 Hey, good morning, radiant family. Welcome those who are in person, those online. Welcome, welcome. I want to invite you to stand as we prepare our hearts to worship. I was feeling a throwback song, not super throwy-backy, but like, back 15, 20 years, the song, Trading My Sorrows. I don't know how many of you all remember the song, Trading My Sorrows. Six of us. That's awesome. But it's a simple song. The chorus just says, yes, Lord, but the lyrics is, I'm trading my sorrows. I'm laying everything down for the joy of the Lord. And what I was feeling was, David, multiple times in the Psalms, like, nobody gets in his feels more than David. And I'm kind of like that to you. I can be pretty emo. But when we gather together as the people of God, there's something about just trading in and suspending what the internal mess that we feel inside and just releasing simple songs of praise and thanksgiving and adoration. So it's kind of a simple, playful song. But I think it's actually a powerful reality. And so I just want to invite you as we sing, just to do more than say the words, but just say, OK, Lord, right now I just choose to lay down myself. I lay down my pride. I lay down just even the junk from the week. And I'm just going to offer the simplicity of thanksgiving and praise the Lord. And we're going to we're going to just clap and sing and we'll feel the spiritual atmosphere in this place change as faith enters our hearts, as we join as the people of God. Because, man, when we join together and sing, the enemy is terrified. That's when the strongholds actually flee and leave. So we're going to praise the Lord, amen. Awesome. Let's do it. Clap on two and four type of song. We've been disappointed because we placed our hope and joy. Let our joy not be in our own circumstance, but in your salvation. Praise, oh Lord, just kind of give me a song. I wanted to sing from the Lord's perspective. And I felt the Lord wanted to restore faith in what he's doing. So I'm just going to sing this chorus. And just you can receive it and close your eyes and sing along, whatever. So we're just going to declare what God's doing. I have left you alone. I didn't fall asleep. I didn't fall off my throne. And the stars in my walk in among the lamp stand as a scare. All over the room, let's just lift up our hands in a posture of receiving. Because it's one thing to sing lyrics like that. It's another thing to position your heart before the Lord with so many things that can distract us. So many things that want to take our focus. Immediate things, sometimes very important things, urgent things, but temporary things. David said in Psalm 27, this one thing do I desire. And this one thing will I seek after that I might dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord. And so Lord Jesus with our hands raised and our hearts awake. Lord, today we're asking you by the power of your Holy Spirit to help bring the focus of our heart in upon you. So that light fills our heart. Truth fills our soul. The lies, the deceptions, the discouragement. Lord, the anxieties and the cares of this world and the temporal immediate urgent things of this world would just right now fall to the wayside in this moment in your house and give us the ability to be fully focused on you. When our eyes are focused on you, truth fills us. Hope rises again. Joy awakens on the inside of us. Shackles break, burdens burst. Truth comes and takes up residency in us. Lord, today we're asking you to open the eyes of our heart. Awaken us to your beauty. Awaken us to the fact that right now you are seated on a throne at the right hand of the Father, ruling and reigning and you have all authority. All power has been given unto you. The nail scars are still in your hands and the love is still burning in your heart and your eyes are still blazing like fire. Your voice still sounds like the sound of many waters. Your face is still radiating the glory of the Father towards us and your focus is on us today. You're not worried, you're not stressed, you're not despondent, you're not defeated, you are victorious. Your voice still silences storms. You've still overcome death and the grave and so Lord, today flood this place with the power of your resurrection. Flood us with the power of heaven that changes everything about our lives. Lord, we're open and we're hungry. Come on, just tell the Lord, just in your own words, just say, Lord, I'm hungry for you. Say, Lord, I'm hungry for all that you have for me. Church, real quick before we shift gears, wanna ask you as we do every week to join us for a moment in prayer and a lot of times we'll pray for a nation of the world. But today, we're praying for our Aray Shrine Conference that is gonna start tomorrow here and we're hosting churches and church leaders, pastors from, let's see, we've got 26 or 27 different states, 87 different churches and ministries, four different nations, five if you count Texas, but people are coming from all over to be encouraged, to be strengthened and it's the privilege of our life. It's a privilege of us as a church to be able to love and to care for other pastors and other churches. So we don't know all those stories, but here's what I know, God has a divine ambush prepared for them. So would you join in prayer for all those pastors? Lord, right now we just pray that as these pastors and leaders and staff are traveling to this city of Kalamazoo that Lord, you would already prepare the words, the moments, the relationships, the connections that deposit that impartation that they need from you. Lord, it's all about you, Jesus. They're coming to meet with you. We're coming to gather around you and around your presence. And Lord, some of them are coming discouraged and they need a word. Some are coming needing just an impartation of power and strength. Some are just needing a friend and a tribe to belong to. Lord, we pray, Father, that as we care for these shepherds and their staffs and leaders, that Lord churches all over the U.S. and beyond are gonna be strengthened for the next great move of God that you have in your heart, Lord. Our nation needs a tidal wave of revival from coast to coast. And we're praying that this next couple of days becomes a spark that ignites that in the hearts of its leaders. And Lord, it's all said and done. Lord, you would be glorified in this generation. You would be glorified in the lives of these churches. In Jesus' name, amen. Come on, now let's put our hands together and glorify Jesus in this place. Come on, he's worthy. Jesus, we glorify you. We worship you. Isn't it good to be in the house of the Lord? It's good to worship. It's what an incredible privilege is to think, think about this, Psalm 22 says that when we worship together like this, it says that he is enthroned upon our praises. So you can't see it with your natural eye. But at this moment in this place, a throne for the king of kings has been established. And wherever the king is, that's where the kingdom is. And when the kingdom comes, power, healing, deliverance, salvation, the voice of the enemy is silenced, shackles are broken, healings take place. People's lives are changed and transformed. Come on, how many know this is an awesome place to be? All right, because it's awesome, here's what I want you to do. Spin around, give somebody a high five handshake, tell them you are in the right place this morning. The 9 a.m. crowd. For Portage, that's 9.15 a.m. crowd. And we love you guys. And those of you who are joining us online this morning, we welcome you and those of you over at our Portage location. We love you guys. And we're so overjoyed to be able to worship together this Sunday morning in the presence of the Lord. It's a good day. How many know spring is breaking? By faith? Because you know how Michigan is, it'll be 30 today and 90 tomorrow. But that's okay. How many will believe with me for that 90? How many, can we just split the difference and say 70? Ah, I feel better about that. Hey, we're really, really glad that you're here this morning. And if you are joining us for maybe the first time or you're relatively new and I've not had an opportunity to meet you, my name is Lee Cummings and I'm the senior pastor of Radiant Church. And on behalf of everybody that calls this church home, we just wanna welcome you and thank you so much for joining us. If you are a guest with us this morning, you're checking us out. We would love to know that. And so one of the ways you can just say hi to us or let us know that you were here, give us any feedback or request additional information is on the seat back in front of you in the pocket. There is a communication card or a connect card, has a QR code on it. If you scan that, you can do it digitally. If that's how you would like to do it. If you are more of an in-person person, we would love that. We'd love to say hi to you and you can stop after the service is over when you go out into the lobby of both locations. We have a guest central area. Stop there, drop your card off there and there will be some really, some nice people that will be there from Radiant who would love to meet you in person, answer any questions that you might have and give you any information that you're looking for. So we're thrilled that you're here, welcome. We really pray and trust that today is gonna be an encounter in the presence of the Lord that's life changing. And if you're looking for a church home, we welcome you here. It's a great family and we're always happy to welcome new people to the table. So welcome and I'm gonna invite the ushers if they would move into place this morning. Let's prepare our hearts right now to give the Lord our ties and our offerings right now. In a few moments, the buckets are gonna go by. You can give in person with the buckets or you can give all the time online at radiant.church slash give. You can go there and set up secure giving and that's how Jane and I give. If you are really kind of tech savvy, you can do the text giving. I've never done that. I don't know how it works. You can text radiant to 7797 or you can steal your neighbor's phone when they're not looking and give like you've always wanted to give on their phone, just on their phone, text radiant, probably shouldn't do that. We just wanna thank you for your generosity. One of the things that you are a part of that maybe you don't even know, I mentioned it is we're hosting a conference for our radiant network for churches around the US and even beyond that are coming here for a couple of days and for two days, our whole staff and everything about our team and our building is about serving other churches and it's about helping other churches and other leaders really just be inspired and encouraged to go back to their churches and make a difference. And when you take a look at all the different ministries that are going to be here, they represent tens of thousands of people across the country. So you are helping to make that happen and so you, without even knowing it, when you give, you are indirectly investing into impacting tens of thousands of pastors, churches and leaders around the US. And we just wanna say thank you. Thank you for your generosity. Thank you for your faithfulness in giving and thank you for your prayers and we couldn't do it without you. And by the way, I think on the radiant news, it's gonna say that our annual report is out and it's been 2021 was an incredible, incredible year, a miraculous year. And make sure that you download that or get that. Yeah, come on, let's put our hands together. It was a miraculous year, incredible. There's all kinds of statistics of how many people we baptized, how many people came to faith in Christ, how many millions of dollars we gave onto the mission field, our downtown city center completion and on and on and on. And it's God blessing what God's people faithfully commit to with their giving. We couldn't do it without you, so thank you. We're gonna pray and receive our offering right now. Lord, we love you and what a privilege it is for us to give back to you. I pray for every gift and every giver that it would honor you. It would be seed scattered across the nations that brings in a mighty harvest that honors you and glorifies you in Jesus' name. Amen. Hey everyone, welcome to Radiant. My name's Preston. My name's Jackie and this is Radiant News. The Radiant Network's annual Arise Shine conference is here. On Monday and Tuesday, leaders and pastors from all over the country are coming to Radiant Church to seek after the presence of God and revival. If you weren't able to get a ticket, there's still a way for you to get a taste of Arise Shine. Our evening sessions beginning at 7 p.m. Eastern time will be available to stream online for free on our YouTube channel. We are also excited to feature prayer meetings throughout each day at Arise Shine that are open to the public. At 8 a.m., 11 30 a.m. and 1 p.m., we are gathering for prayer in the Richland Campus Student Center and you're invited. It's going to be an amazing couple of days. Even if you're unable to join us, please be in prayer for the supernatural breakthrough to take place in the hearts of everyone at today. Our 2021 annual report is available now online. We're excited to help tell the story of what God is doing in and through Radiant Church. View and download now at radiant.church slash weekend. For all these announcements and more, go to radiant.church slash weekend. That's it for us. Thanks for following along. Man, that intro gets me every single time. Come on, anybody excited about Wind and Fire, the Book of Acts this morning? Well, listen, both Portage and Richland and online, we have an incredible privilege today. I want to introduce to you a brand new friend to Radiant. His name is John Tyson. He's become a friend over the last couple of years. He's an amazing teacher, author, pastor of church in the city, in New York, really right in the heart of New York in Manhattan, and is leading an incredible church. And here's one of the things that I love about John. People oftentimes ask me, Pastor Lee, we listen to your messages. Whose messages do you listen to? And John Tyson is one of the guys that I listen to. And I've had the privilege of becoming friends or as he says, he's from Australia, we're mates. And he's a brilliant mind. He's a pastor, a real prophetic voice, and he's a student of revival. So we just connect on that level. And we're excited to have him here for the conference. I asked him if he would preach on Acts chapter two out of our Wind and Fire series, and he agreed. So I want everybody at both of our locations and even online, let's stand to our feet and welcome to the platform, my friend, John Tyson. Well, thank you folks. What a joy to be with you, Pastor Lee. Jane, thank you so much for your leadership. Folks, I hope you do not take it for granted what it is to have godly leaders with spiritual authority. Can you just give them a round of applause? They've made so many sacrifices. They pray for you, they love you. Do not take it for granted to be under good leadership. The Bible says that those who teach and lead well are worthy of double honor. So I hope you're not one of those churches that complains and emails them. I hope you're a church that prays and blesses and honors because they really, really are some of the most significant spiritual leaders here in the US. So I'm grateful for the invitation to come and share God's word with you. And they've given me Acts chapter two, which is like, come on, I mean, that's like a preacher's dream. Acts two is about the birth of the church. And the reason I think this is an important text is because we're in a moment right now where the church in the Western culture certainly is in crisis. Around the world, the gospel is flourishing, but here in the West, it is lagging. This year over one million young people will walk away from the church and the number one reason will be because it is not compelling. It's not gonna be sociological issues. It's not gonna be theological debates. It's not gonna be apologetics problems. It's gonna be, they just don't find Jesus compelling. And so we've gotta get back and recover the heart of what the church is supposed to be. And Acts chapter two is one of the things that we see. It gives us a blueprint of how to move forward. And so I wanna talk about just two ideas from Acts chapter two today. I wanna talk about power and I wanna talk about practices because to me, this is the key of what we need to recover in the church. So let's look at Acts chapter two verse one, power. When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Now, you know what has happened? Jesus has risen from the dead. He's appeared to his disciples and this is what he's told them. Do not try the kingdom mission on your own. Peter, I appreciate your heart but I do not like your follow through. I see what Peter can do with the kingdom of God when Peter's in charge. He's like, you're gonna need some power to accomplish the ministry that I have. So go and pray and wait for this outpouring. And what God's going to do in this moment is he's going to shift from an external reality of the power of God to an internal reality of the power of God. And this is gonna be the birth of new covenant reality. The old covenant was primarily external and distant. God was there, God was on the mountain. God was in the temple and the law was something you had to live up to where it was defined by you shall and you shall not. But there was a promise of a new covenant where it would go from out there to in here. The fire that fell from heaven ends up being the fire in our very spirits by the presence of the Holy Spirit. And this is what we see in the passage. Fire comes on everybody. And so instead of it being you shall, God says in the new covenant, I will. I'm gonna put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my commandments and to keep them. I will cleanse you from your idols and I will make you clean. I'm gonna write my law on your heart. It's not something you live up to in your own strength. It's something you live out with my power. And this is the moment where that happens together. And this is a fundamental shift from the omnipresence of God which means God is the, you know, Yahweh is the true Lord of heaven and earth. But we're not quite sure exactly where he is or how he's manifesting his presence to a tangible presence. And this is where God is in the room showing up. Now, the omnipresence of God, which is basically what has been happening in the inter-testamental period before the book of Acts and before the Gospels. God's been there, but he hasn't been flexing very much. He hasn't been showing people what he's capable of doing. And so when Jesus burst on the scene, Jesus is bringing a revelation of the tangible presence of God called the kingdom of God. And he says, the kingdom of God is in your midst. The omnipresence of God, it's biblical, it's real. It's true to God's nature, God is everywhere. It's theological, it's available to everybody. It's universal, it's passive, it's impersonal, and it's abstract, which means we all know theologically God is everywhere, you know the book of Psalms. Where can I flee from your presence? God is in every place, but holding the wicked and the good. We know he's there, but it's the difference between having a millionaire show up to your church and being in the back pew and then having the millionaire pull out his phone and text 77977. Like there's a difference of like being in the room and then showing that you're in the room. Well, the omnipresence is God in the room, but the manifest presence is God showing you that he's in the room. This is what's happening with the birth of the church. It's biblical, it's real, the manifest present. It's true to God's nature, but God has perceived locally, he's here. It's transformational, it's not just theological. It's particular, not general. It's personal, it requires a pursuit and a hunger. It's covenantal, which means it's deeply relational and it's specific. And this is what's so important to see. This is the shift in the birth of the church. When God initiates the new covenant, it does not happen in the temple in Jerusalem. It happens in the people. The place, the presence of God is now manifest, is not in the old covenant system. It's in the hearts of the people of God, which means when you show up with the people of God, this is the place where you should find him amongst his people. And this ultimately leads us to a sense of encounter. If it's personal, if it's manifest, that means that you and I don't need a special system of priests and leaders and sacrifice to access the manifest presence of God. It can happen right here, it can happen right now. God is in the room and he's available and if you're hungry, he will meet you. This is the good news of Acts chapter two. God answers with fire and that distant fire becomes a personal fire. It's up on the mountain in the Old Testament and the people fear. But in the New Testament, everybody gets a flame on their head. God is present and real. And this is one of the most important things that needs to happen in our moment is a conscious shift from acknowledging the theological reality of the presence of God to the experiential reality of the presence. Blaise Pascal, one of my favorite writers and thinkers and he was an inventor, he was a philosopher and he was a theologian. But towards the end of his life, all of that brilliance in his mind melted into a personal encounter with God. And on one night, this is what happened in his, and this is the point. The general idea of God became a radical encounter with God. And this is part of what he wrote in his testimony. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and of the learned, certitude, certitude, feeling, joy, peace, God of Jesus Christ, my God and your God, your God will be my God, forgetfulness of the world and everything except God. He's only found in the ways, this is literally called thinking in tongues. This is a philosopher having an encounter with the presence of God, grandeur of the human soul, joy, joy, joy, tears of joy. So he has this radical encounter with God and you know what he does, which is key for us? When he died, they found that he had taken this encounter with the Holy Spirit and he sewed it in his coat so it always covered his heart. He said, I wanna take that experience and I wanna convert that into a lifestyle. I don't want that just to be a memory of my younger years. I want that to be a living reality in my life. Richard Oren Roberts says this, the sobering truth is that the greatest hindrance to the growth of Christianity in today's world is the absence of the manifest presence of God from the church. Imagine showing up to church and not meeting God. What a concept. That's the very thing you should be doing is meeting God and encountering his presence. In the Old Testament, Moses said, if your presence doesn't go up with us, we're not gonna leave. And then he asks a question, how else will all the nations know that we're your people? Well, I've got an idea. How about circumcision? How about like a very, very strict and different diet than everybody else? How about an ethical code? How about a way you organize your family? There's a million ways sociologically you can distinguish one group from another with human culture. But he realizes that's not the secret. The secret is the presence. If we are not presence people, we are not your people. This is what we see in Acts chapter two. Then ultimately that encounter that's available to us leads to the empowerment of God's people to do his mission. Verse four says this, all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. This is amazing. Peter goes from somebody who denies Jesus when a teenage girl's like, aren't you his follower? And he swears, no, I don't know the man to somebody who's willing to stand up in the same city just a little bit of time later and preach to the religious leaders, you killed the Messiah. What happened? Peter didn't get a little pep talk and then get a good night's sleep and have some kale and then feel like, no, I'm good now, I can do this. These weren't lifestyle tweaks. These weren't little like anxiety reductions in his personality. He had an encounter with the Holy Spirit. The power he needed from that encounter became available for him to witness. Teenage fishermen became apostolic martyrs at the ends of the earth because they were empowered by the Holy Spirit to do the mission of God. And I wanna say to us, wherever you are in your life, you need fresh power for the mission of God in this moment. I don't care how godly you are. I don't know, I don't care how well you've walked in the gifts of the spirit in your history. We as a church don't have the power we need for the cultural moment that we are in. We need that power. We need that power. When I became a Christian, I grew up around the church and I made a very conscious decision at age 13. I just remember thinking, okay, so let me get this right. Non-Christian sin and they enjoy it and you sin like hypocrites and you feel guilty. I think I'm just gonna like bypass the guilt route and just go straight to enjoying my sin. Thank you. I was surrounded by all these hypocritical kids and I knew them from school and then I saw them at the parties and then they'd invite me to church and I was like, why are you going? This is making you miserable. And then I got invited to a Pentecostal youth group. Now I didn't know anything about Pentecostals except that they were a cult, okay? So when I show up and the lights are off and everybody's praying in tongues and they're swaying in the dark, I was like, oh no, it's actually true. It's a cult, it's a cult. But when I stepped in the room, something happened that I never anticipated. I encountered the presence of God and it repelled me and it attracted me all in the same moment. I wanted to fall on my face and I wanted to leap through the roof and I did not have language to articulate the experience that I was having. These were kids who were getting up at 4 a.m. to pray for revival before they went to high school. This was a wild culture of encountering the presence of God. And they said, because of Pentecost, you can meet God anywhere. I was filled with it. So I was also a little distrusting because I was a little cynical. And so they would always try and say, hey, John, we need to get you filled with the Holy Spirit. And I was like, if you try and in the dark lay hands on me, I will slap you, get your hands off me in the dark. I was uncomfortable with the dynamic. I dropped out of high school. I was working in a meat factory as a butcher and just didn't like the idea. And I was like, okay, God, if it's you, meet me in my life. One day I'm in the meat factory and I'm like, okay, God, I'm having a showdown with you. If what they say is real, I want you to meet me right now. And I tell you, like a lightning bolt from heaven, filled that meat freezer. I felt like a river that I could not control of language erupt from my stomach. And I was speaking in tongues involuntarily at the top of my lungs in a meat freezer. I'm telling you, power was available. Now here's the, so like, I'm like, I believe it. I would start praying in tongues and get these prayer burdens. I would have to pull my car over and pray for 20 minutes. I was so overwhelmed with a burden. And I remember thinking to myself, the power of Pentecost is in my life. But then I came to America and I went to seminary and I got mentored by some of the smartest pastors in America. And I learned about technique. I learned about programs. I learned about church growth and I learned history and philosophy and theology. One of my mentors came to see me in New York. We planted a church, grew to 11 locations, thousands of people, big church in New York City. And one of my mentors from those glory days came to visit me. And the church, it was a great night at church. You know, there's like good nights at church and there's great nights at church. There's a great night. And you know, when you're a preachy, you have those moments where you just hit flow and you're just like, I am preaching. And I was preaching. And afterwards, maybe with a little bit of pride, but certainly with a desire to please someone who had spoken into my life and saw me in the early days of my faith. So we'd go out for dinner after him. I said, what'd you think of the service? And he said, wow, man, America's been good to you in many ways. He's like, man, you got a real mind. I never knew that. He says, you're a real leader. It's amazing to see what God's done. He said, but I've got to tell you something, man. You have lost the power of God in your life. And I was like, what do you mean? He's like, there's no power, man. It's performance, it's technique, it's leadership dynamics, but the anointing is gone. I was like, oh, okay, thanks, really. Praise the Lord. It put me on my face. And it made me realize how much you can get done in the modern church without the power of God. But we are coming to the end of that right now with hitter generation that doesn't care how good church is if God is not there. One Corinthians four 20 says the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk, but it's a matter of power. And so this started me on a journey of deep repentance. Lord, I've somehow lost the fire over my heart. I got to get that back. So I want to say to you like, you need fresh power. You need fresh wind. What got you here is not gonna bring you into the future God has for you. We need another Pentecost. I need fresh fire coming through the roof. I need another river of language coming out of my life. I need fresh prayer burdens. How about you? We need this. Now, this puts me in a season of radically seeking God like the early days. I'm telling you, man, our church just like, my level of repentance was violent. I'm like, we're reorganizing our church. We're doing four hours of prayer a day. I'm calling a 40 day fast. We're in a season of repentance, man. I was going like back to my roots. And I'm telling you, God began to manifest His presence again. I'm telling you, you would walk into the room sometimes you would just fall on your face. It was extraordinary. And then one day it stopped, it stopped. And I'm like, God, if I grieved you so I'm out walking around on Saturday nights, Holy Spirit, here is my life. I open my heart to you. And it's just like the presence of God went and it just left my life. So I call my mentor who's one of the most Godly men I know and moves in the power of the Holy Spirit. And I said, man, we were on the verge of revival and something's happened, the presence is gone. And he said, tell me about it. And so I started sharing what happened. And he said, this is the kindness of God in your life. I said, what do you mean? He says, if God manifests His full glory right now it would crush you. You do not have the discipline or character to sustain a move of God. And what he's telling you is you need to prepare not just encounter. Now, why am I sharing this? Here's why I'm sharing this. This is now my second point, okay? Point number one, Acts chapter one, there's power. It's sorry, Acts chapter two, there's power. But do you know what happens at the end of chapter two? Look what goes on. They take all of that power and they build it into tangible practices so they can use that power for the mission of God. Look what it says, verse 42. They devoted themselves to the apostles, teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders in science performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and they had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need every day. They continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes. They ate together with gladdened and seer hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily, those who were being saved here. So this is fascinating. The wind and the fire was poured into shared discipleship practices in the church. In essence, they had the power but they didn't have the container to sustain them. And so all of the wind and fire had to be turned in a teaching and fellowship and breaking bread and prayer and generosity and miracles in the local context. So the idea of the power could be translated into a community that could handle the power. This is important because you know that over the course of time, much of what has happened in the charismatic and Pentecostal church has been power tools for toddlers. And that is always a dangerous thing when that happens. When you've got more anointing than you have character, a disaster is very, very close. And so we've got to have the kind of discipleship that can handle the power of God. Ultimately, the church's call is not just spiritual experiences, though I love those and I honor those and they are sacred. But the ultimate mission of the church is that those experiences are translated into maturity and health and into discipleship. Neal Cole says this, ultimately each church will only be evaluated by one thing, its disciples. Your church is only as good as its disciples. It does not matter how good your praise, preaching programs or property are. If your disciples are passive, needy, consumerist and not moving in the direction of radical obedience, your church is not good. This is so fascinating to me because we have so many programs in the Western church today, so much content and so little transformation because of it. We need these practices that we see in the early church, teaching fellowship, breaking bread and bread because we need lifestyles that can sustain the power of God without it blowing us up. And so the part of the weakness of the charismatic church, glory, gifts, fire, but no character. Dallas Willis says this, the general human failing is to want what is right and important, but at the same time, not to commit to the kind of life that will produce the action we know to be right and the condition we want to enjoy. This is the feature of the human character that explains why the road to hell is paved with good intentions. We intend what is right, but we avoid the life that would make it a reality. And so we don't wanna just think, hey, the gifts of the spirit are a substitute for holiness, they are not. And we don't wanna say the power of God poured out in gatherings is enough for personal devotion, it's not. We need teaching because we live in a culture of lies and so we need truth to reveal who Jesus is and to debug us from the cultural programming happening in the world. We need fellowship and learning to love one another because we live in a time of cultural division where we're villainizing and deeming one another and demonizing one another instead of loving one another. We need to break bread together and open our homes to get rid of the cynicism and the hostility. So we actually learn to love one another like Jesus said that we would. And we need prayer to be turned not into an encounter but into a lifestyle of seeking God where there's devotion. And here's the key, power is good but formation is better and there is no formation without repetition. Now look, I am like assemblies of God. I'm like shaken, barking like dogs. What if there's no manifestation that is gonna freak me out and overwhelm me. And sometimes when you're in that transition your answer is like, well, if you just got another dose of the Holy Ghost it would fix everything. Like we're witches casting spells. That's not what we do. We are people being formed into the image of Jesus. This is a different reality. Now we know this in every other area of our life, don't we? No one would come forward and say, hey, look, I'm 150 pounds overweight. Can you just like pray for me that the weight would fall off in a moment? Because if God doesn't address a vision of a healthy person all that's gonna happen is you'll put it on again slowly over the course of time. It's the same thing with money. We can pray, God, I need a miracle. But if we don't learn to steward our finances that God's given us over the course of time we'll just go back into debt. If we're always complaining we don't have enough time and we pray for miracles to happen to make up for our laziness what God may fix it because he's kind that over the course of time he won't because he wants to develop us in a mature people. We have to, are you still with me? I feel like all of a sudden you're like, yay for the Holy Spirit. You're like, oh, this is not the, what is this? We have to reject the zap view of spiritual growth. That's what the Bible says. We need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Keep on being filled with the Holy Spirit. And it also says that we have to train ourselves to be godly. And so we need the balance of both of these things. We need to be disciples of Jesus. And I was very, very blessed to have a mentor who came along and he basically was like, John, you're on fire for God but you're gonna burn the house down, man. I gotta teach you how to channel this thing. And so he would come over to my house at four o'clock in the morning and he would say, do you know how to read the Bible? And I was like, of course I do. And then he'd say, read the Bible in front of me. And I was like, this feels weird and awkward and there's an unhealthy power dynamic. And I'm not comfortable with this. And he'd say, I'm here for you, man. Just read the Bible. And I'd read it and he'd say, okay, let me show you something. Do you know what context is? No. Do you know what a genre is? I was like, no. He was like, do you understand how to like do cross referencing? And I was like, no. And he said, I can take this raw hunger and I can channel it with skill. And he said, let me show you how I read the Bible. And I remember him like taking me through the life of David and just, I think I was like 18 years old and just saying to him, that's a sermon. That's not a devotion. How did you do that? And this was a man that taught me not just to love the word but to skillfully use the word. And he said, tell me how you do evangelism. And I said, well, this is, well, I walk up to people really early and I give them tracks and I say, read this, you're gonna go to hell. And I walk off. That was my evangelism, fear of the Lord. And he said, hey man, there's like, that's one way of doing it that God can use. Can I show you some other ways? Do you know how to answer people's questions? Do you know how to meet them where they're at? And so then he would begin to teach me and he would come to my butcher shop and he would say, we're both gonna fast and I'm gonna show up at the front of your workplace and I'm gonna pray and intercede the whole hour when we're gonna believe that a door is gonna open for you to share the gospel with one of your coworkers. And I remember him like, oh gosh, he's there. Holy spirit, you gotta show up. Man's out the front right now. Like I need somebody, somebody in the name of Jesus. Ask me. And it's sure enough, Steve, one of the butchers is like, hey, what do you think about evolution? Does it disprove God? Steve, the butchers never asked me this. And then God began to manifest his presence. I'm simply saying this. I remember going into the church and hearing expository preaching for the first time. And here's what I thought. If you could take the power and you could combine this with the practices, you would have a church that is an unstoppable force in the world. Why is it that these things tend to war with one another? Why are these discipleship practice-driven churches are like, you don't need all that experience. And everybody else is like, you're cold. You've got no fire. Why not put them together? Why not have the best of both worlds? The apostle Paul could preach philosophy to the leading intellects of his day. The apostle Paul could walk into a meeting and see faith. The apostle Paul could write the book of Ephesians, which is not bad theology. And the apostle Paul could raise the dead, seamlessly integrated. And those are the kinds of disciples we need in our world today. We need power, but we need practices. And they don't need to be at war with one another. They need to be integrated. That's the future of the church of the disciples Jesus is trying to make. Here's what power gives us. Encounter, passion, anointing, breakthrough, manifestations, urgency, crowds that are drawn in, a movement, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And here's what practices give us. Formation and discipline and faithfulness and process and skills and sustainability, commitment and health and character. And when you put power and practices together, you get history-shaping community. History-shaping community. Our church is pursuing the presence and power and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit more than it ever has, but it is more healthy and disciplined and sustainable in its pursuit. We're seeking God in a way that's not damaging us, but forming us in the way that we do it. Power and practices, history-shaping community. Now, I wanna say this cautiously. Do you know how rare it is in the modern American church to have these kinds of churches? They are so few and far between. I think it's one of the enemy's great strategies because he realizes if these things come together, they will be an unstoppable force. So he uses division, he uses theological debates, he uses dominant personalities. He does everything within his power to keep these things from coming together because when they do, they are potent. And you know what? You were one of those rare churches that is open and hungry to build this kind of community. I don't say that lightly. Why do you think you have a network? Why are pastors showing up from around the world to attend your thing? Because they sense that's it, that's it. But are you living in to the thing that your church carries? Are you living into what's available for you? I wanna close by just telling you a story, just to inspire you, it's a story you may know. But this time, I don't want you to think of these people far away and unlike you. I want you to think of them as people just like you in a place like this. And these people are the Moravians. The Moravians under Zinzendorf were the most integrated practices and power community in church history I know of. Nobody else got this combination right. Zinzendorf, as many of you know because your church cares about revival, was a leader, a German noble who actually was inherited or bought from his grandmother a piece of land. In the 1700s, there was all sorts of religious and cultural persecution and there was refugees who were fleeing and a group of them with all these different theological backgrounds ended up on his land sort of camping out saying, hey, can we settle here and build a village? And he said, yes, I'd be honored to have you. So this was a person with tremendous wealth and privilege in essence doing a little bit of a book of Acts. He took what he had and he used it on behalf of those who had needs. But the community was tremendously divided. There was Calvinist, there was Arminians, there was high church people, there was low church people and they're all trying to live in a community and that you would think, hey, our persecution and suffering should power bond us. But still the difference between power and practices and theology fractured them apart. And so instead of like bonding in their trauma like they divided because of their theology. And Zinsendorf was like, in what way is this honoring God? Can't we unite on anything? So he went door to door over a period of weeks pleading with each family, a couple hundred people saying, can't we put aside our differences and unite in Jesus? The fire of God will never fall on a divided older. Let's unite, let's unite. So he won the hearts of everybody in the community. And they got together in August the 13th, 1727 for a communion service. And after everybody had united their hearts the presence of God fell on them during communion. And they said for a period of like 12 or 13 hours they literally could not tell if they were in heaven or on earth. The veil was torn and they felt like they're in the overlap of the ages. And just when they felt like it was about to lift another wave of the presence of God would come to such a deep and overwhelming supernatural encounter. And they began to ask the question like, God, why did you do this? And I wanna say this, I went on August the 13th to Hernhut, Germany to celebrate communion in the church where this happened with my family. And one of the weirdest things is like, Hernhut is not a strategic location. You're never gonna go, hey, you know what? Let's go to Hernhut. You wanna go to Hernhut? You've never even heard of it. You drive into the absolute middle of nowhere and there's not like a huge city nearby. There's not like an economic engine. It's not an arts capital, but you get there and then you just see the very, very simple principles that God comes where He's wanted. Not where it is strategic according to human policies. Hunger draws God in and the Holy Spirit came. So they've had this massive outpouring of the Holy Spirit and then they ask, what do we do with it? How do we steward it? And they said, well, the fire can't go out in the altar. Let's do prayer. And so they started 24 seven prayer and literally they all just like divided up the prayer sets by family and by individual. They're like, okay, they actually had a lottery and this is how they did it. It's like, okay, I hope I get this seven PM set. And it's like, homeboy, you're on it. Two AM on Tuesday. And they just divided it up like this over the course of the week. And I don't know, they had so much power but they had so much practice that they were able to sustain this for over a hundred years. And anytime it would begin to wane, a spirit of prayer would come on the children and they'd say, we've got to live by the call of God in our community. And they'd say, you'd hear the prayers of the children and you would just weep because they were so filled with the burden and the spirit of God. Well, then they had this prayer culture and they said, well, what's this for? And then God began to speak to them and say, we're gonna be people who go and bring Jesus' message to the ends of the earth. That's a time where new pathways of travel were breaking out around the world. And they said, we live in a strategic moment where we could get the gospel from Germany to the ends of the earth. Let's go after it. And so they heard about an island that was in the British Isles. And in order to get to the island, you had to be a slave. Nobody else was allowed there. And so two of the young men said, we're gonna sell ourselves into slavery to bring the gospel to these people. And if you read the accounts, it's kind of extraordinary. You've got the community gathering and as the men sail off, they say, may the lamb that was slain receive the reward of his suffering and they just sell themselves into slavery. They go on that island and they witness a staggering revival. Over 2,000 people come to Christ and it becomes a model community. There's a tiny little church. Power comes, but then they build structures to contain the power and then turn that power into momentum. Well, as one of the communities is bringing emissions movement over the United States, they're on a ship and there's a terrible storm. They feel like the storm's gonna destroy the ship and there happens to be a passenger on the ship named John Wesley. And John Wesley is coming over to America to do missions. And he said, he realized on that ship that the Moravians had something he did not have which was peace with God. And it haunted him. And so he comes to America. He's a total failure. And he comes back to England and he starts asking, what do the Moravians have that I don't have? And if you read about the conversion of John Wesley, the conversion happens where he says he's reading an introduction to an epistle in how it was strangely worn. Who was holding the Bible study? The Moravians. He goes to a Moravian Bible study because they have power, but they have practices. Well, the Moravians would do these all night prayer watches. And at one night on New Year's Eve, there was about 60 of these Moravian men praying together. And there was a young man then named John Wesley, but there was another guy named George Whitfield. And George Whitfield is there and at three o'clock in the morning, the presence of God comes down. What we would call slain in the spirit. They cannot stand in the presence of God. And they're all filled with this fresh filling. And then Whitfield comes over to the United States, starts preaching with power and authority and sparks one of the great awakenings in American history. And that happened because 60 people hosted a prayer meeting. William Carey, who was known as the father of modern missions, was actually trying to work against a very aggressive Calvinism that said, you do not need to get the gospel to the ends of the earth. God will do it if he wants to reach the heathen. And he keeps hearing these stories and reports of the Moravian. So he goes into the Baptist society, throws down these Moravian reports and he says this, why can't we reach the heathens like the Moravians? So the modern missionary movement, he goes to India and pioneers the modern missionary movement amongst the Baptist. And this happens because the Moravians have power and they have practices to sustain what God's done in their midst. William, I'm almost done. They're quite a generative community, aren't they? William Wilberforce is in parliament raging against slavery. And one of the arguments they make is nobody can release the slaves because they'll just turn and kill their masters. And Wilberforce hears about an island where 2000 slaves have come to Jesus in a revival and they're living at peace and working in their conditions in a God honoring way. And so Wilberforce is able to point to those two young men who sold themselves in a slavery and started that revival as a reference point in parliament to overthrow slavery in the British empire. So let's do a quick recap here. A little church of 300 or 400 people in the middle of nowhere, Germany have an encounter with the presence of God but then they build a container to hold that presence. They become disciplined people hungry for the manifest power of God extending that mission into the world. They spark one of the greatest revivalists in history John Wesley. They inspire one of the greatest evangelists in history George Whitfield. They inspire one of the greatest missionaries in history William Carey. They inspire one of the greatest politicians in history who works the demolishing of slavery in the world. And all of this comes out a tiny little community and here's the point I wanna say to you do you see how potent power and practice is when it comes together in a community? And I have one question for you do you wanna be one of those communities? Do you wanna be one of those communities? They tell me this morning Kalamazoo means boiling river. Boiling river. Oh, I love that. In the middle, I don't wanna be rude here. I've never been to Kalamazoo. It's a weird title. Where are you speaking this weekend? Kalamazoo, have you heard of it? No. Kalamazoo. But let me tell you a boiling river of a united church with the power of God flowing to the nations is possible from you. Do you want it? Do you want it? You gotta choose to say yes. You gotta build a lifestyle of discipline and discipleship that can carry the fire in such a way that it doesn't burn you out. And you gotta not get so caught up in the discipline that you stop hungering for the power and think that you can take it from here because you're organized. Power and practice is a history shaping community. You got the possibility of being one and all you need to say to Jesus is here is my life. Yes, I'm in. Why do you think He's put you here at this moment in history? Why do you think you are here now? You think you are here now to slowly manage the decline of the church in your region? You think you are here now just to be in cultural wars about secondary issues? You're here now for this moment. Power, practice, outpouring, mission. And God just wants to know, will you say yes? I don't know about you. I'm saying yes to Jesus. I'm saying yes to this time. It doesn't need to be big. It just needs to be potent. That's what God's asking. So let's just close by saying, here I am, Lord. Here I am. You can use me. You can use me. So Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the beauty of the book of Acts, but Lord, we thank you that you're the God of history, not just the past. Lord, we know you're moving in every generation. We know you've put us here for a purpose. So we say, Lord, use us. Pour out your spirit. Lord, we pray fresh wind, fresh fire. Lord, we also pray discipline and practices to sustain it so that this can make it to the ends of the earth. We love you. We hear your voice. We respond to your word. And we re-up with fresh conviction for what you want to do in our lives. In Jesus' name, amen. Ma, wasn't that a powerful word, church? Whatever, would you stand with me this morning? Got a couple of minutes. So please don't move. It's important that when we hear messages like this that we know how to respond to that. And I was sitting in the front row when John was just recounting the story of Count Nicholas von Zinsendorf and the impact that his life and his decisions made. And I was thinking about the questions that God asks in the Bible. How many know that when God asks a question, it's not because he's looking for information? God doesn't need to know something. He asks us questions for our own sake. And two of the questions that just jump out to me that God asked, one was when Jesus asked, what do you want me to do for you? Somebody came to him and needed to be healed. And they said, son of David, he says, what do you want me to do for you? The second question that stands out is the question that Isaiah heard the Lord speak when he said, who will go for us? Two questions that I believe that really should stand out as important and significant to you and I. Number one is, what do you want me to do for you? Have you ever thought about that? God, this is what I want you to do for me. I want my life to matter. I want it to be significant. I need power for living, power to overcome. You know, Jesus said, those who hunger and thirst after righteousness will be filled. It's hunger. Somebody asked me, what's the biggest contributing factor to being filled with the Holy Spirit or living in the power of the Holy Spirit? My answer is one word, hunger. If you want it, God will give it to you. So he's asking you today, what do you want me to do for you? And more than just the temporal things that we could ask for, my hope is the cry of our heart would be, what that man just shared about his own story and what we read about in the book of Acts and what we heard about in the Moravians, we would say, God, do that for me, do that for us, do that for this generation. And then the second we would answer God's question by saying, if you need to send someone, send me, send me. I just want you to buy your heads all over this room. I wanna respond to the Lord this morning. The Lord, I just say over our church, over this fellowship and this family and this city, Kalamazoo. Lord, what we want you to do is we want you to fill us and we want you to reveal yourself to us in such a significant way that all of the other things that take up temporary residency in our hearts as the focus of our lives would fade away and our hearts in our lives would align around you and be overwhelmed and eclipsed by the power of God. Lord, I'm praying that in every life, I'm praying that in our church, I'm praying that in our city that you would tear open the heavens and choose a city, choose a people to do what you've done before again and do it in our lives. Do it in every single one of our lives. It doesn't matter who we are, mom or dad, college student, grandparent, doctor, lawyer, teacher, stay home, mom, Lord, do it in us. Fill us with the power of heaven and Lord, use us to go. And to be carriers of your presence and communicators and messengers of the good news. Worthy is the Lamb of God to receive the rewards of His suffering, Jesus. You are worthy to receive the rewards of your suffering and Lord, you didn't die on the cross to be a memory, a historic figure, the founder of a religion or just some moral example. You shed your blood on the cross to redeem us from our sins and restore us to the Father. Lord, that has happened in us. I pray that you would cause us to carry that message to the ends of the earth, every single one of us. Fill us with power, wind and fire, in Jesus' name, amen. I wanna invite our prayer team to make their way up to the front and position themselves all across the front. Today you may be here and say, I just need the starting point, I just need to, I wanna have a real relationship with God. Maybe you've believed in God, maybe you've gone to church your whole life, maybe you've read the Bible, but you've never had a defining moment where you've made Jesus Christ the Lord for real of your life. Today is your day to do that. Today it's, how bad do you want it? Because if you really want it, today Jesus will meet you. He will save you, forgive you and give you a new life and a new heart and a new purpose. Today you may be here and you need a miracle in your body. You can read about the miracles and healings and deliverances that you see took place in the book of Acts. I want you to know Jesus does that today. Church, is that good news to know that the same Jesus who did that stuff in the Bible is the same Jesus who does that stuff today? It's good news. And if you need God to move on your behalf, you need prayer for anything or you need to enter into a relationship with Jesus or maybe you're here and it's time for you to shed some sin and some way and some apathy and just say I need a brand new start in following Jesus. Today, as we pray and dismiss, I want to invite you to take a step forward and just when everybody's going that way you come forward for prayer. Our prayer team would love to pray and agree with you for God to move in power. Lord, send us from this place as light and salt into a world that desperately needs a better story, a better narrative, a better reason and a better purpose. Jesus, that narrative, that story, that purpose is you. So help us to live like that and magnetically draw people to you in Jesus' name. Amen, amen. Everybody we love you, your dismiss. Come forward if you wanna receive prayer today in Jesus' name.