're here now.

SPEAKER_03 39:22

Someone tried to shut off the power. And this person, Jesus ascending, has a name.

SPEAKER_04 39:39

Jesus calls him by his name in the Greek. He's the parakletos. He's the one called alongside. Jesus, when he calls him, he says, he says parakletos, which is uh kletos, which is alongside. I mean para, which is alongside, and kletos, which is called. So perikletos, called alongside. In the Roman legal system, when you get in trouble, they give you a parakletos. The parakletos comes alongside you and knows the law, stands beside you, presents your case, defends you, speaks for you. Jesus calls the Holy Spirit the parakletos. He has a name. He's a person. It's not an it, it's not a force, he's a person. And he's come alongside you. And when you're in the court of every day, when you're in the place of every accusation that comes your way, he's arguing your case. He's standing in for you. The parakletos. He comes alongside. He lives with us. He knows the law better than the accuser. You see, the accuser comes with accusation, but he doesn't know the law. Because if he knew the law, he would know his accusations wouldn't work on the child of God. But he doesn't, so he tries the accuse. Where the child of God gets lost is when he forgets to lean into the parakletos and allow him to argue his case for him. The Holy Spirit is not a force, like I said. I need you to hear this. You're not alone in this room. You're not fighting your marriage alone. You're not navigating the diagnosis that you got from the doctor alone. You're not carrying your grief alone. You're not standing in that workplace alone. The parakletos comes alongside you. He's walking with you. He's carrying you. I like this better. He's carrying you. The one that's called alongside is there. He's beside you. He's not tired of being there. Matter of fact, he doesn't get tired. He's not gonna miss what you're going through, and he's not gonna forget to show up. He's there. He never leaves, and he never forsakes. Romans 8 makes it definitive. He says, if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, in the Greek, that's a conditional truth. It assumes a conditional truth in the Greek. Let me just rephrase it so you understand. What it really is saying, the way it could read, since the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you. Dwells in you. Not maybe, not might, dwells in you. It does. He does. The parakletos. The parakletos is not on his way. He's already arrived. Pentecost. This is not some self-improvement. It's not a behavior modification. It's not trying hard. It's not doing better. It's not white knuckling your way into more Christian life. It's actually trusting that the Spirit of God lives on the inside of you. And he's going to make all things good. That he's going to work through you. That he's going to revive you from hurts. That he's going to restore you from things that were stolen. Things that they came and did to you that you shouldn't have done. He's going to restore you. That's how much he loves you. He's going to be with you. And see, the Spirit works from the inside out. He doesn't fix everything on the outside first. He goes on the inside, begins to work on your heart, begins to change things. He renews. The way you think. He empowers you to do what you could never do in your own strength. Love people you cannot stand. I know that you're Christians and you love everybody and you can stand everybody, but he helps you to love the people you cannot stand, to forgive what feels unforgivable, to walk in peace when the world around you is on fire. That is God taking up residence and doing what only He can do, changing the atmosphere. Alright, let's get to the third movement. 1 Corinthians 3.16. Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? This is the question that carries the weight of everything we've built tonight. Do you not know that you're the temple and the Spirit of God lives on the inside of you? Paul's writing to a church in Corinthians that he founded. He's talking to the people that he started the church. And these people who have heard the gospel. These people were baptized. They're sitting in services. They're calling themselves Christians. And he has to ask them, do you not know? He has to ask them that question. Do you not know? And it tells me something. It tells me something critical. Sometimes we stray. Sometimes we forget. Sometimes we have to be reminded. Tonight the service was all planned to remind you. The Spirit of God has been released in the earth. And he makes habitation in you. He changes his address. He's not doing things from there, he's doing things from here. This is the other part of that question. People can be in the church. They can be saved by grace. They can be genuinely born again. And still not grasp what happened to them at Pentecost. In the wilderness, let's trace this back just a little bit so you can get this. In the wilderness, the glory of God, the Shekinah, the Shekinah glory of God, the light of heaven. It was there. It filled the tabernacle with Moses. Y'all remember this? I talked about this a few weeks back. The tabernacle was built by Moses, and the Shekinah glory came in. And nobody else could go in. But there was still a veil. In 1 Kings chapter 8, the greatest building that was ever built for God was built. And the presence of God came into that temple. And every priest couldn't do their job. They just fell over. They couldn't go to work that day. They just fell over because the presence of God was there. But yet there was still a veil. Jesus tore the veil. Me and my people. When my people come to me, they come all the way. So there's no more separation. Why? Because when he tore the veil, he didn't say, okay, there's a room back there and the veil's like there's that curtain back there. You can see it. He didn't say, Oh, I opened it, y'all come into this room. He said, No, I'm coming out of that room and I'm going into that room. I'm moving in. Let me say that again. There's a curtain back here. You guys go ahead and look at this curtain, just so you can see. There's a curtain. We ripped that curtain open. He didn't say, hey, come into this room. He said, I'm coming out of that room and I'm coming to live in this house. I'm coming into this place. You don't have to go there. I'm coming to you. I'm going to be in you. That's Pentecost. He took a residence. Matthew 27 tells us that the veil was torn too. God tore it himself. So what happened 50 days later? After he resurrected. Pentecost. Pentecost changed the address. God stopped living in buildings. He moved into people. The Greek word there is pipleme. It's to fill completely, not partially, not topped off. It's actually if you took uh some sort like this water bottle right here, and then you filled up another tub of water and you dropped it in there without the cap on, and it filled up water, but it was totally consumed in water. And so this piplime that God did is what it what he's actually doing is he's not just filling up a vessel, he's actually filling up everything around the vessel. So God's Spirit comes not just to fill you, he comes to fill all the way around. That's the Greek word. That's the impression that he wants you to understand. I'm not just coming to put a drop, I'm coming to douse you, to cover you, to be around you. It's why you can you can uh declare the word and say he's my foregard, he's my rear guard, he covers me, he surrounds about me, his favor is all around me. Why is it all around me? It lives on the inside and it's coming out of me. I said this in my decree. I'm gonna say it again. I have to get better words here. I'm gonna try to define this to you uh in the best way I can. I have for several weeks talked about, and I told my wife the other day after I taught class, it's gonna take a minute, but after I taught class, I'd mentioned the church in general. You know, we have this thing that we say, we say the Western church, it's it's lost its way. It probably has. But more so than that, what hit me when I got home, the conviction I got is I gotta quit talking about the church. I have to figure out something else. So I came up with some great word, little thing that I'm gonna share with you. The industrial religion complex. And here's why I I don't want to talk about the church. And when I talk about the western church, I'm disparaging his people. But the business has to stop. So the industrial religion complex is a problem. It has to stop. And so when I talk about that and I bring it up, I I thought, man, I can't say it like that. So I came up with this great, that great word thing, and maybe y'all will come up with something better, but his church didn't begin in a building. It didn't begin with all these programs and all these things. It began with somebody walking out and declaring that this is that. He said his spirit would pour out on your sons and your daughters, and they will prophesy on your maidservants and men's uh male servants, on your old men and your young. He will. This is what's gonna happen. This is that's what we're talking about. That's Pentecost, and that's significant. And when you're when you're celebrating Christmas in December or Easter next April, remember Pentagon. Because it's the linchpin to both of those and the power that's been released. So here's what you need to land on and not move past. No building in this town. There's a hundred of them that meet on Sundays. Those buildings are not the church, the people in them are, and we love them, and we want them to share Jesus, and we want them to encounter Jesus in a real and tangible way. And here, we are his church. We are, and we have a job to do, and that's to take Pentecost outside of this place, and let people know he's done it, and he's done it for you and I. The gathering is you, the person to your left, the person to your right, every person in this room has been called out and filled up and sent out. Sent out where? Cleburne, Grandview, Johnson County, Hill County, Hood County, every county around this place. We've been called out and sent out to those places. Wherever you walk this week, in your neighborhood, in your workplace, in your school, in the gas station, 7 o'clock in the morning, in the house where the fire lives on the inside of you. That's where church is. Church is where you go. It's where you spend time. And this is what Pentecost produced. Pentecost produced not a better religion. That's not what Pentecost was about. Not an improved moral framework. It produced a people where God made them his address. And in that, he placed power. And he placed calling. So this is what you know when she comes. She's gonna play for us. And I'm gonna I'm gonna give you a couple instructions as she gets ready. This is what you know, you're not ordinary. None of you are ordinary. You may have thought that, you may think you're simple, you're not simple, you're not ordinary. God made his address in you. That's just not cheap words. That's truth. You're extraordinary. You've got something of worth. I don't care how old you are, I don't care how young you are, I don't care how outspoken you are, not outspoken you are, none of that stuff. Charismatic. I don't, none of that matters. What matters is you've got it on the inside of you. And the whole point of all of this is to let it go, let it come out, let it be released. Be the church. She's gonna sing a song in just a moment, which fits in well with this. But I'm gonna give you a couple things here. I don't want you to leave here without responding to God. I think he's talking to some of you in a very heartily way. He's really encouraging you and really speaking to you. Some of you are feeling like bro, good preaching, but you don't know me. I got too much baggage, too many things.

SPEAKER_03 55:34

I don't know. I'm just gonna throw out a couple things. My wife and I aren't even talking. We don't even get along.

SPEAKER_04 55:42

Um the whole time you were talking, I was thinking about something else. You know, all these things. Just all substances. I got a substance that's bothering me, and I can't I can't get over it. I gotta, I gotta this and I gotta that. Man, we know all those things. I don't want to major on those things. What I want to major on is freedom is in his presence. And he has taken up address in the inside of you, and it's time for you to go, turn the light on. I need the power, the power of God. You're in here, you're sick, you're hurting. I don't want you to leave here without hands laid on you, somebody singing over you, praying over you, walking with you, whatever it takes. I want to do all those things. So in a moment, I'm gonna have you stand to your feet. And if that's you and anything, whatever you need. You never met Jesus, you you need prayer, you're sick, you need healing, you just need a touch from heaven. We got a whole square here of a lot of room. Just want you to fill it up. Maybe you don't particularly know it need not one particular thing. You're just like, man, I just want more of God. Be bold. What's it gonna hurt you to walk down here and go, you know what? I'm just being bold for Jesus. I care less what the guy beside me thinks about it. We're not taking numbers, we're not writing your name down, we're not doing any of those things. That's not yet.

SPEAKER_05 57:05

Sometimes, sometimes it's good to just get up and say, you know what?

SPEAKER_04 57:16

I'm gonna l I I just want to choose God today. And I want, I don't really care if you know, but if you're around me, I want you to know I'm making a statement that I'm gonna walk out and I'm gonna walk into the things of God today, and I'm choosing that. Because sometimes we sit there and we think, I want to do it, I want to, but that's not my that's not my tradition, that's not what I'm used to, that's not my thing. Uh you know, it's kind of like raising your hands and worship, like I don't know. I mean, I see them doing it, it looks like it's something I want to do, but sometimes, sometimes it's just about a step. Sometimes it's about being just different in that moment. Saying, God, I'm opening up to you. So that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna open it up to you. If you're one of the ones that don't come, remember what we do. We don't have a prayer team, we're all the prayer team. So we pray for her. She's gonna sing a song that she wrote. It's an amazing song. She wants to explain she can, or she can just sing it. It's all up to you. You guys stand to your feet, let's worship together. And uh, these altars are open.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:51

You and me, comment, every stage, in my life, in you, you and me, Francis, thank you, thank you, thank you, Father, Father.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:21

We thank you this evening, God, God, that song dwell. Me and you, you and me dwell. Lord, I pray over these that have come forward, all of these that are here. Lord, I pray to today, this evening.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:43

God, not just an encounter, an habitation.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:53

God, a relationship growth right now in Jesus' name. Lord, a mandate of identity and understanding. Lord, I thank you. And all these things around us, what are they without you? So Lord, I pray for each of these in their homes, in their workplaces. Lord, I pray that the testimony of your goodness would go forth. Lord, that we would not just be disciples, but that we would begin to understand that we must make disciples, make more disciples.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:32

Father, I pray that those that are lonely, you would hold them, those that are hurting, you would heal them. Those that are needing, you would provide. Lord, let your glory so shine in each of these.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:54

Father, we thank you for your provision. We thank you for your understanding and your wisdom.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:03

You deserve to be glorified. Thank you, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen.