Holy Spirit Power, pt 2

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

If you would, you can turn with me to Acts chapter 19. We're gonna be hanging out in Acts chapter 19, kind of starting with verse 11 and moving through the rest of the chapter. We've been talking a lot about, in this series we've been talking a lot about Paul's missionary journeys. I think it is helpful to understand that these missionary journeys have gotten messier over time. Right? And it's okay if you can't piece all of this together, this is not, there's gonna be no quiz later, but there were three missionary journeys, Paul took all in succession, and that really is the sermon series that we've been in. We've looked at all three of those. And so today we're actually gonna look at the end of his third one. What I want you to notice is that with each successive missionary journey, it gets messier over time. That in other words, it doesn't get more organized,

it doesn't get cleaner, right? It gets way messier, way less predictable, okay? So the first one's kind of clean, the second one, he actually, Paul actually tries to go into Asia Minor, which is modern day Turkey, but the Holy Spirit's like, no, no, don't go there. It's like, okay, that didn't happen in the first one, and so now in the second one, and the third one, Paul is under constant threat. He is doing some crazy stuff. And in fact, we're gonna be seeing a lot of it today. We're gonna be talking about handkerchiefs, we're gonna be talking about book burnings, we're gonna be talking about exorcism, it's gonna be amazing, okay? It's all here in Acts 19, I mean, I don't have to make that up. What I want though, what I want to kind of just take a second, pull the lens back, I want you to see that nobody looks at Paul's missionary journeys. We should not look at them and go,

man, what a great missionary Paul was. No, man, I mean, Paul was faithful, right? Paul like went out, but like, we just see, there is no epicenter here, there's no master control, like there's the church in Jerusalem doing their thing, there's the church in Antioch doing their thing, there's other churches kind of happening, there's new churches in Thessalonica doing crazy stuff, so it's all good, but there is no master control, there is no like headquarters, there's no epicenter, this is the Holy Spirit, right, pushing the gospel out further and further into people's lives, working in people's lives without anybody's permission, and what you see in Paul in his missionary journeys, and we're gonna continue to kind of see that, we see kind of this decentralized power of the gospel movement that is going out, that it's not one person in a room with a bunch of toggles and switches

like directing everything, okay, this is the Holy Spirit, doing whatever the Holy Spirit wants to do in the lives of people, and on some level, okay, that might just sound like some existential thing to you, but I want you to understand, like, that should inform how you understand Christianity, that should inform how you follow the Lord Jesus Christ. When we follow the Lord Jesus, we have the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is gonna tell us to do things, okay, and I mean it when I say, like, if the Holy Spirit's telling you to do something, don't let me tell you something contrary, okay, I'm not the Holy Spirit, okay, I'm just a pastor, that's all, I'm just a pastor among many other pastors, I am fallible, I can misunderstand things, I can misinterpret things, I can do all of that, but the Holy Spirit's never wrong, and so look, just understand, as we continue to read this,

just take heart in the fact that the Holy Spirit is in control, not just of what's going on with Paul, because this looks crazy, but in control of what's going on in your life, right, where things probably sometimes don't make sense to you, okay, things happen to you and you're like, I'm having the worst week ever, or that's really weird, nothing that I was counting on really came through, or I didn't expect to lose my job and move, I didn't expect to have this medical procedure, I didn't expect to have this crisis at work, I didn't expect to have this thing happen with my kid, but you know what, the Holy Spirit's not gasping, right, the Holy Spirit's not wondering, like, oh man, I did not see that coming, I don't know what to do now, no man, the Holy Spirit's like in control of that, waiting for us to engage.

That doesn't have much to do with what we're gonna be talking about today, to be perfectly honest with you, but it is something that, man, when we read in Acts, it should give us great comfort, it should give us great comfort. Last week and this week, excuse me, we've been talking about Holy Spirit power, Holy Spirit power, last week we kinda looked at some different things about power, we looked at Apollos, we looked at the Ephesian disciples, and how these people were, they were Christian, but they were kinda partially powered, and if you wanna know more about that, you can listen, you can get on our Spotify, you can get on our website, and listen to that sermon from last week.

This week, we're gonna be talking about the Holy Spirit power, Holy Spirit power, going out without restraint, like just full blast, full speed, okay, and we see it right whenever we get into the text, okay, I told you there would be handkerchiefs, so here we go, Acts 19, 11 through 12, and God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them. Let's take a second, let's take a second on that. Handkerchiefs and aprons that touch Paul are then being transported, right, like the Ark of the Covenant, to these other people who are sick and have demons, and it's working, okay.

I'm just reading two verses of scripture right here, okay, this actually is happening. This is similar to what we see in Acts chapter five, whenever it says that Peter would walk along the street and his shadow would fall on somebody, and whenever his shadow fell on somebody, they would get healed, right, evil spirits would come out of them, same deal. All of this obviously points back to Jesus' ministry, where he's just, you know, he's healing people left and right, okay.

What we need to understand in this moment right here, we're gonna get to all this, but like Paul's miracle status at this point is at the apex, okay. Paul is going viral, okay, because this isn't just happening kind of in isolation. This is so popular that even in the area that he's in, even non-disciples begin to imitate him. Look at the next couple of verses, Acts 13, oh sorry, Acts 19, 13, excuse me. It says, then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists, let's take a moment for that, itinerant Jewish exorcists, that means that these guys were professional exorcists, they would go and cast demons out of people, they were Jewish, and they did it kind of on a route, kind of like a mailman, okay. They're like, you got any exorcisms today? Okay, they're gonna move on, okay. These are itinerant Jewish exorcists. I'm not making it up. Okay, it says, then some itinerant Jewish exorcists

undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits saying, and look at this quote, I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims. Paul is so famous, Paul is so famous at this point that his name is equivocated with Jesus. He is in the same breath as Jesus when people are casting demons out. Okay, I want you to see this. This is like going viral, right. This is like, I mean, it's more than a TikTok trend, but it's similar in that people are hearing about this going on, they're like, I think I could do that. And then they're doing it, but they're doing it all weird, right, it's kind of taking different forms. It's kind of mutating, if you will. It says, I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims. And this is, again, we need to remember, we didn't read the verse, but in verse 10, which we just skipped, this is not just a passing fad,

this is two years in the making, okay. In other words, this wasn't just like some great week that Paul had, this is happening and happening and happening and happening and happening, so much so that there is a reputation, so much so that there is a branch of itinerant Jewish exorcists that are using Paul's name with Jesus to exercise demons. Okay, I really want to usher you into the cross-section of the crazy that is the middle of Acts 19, okay. I hope you're there with me, we are in a weird spot. Then we get an even weirder story, and this is kind of where we need to focus in on. Look at the next two verses, Acts 19, 14, and 15, it says, seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Siva were doing this, they were casting out demons, I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims, okay, 15. But the evil spirit answered them, Jesus I know and Paul I recognize, but who are you?

Which is a really funny thing for a demon to say, okay. Let's acknowledge the humor there, that's strange and weird but funny. So look, I know Jesus, I've heard Paul, but you, I don't know who you are, I don't know who. And I think it's funny, it's funny that we get a demon to discern the difference between real and fake Holy Spirit power, real and fake Jesus power. It takes a demon for us to see it, but it's what the demon says. Look at what happens next in verse 16. It says, and the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them and overpowered them so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. These are the seven sons of Siva, okay. These are seven grown men who are itinerant Jewish exorcists who deal with demons all the time and they're trying to say by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims, leave this man and the demon says I don't recognize you

and then the demon through the man proceeds to beat all seven guys at once, strip them of their clothes and kick them out the house. May God bless the reading of his word. This is right here, this is all in one in one short little span. Here's what I want you to kind of see even from this, and this is kind of what the demon is telling us or at least what scripture is showing us through a demon saying something, is that Jesus' name is powerful but it is not a rabbit's foot, right. Jesus' name is powerful but it's not a rabbit's foot and so when we sing songs like we did, first two songs we say we're talking about speaking Jesus over darkness, speaking Jesus into anxiety and fear, speaking Jesus into addiction, right. I hope that you understand that when we talk about speaking the name of Jesus, we mean a little bit more than just saying Jesus, Jesus, that's not what we're talking about, it's not that.

It's not like rubbing a rabbit's foot and this is where movies get it wrong all the time, all the time because in the movies, right, especially if it's religious, there's this special chance or there's this ritual or there's this amulet or there's this ancient rune or there's some kind of object that houses the power, right, that focuses the power, whatever that thing is and they try to boil it down to some kind of like,

if you're trying to exorcise a demon, all you have to do is you have to take the actual crucifix and you have to show it to them and you have to say the power of Christ compels you. Okay, all right, I'm actually quoting a movie at that point, okay, don't watch that movie, don't watch The Exorcist, don't just take it from me, you've heard the best part right there, okay. But what it does is it kind of shows the powerlessness of how religion is portrayed in media because it's people going around using an ambulance or a chant or a ritual or something and that's supposed to somehow work against the demon, like a magic spell or something, okay. That's not the name of Jesus. In fact, we can see that because that's what the seven sons of Siva, all the other itinerant Jewish exorcists tried to use. They tried to use Jesus' name like a rabbit's foot, like a little chant.

Okay, there's a difference between invoking a name and actual Holy Spirit power and the relationship is the key, the relationship is the key. It's a relationship with the person of the Holy Spirit. In other words, Holy Spirit power is not a power tool that goes on your belt, okay, does that make sense? It's a relationship with the person and sometimes if we aren't careful, we think about it that way. We think about just like we're just gonna slap Jesus' name on something and that'll just cure things but that's not how it works, that's not how it works. Otherwise, this demon wouldn't have beat up these seven sons of Siva. And I realize that you've slept since but remember last week we talked about this, there's one ditch of Holy Spirit power and the ditch that we talked about last week was ignoring it or kind of pretending like Holy Spirit power wasn't something that we could depend on

or wasn't something that we could engage in. But here's the other ditch this morning. The other ditch is pretending like the Holy Spirit is a lucky charm, right, like it's a horseshoe. And there is a teaching, there is a teaching and it's very prominent, it's very fun, it makes a lot of clips on TikTok and social media. And the teaching just says something like, just say his name and it's all over. Just say Jesus and it's done, poof.

You're magically cured of your depression, just speak Jesus over it. He's already won the battle. I speak Jesus and it's done. Here's the problem, is that Jesus is an actual person. Jesus is not a fire extinguisher, that you only break glass in case of emergency, only whenever you're really in a real pinch, you break the glass, you're like, I'm gonna speak Jesus over this.

Jesus is an actual person. Holy Spirit power, it belongs to somebody, that's not you, right, it belongs to the Holy Spirit. And if you've ever been in a relationship with a person, I assume most of you have. Usually with people, when you attempt to control people, it doesn't work very well. Maybe we work for a little while, but if you're gonna have a relationship with a person, you're not controlling them, you're not just telling them to go do whatever you want them to do and they just go do it and run back to you. That's not how relationships work, right? In fact, a relationship with a person actually is contingent on that person having goals and desires that are different than yours, actually, right? They might not do what you ask them to do. They might have another plan that you don't have, right? Like that's actually how relationships work. We're not even talking about a relationship

with Jesus at this point, just a relationship with a person. And so in a relationship with a person, it could get a little dicey because that other person is going to do and say things that maybe you're not okay with, or maybe you didn't have a plan for. And when you call on Jesus's name, when you engage in Holy Spirit power, you need to be prepared for a relationship with a person who doesn't always follow your expectations, okay?

Doesn't always do what you think he will do and I want you to hold that thought. We're gonna come back to that thought. We're gonna look at one more story about power, okay? Look with me in Acts 19-19. This is really cool, it said, and a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all and they counted the value of them and found it came to 50,000 pieces of silver. Okay, so these are converted magicians. These are people that used to be magicians. They now follow Christ. They're leaving their practices behind. So much so that they were burning all of their books. Now that might not sound like a big deal to you or you might associate that with like book burning or something, don't do that. Let's not miss the significance. There's two things that kind of make us miss that. Number one, we have no idea how much money

50,000 pieces of silver are. It's roughly on the low end, it's over $6 million. Okay, so if you saw the headline, local magicians burned $6 million worth of books, you're like, that's a lot of books. Okay, even like some nice expensive ones, they're still books and it takes a lot of them to equal six plus million. That's on the low end. It could be upwards in the billions. Right, but on the low end, $6 million worth. That's a lot of books. And second, this book burning that they are doing, this would be the equivalent of, for you baseball fans, this would be like Cooperstown burning baseballs. This would be like Vegas shutting down its casinos.

This would be like Wall Street deleting credit histories. Okay, this is not a small thing that is going on. This is their livelihood, this is their heritage, this is their social status, this is their job security, this is everything rolled into one. And these magicians burning these books, man, ex-magicians burning these books, it is a miraculous display of the Holy Spirit at work in their lives. And this is how you know that the Holy Spirit is working in your life or in the life of somebody around you, okay? It's when you begin to openly deal with things on a heart level, sin issues that you have. When you begin to ask for prayer for things that normally people hide, right? I remember talking with a friend of mine, he had just started following the Lord, and we were talking one morning, he was like, hey, I need you to pray for me.

I looked at porn last night, and I don't wanna do that. I used to do that all the time and kinda didn't care, but now I did it again, I don't wanna do it now. And I'm like, okay, that's good. I was real proud of him because sometimes, whenever new Christians do something that they used to do, they're ashamed of it and they don't say it. But the Holy Spirit was working this kid's life, and he was open about something that normally he's not gonna be open about. And you find, the thing that happens whenever you begin to follow Jesus is you find freedom, actual real freedom in Jesus Christ, and you want more. And so when you want more, you know that happens through confession and repentance. And so you're just confessing. You're not really worried about how that looks. You're not worried about who's wondering about you. You're not worried about anything like that.

You're just being open and kind of confessing that. That's a good thing. The converted magicians were not burning books out of protest. They weren't burning books because they didn't like their content. They weren't burning, they were burning their books because it was a declaration of their freedom. They weren't chained to those evil spirits anymore. They were unafraid of the consequences.

I mean, you think about it, if you're a magician and you know other magicians, and you're like, I'm not gonna become a magician anymore, like if you still believe that their power works, then you should be afraid of those magicians, right? They're gonna put a curse on you. They're gonna put a spell on you. They're gonna do something to you that's not okay. They're like, no, don't burn these books. Something bad's gonna happen to you, whatever, right? But all these magicians are just getting together and they're like, we're free. We're free. We don't need to be afraid of evil spirits. We don't need to be afraid of what any curse is gonna do to us. We don't need to be afraid of any of that. In fact, all these books, all this stuff that I spent money on, all this stuff that I spent years studying, just throw it in the fire. I want you to consider your group of friends,

your coworkers, your family. If the people in those circles got free, what are they letting go of? If the people in those circles, in your friends, your family, your coworkers, people that are tied with you, what are they letting go of? What's going in the fire? Is it golf clubs? Is it the stickers that go in the back of your car, like my kid is a merit scholar? Is it those? What's going in the fire? Maybe they begin to open up about their marriage. Maybe they begin to admit that they need some help. Maybe they talk about a secret addiction that they have. Whatever it is, there's something significant that they're going to be letting go of.

There's something that is holding them back, big something that's holding them back from freedom in Jesus Christ. What are they going to be letting go of? I'm not asking you to consider all the sins of your family and friends and neighbors. But what I do want to say, the only thing that is stopping that from happening, the only thing that is blocking the people in your circles from escaping sin slavery that slowly destroys everything you love, the only thing that's stopping that is them seeing and understanding and believing the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is them experiencing the Holy Spirit power themselves. Because these magicians, they experienced Holy Spirit power and they knew it instantly. We gotta burn the books. We gotta declare our freedom. What about you? You have some books you need to burn? Books. You wanna be free? You need Holy Spirit power to do it.

If you are in a position right now and you're like, that's me, I need freedom, I'm in bondage, I don't know how to get out, I'm frustrated, I've tried a couple different things, I don't know, I'm trying to find my way through this thing, that's you. Let me help you. The only one that can get you out of that is Jesus. The only power that can deliver you is Holy Spirit power. And the only way through that, the only way through that is with a relationship with a person. And many times when people wanna be free, and you will hear this in people's testimonies, I swear to you, I've heard it more often than I have not heard it, particularly in Burleson, but really everywhere, many people, when they realize they wanna get free, when they have that moment, they're like, I don't wanna keep living like this, I wanna do something different with my life. They try religion like a rabbit's foot.

They try playing like Bible roulette. What's that verse say? They try that. And it's like, I'm not trying to make fun. I'm just trying to say, here's the mentality, where people try religion like a rabbit's foot so they go to a worship service a few times. Maybe even you read your Bible, maybe you pray. Maybe even get baptized. And in those moments, in those moments, the Holy Spirit is wanting to work in your life. The Holy Spirit's calling out to you. The Holy Spirit's saying to you, hey, look, I want you to follow Jesus. I want you to give up what you're holding onto. I want you to put the books in the fire, and you're like, I don't know about putting the books in the fire. I don't know if I'm gonna do that. I think I wanna keep on. Think I wanna hold onto that. I'll keep trying religion over here like a rabbit's foot, but when it comes to heart change, I'm over here.

I'm not doing that. You're holding onto religion because you think it will save you. Or you're trying religion because you think, maybe this will work this time. But the reality is that Jesus Christ, the risen Savior of the world, has defeated sin and death on your behalf already, and it is a matter of you letting go, not you being good enough. It is a matter of you saying, put the books in the fire, and not I'm gonna keep trying to do things the way I wanna do them. The only way to follow Jesus is to let go of what you're trying to hold onto. And Jesus expresses this just as much whenever he says, like, what prophet, what prophet's a man if he gains the whole world but he loses his soul? Jesus says elsewhere, says you can't serve God in wealth.

You can't keep trying to strive for this life that you think you want or these pleasures that you think will make you happy or just some things that are gonna distract you long enough so that you don't drown yourself in sorrow. You have to be able to let go of those things to hold onto Jesus. You can't hold onto both. And so, for many people, whenever I hear that story, it's almost like the enemy is saying, like, Jesus, I know, Paul, I recognize, but this little trinket prayer that you think is gonna save you, this little cross you wear around your neck that you rub whenever you pray, no.

Now, what is that? It's not gonna save you. You wanna be free. Let's look at two places here. We're gonna kinda end with this. We're gonna look at two places. I want you to look at how Scripture describes the situation just after the seven sons of Siva were beaten. Okay, so just take a second, get there. Paul's fame is viral. All these people are using Paul's name along with Jesus' name to get rid of demons. This event with the seven sons of Siva has just happened, and it's super famous, and then what do we see in verse 17? Acts 19-17, it says, and this, the beating of the seven sons of Siva, this became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks, listen, and fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled. Means exalted or lifted up, extolled, made holy, extolled. The fear of the Lord fell upon them all.

One thing that is easier about treating religion like a rabbit's foot or treating Jesus' name like some magic chant, the thing that's easier is that it's not as scary, right? It's easy to try on speaking Jesus' name and you try on a pair of socks, and if it doesn't work, you kind of move on. That's easy, right? It doesn't take a lot of sacrifice, it doesn't take a lot of courage, really. It doesn't take really anything. It's not as scary.

The fear of the Lord. This phrase does not mean that we should be afraid to go to Jesus. In fact, it means that we should respect the power that Jesus has and not treat his name like a power tool, that we just kind of get to use whatever we want and put away and never deal with again. The fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is something that is often misunderstood. We talk about the fear of the Lord. So sometimes people talk about how there's a different God in the Old Testament versus a God in the New Testament. We talk about how the God of the Old Testament's like really like raffle and scary and mean. But the God of the New Testament is super loving and sweet and nice and he's like a grandfather. Okay.

First, you need to read more of the Bible on your own. Don't just take it from people. When you look in the Old Testament, God is still sweet and loving and like a father, right? And then in the New Testament, God is still wrathful. I mean, just even in the book of Acts, right? There's these people that lie about how much money they're gonna give to the church, right? Ananias and Sapphira, they sell a field, they hold a little bit back to themselves and they give all the money to the church and they lie about it. They say, no, this is the whole price of the field. And Peter's like, why did you wanna lie? Why did you wanna do that? God's gonna strike you dead, struck dead. Ananias is dead. Couple hours later, his wife, Sapphira walks in. Says like, hey, Ananias said this lie. What do you say? Oh no, that's what he said was true, lie. She dies. The sweet God of the New Testament, the grandfather,

strikes him both dead immediately for lying. For something you and I did like yesterday and were not struck down for. You wanna explain that one to me? You wanna explain how God in the Old Testament is faithful, have you ever read a Psalm, right? Like all of those, many of those Psalms are talking about like God's heart for us. That God looks at a broken and contrite heart. He has compassion on that. That God is long suffering with people. That God, it says in Exodus 34, six, it says that God extends his loving faithfulness, his covenant love to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.

That's the God of the Old Testament. It's the same God as the New Testament. It's not two different gods. So when we talk about the fear of the Lord, that's not just some Old Testament thing. That's not a thing that I use to make people afraid to hurry up and get saved because the fear of the Lord is the proper approach to the king of the universe who holds all of our life in his hands. What a miss, what a with to think to think that we can somehow wield the name of Jesus like it's ours to use somehow when he's the king of the universe. He's king, Jesus, he gives us his name. He gives us his power for his good pleasure to do good things. The Lord God in heaven has grace toward us that we do not deserve. The Lord God in heaven wants to see you thrive. Why? Because you deserve it? No. Because you're cute? No. Some of you are cute. It's not because of those things. It's because he's good.

Because he has favor toward you. It's in his character. It doesn't have anything to do with you or me. You and I were saved by God's grace alone. Not because our parents did anything, not because we did anything, not because anything was accomplished by us. No, merit achieved. And so when we use the name of Jesus Christ, let us do it in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Man, let us come before his throne, not afraid that he's just gonna strike us down, but respecting that power and asking for the things that we need because he's our father, right? We can do that.

But let's not make the mistake of thinking that we're on the throne. Let's not do that. The second thing I wanna look at, the last thing, I wanna look at how scripture describes the situation where the books were burned, okay? It's where the magicians were declaring their freedom. Right after that in verse 20, Acts 19, verse 20, it says, so the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily. Last week we talked about people that were fully Christian and partially powered, meaning fully Christian, meaning they believed on Jesus Christ. They believed that Jesus paid for their sin. They followed Jesus. They believed the gospel. They taught the gospel. They were Christians. They were fully Christians, but they were only partially powered. Today, what we see here are people that are fully religious, but they are not Christians at all. Christians are people who have a relationship with Jesus.

And if you wanna see more Holy Spirit power in your life, the Bible makes it pretty clear that that comes through a relationship with him where you are submitted to him. And so before you start using the name of Jesus, I would suggest a couple of things. First, I would suggest having a relationship with Jesus. Right? If it's not a lucky charm, you have a relationship with Jesus. The way that you do that is by repenting and believing, quite simply, right? It's not, you don't have to achieve any status. You don't have to clean up your life. That's not really how this works. You repent before Jesus, and you say, I wanna follow you. However imperfectly that is, I wanna do that. That begins. That's the beginning of that relationship.

And when you are submitted to him, you are not using religion like a rabbit's foot. You're not saying, okay, I'm gonna go to church enough to earn this. I'm not gonna do enough good deeds to earn this. I'm gonna submit to him, and then I'm gonna do what we see in verse 20. I'm gonna let Jesus' word increase and move mightily over me. I'm gonna let the fear of the Lord wash over me. I'm gonna let Jesus strip me of my delusion that I can somehow wield this thing like it's my name that I'm rolling around. Some of you are in need, many of you are in need of Holy Spirit power in your life right now, and you don't know what to do. My encouragement is run to Jesus. He's going to be the one. Begin to get before him. Begin to pray before him. Begin to ask for the things that you need. Sometimes people can be critical of, you only came to Jesus in the middle of a crisis because you were in the middle of a crisis.

My response to that is, yeah. So, who cares? If it took a crisis for somebody to realize that they needed a savior, glory to God. If you're in the middle of a crisis, or even if you kind of feel one coming on, man, let that push you to Jesus. Let that strained relationship push you to Jesus. Let that unstable job push you to Jesus. Unstable jobs come and go, relationships come and go. Jesus remains the same. In a minute we're gonna have a time of response where I'm gonna be back there where those, that couch and those two chairs are and those lamps are. There's nothing magic about that spot, or about talking to me, or anything like that, but the power is in Jesus. My encouragement is, you need encouragement. Nobody can do this by themselves. As we enter time, as we sing, and even as the service ends, and people are kind of walking around, I'm still gonna be back there.

If you wanna talk, then let's do it. Let's have that conversation. Let's pray. Jesus, we thank you for this morning. We thank you for your powerful name. We thank you for the ways that you are, just continuing to move in our lives. Lord, we ask for you to help us repent of ways that maybe we've tried to treat religion, or even your name like a rabbit's foot, or that we've tried to use your power without really relating to you. Lord, help us to see that you are the center of the universe, you're the center of our lives. Your kingdom is the only one that counts. Lord, we thank you.

It's your name that we pray, amen. Would you please stand as we sing?