 Good, good, you're awake. So I have discovered something about myself. I'm an extreme extrovert, which means I draw energy from other people, so if you guys start to fall asleep or don't laugh if I'm funny or don't just generally look attentive and give me some energy, this is gonna be a really dull 45 minutes to 50 minutes. All right, so are you with me? All right, very good. The last time, well one of the last times I was in this gym, I was sweaty, beating Christendom College and on the basketball team and yeah, yeah, and now I'm just sweaty, so we've come full circle, it's hot in here, yeah. So a few years ago I had a really cool opportunity, before the Lord brought me to Franciscan University, I was at the University of Michigan, not the response I was expecting in Ohio, but well done you, thank you very much, I feel so at home, this is great. So while I was there, a couple really cool things took place. My freshman year, I tried out for the basketball team, didn't make it but I was a manager on the team which was really great, I traveled all these different arenas and just got to live the basketball experience and then my sophomore year, I tried out again and got put on the practice squad, which means I was on the official NCAA roster but I wasn't dressing for the games, I was practicing every day and I was like okay, one step closer to my ultimate goal here. And then a couple really fortuitous things happened for me, a couple guys got hurt, a couple guys transferred and next thing you know, I'm in coach B-Line's office and he's saying Pete, kind of begrudgingly, Pete, you need to dress for the game tomorrow. And I'm like yeah coach, cool. Inside I'm like oh my goodness, here it is. He says all right, go talk to the equipment manager Bob and he'll get you set up for the game. So I pretty much skipped down to the equipment room and I say Bob, did you hear the good news? And Bob's kind of a curmudgeoning old guy and he just said yeah, yeah, yeah, you're gonna have to take what I have. And I said that's fine. As long as it's Michigan on the front, I'm happy, right? And he said, so he goes into the closet and rummages around for a little bit, pulls out, double XL, number 53 with no name on the back. Every boy's a little dream, 53 in lights, you know? But didn't matter, he said Michigan on the front, I was happy. So first game went off without a hitch, it was at Northwestern, no problems at all, I didn't get in the game, which was great. I shot the lights out in warm-ups, which was also great and I just was just living the dream, okay? Second game was at Illinois, Assembly Hall, great place to play basketball game. And we were the road team, so we had a couple options as to what uniforms we were gonna wear and we wore our Mays uniforms, for those of you out there that's yellow, because at Michigan we're elitist and we call it Mays, right? And so we're wearing our Mays uniforms with our white warm-up shirt, that detail we'll be pertinent in a minute. And the game's going fine and I'm sitting on the bench and like I said, I was that little guy at the end of the bench who went crazy when somebody else hit the three, right? I went out and chest bumped the guy and that was all I ever wanted. So I'm sitting there kind of leaning forward, Mays uniform, number 53, no name on the back, white pullover. And at Assembly Hall, the students section was about from me to you, ma'am, this far away. They're right on top of you, which is just the best. You hear all sorts of new words. You make all sorts of new friends, it's just wonderful. And so I'm sitting there just leaning forward and the students are gonna get in restless because Illinois was very good and we were not very good and they were beating us by a significant margin. And all of a sudden, one lone voice shouts out from behind me, number 53, number 53, who are you? I didn't realize because of the quick changeover, they hadn't even put me in the program. So this eager beaver had done a little research and realized that I probably wasn't supposed to be there, right? And so then it gets a little bit more louder and he gets his friends involved and he said, 53, 53, whose uniform did you steal? You know? Are you supposed to be here? You know, and I'm just trying to ignore it and my teammates are starting to nudge me. I'm like, yeah, yeah, shut up. And then I hear a very slow, low but steady, 53, 53, 53, 53. Now, if you know anything about college students, they will chant anything. As long as it's to that rhythm, it could be rice and beans, you know, rice and beans. It doesn't matter, they're gonna chant it, right? And so what was two became five, became 15, became 100, became a good portion of the lower bowl is now chanting 53, 53. And I am just dying a thousand deaths, you know? But it gets better. They shifted to put him in, put him in, yeah. Yes. Yes, they did. So, now I am really just, and again, I don't think any of them had any idea what they were chanting. They just, they were bored and they were chanting, right? So I'm at the end of the bench. Coach Mealyan's at the other end and all of a sudden he rises out of his seat and begins to walk very purposely down the bench and the crowd gets louder and louder and louder. And by the time he's getting close to my seat, which I am no longer paying attention to him, you know, I'm looking at every, avoiding eye contact at all costs. It's building and building, probably the loudest cheer of the night so far. He stretches out his hand and turns on his heel and walks back to his seat. And the place just erupts in booze. I mean, they were so mad and I melted into a puddle of gratitude. I could have kissed him. I know, I just was like, oh, thank God. And to this day, this is true, I still have teammates who text me, hey, 53, how you doing, you know? It's like, oh man, oh man. So I begin with this story for a couple of reasons. One is funny, you know? The second reason is there's a bunch of guys in the room looking at me going, I think I could take him, you know? Six foot white guy and I promised you fellas I could still beat you, okay? And then the third reason is this, a few years ago I was kind of meditating on that season of my life and the Lord often will use very, kind of, well, this wasn't very normal, but use everyday stuff of life for me to teach me some lessons. And I was kind of reflecting on that experience and I felt like the Lord said to me, Pete, why didn't you want to get in the game? And I thought about that and I said, I immediately came up with a bunch of reasons why. Well, I wasn't really wearing the right thing. I was kind of wearing the right thing, but I wasn't wearing fully what I should be wearing. And what if I'd gotten into the game and thrown the ball away? Or what if I didn't know the play? Or what if I just made a fool of myself and I realized I was really, really, really content to be on the bench, watching the experts play the game, and I was more than willing to cheer for them. And I had even done the things necessary to get out of the stands and on the bench and be part of the team, but in terms of entering into the game, that was a step too far. Again, I had started as a fan, I had entered the arena, I was watching what was going on, I had worked really hard, I had done the things necessary to be considered a Michigan basketball player. But I wasn't quite ready to get off the bench, I wasn't quite ready to enter in to our collective mission as a team. And I feel like this is where many of us find ourselves in our spiritual life. Where we've done what's necessary to be considered Catholic and Christian. I mean, just by the nature that you're here, I'm gonna guess that most of you are on the bench. Now, some of you may be in the crowd still trying to figure out whether or not you wanna be part of this Jesus team. But I'm gonna guess that most of you have done something, baptism, confirmation, the sacraments, prayer, maybe even living in community, where you've come out of the stands, you're doing the things necessary to be identified as part of Jesus' team. But when it comes to mission, when it comes to catching the vision for what God has for entering into the mission field, to seek and save the lost, to go where he's going, to follow him in his mission, we often balk at that one. We often look at that and go, you know what? Actually, I'd rather just write a check so the net missionaries can go do that. Or I'd rather write a check so that focus can go do that. Or I'd rather let Steubenville do that for me. And maybe you've entered into the game, you've heard Christ's call to come follow me into this mission to bring others into the kingdom and you've started to do it and then you really screwed it up, all right? Or you realized your shoes weren't tied. Or you realized you weren't quite wearing the right thing and so you retreated back to the bench, right? And you said, okay, I gotta pray more. I gotta get holier. I need more things need to be in place before I enter back into the game. And what's interesting though is very often we are quick to check ourselves out of the game and very slow to check ourselves into the game, right? We've all experienced that where we were quick to say, oh, back away, you know? Now it's not the right time to sit on the bench. But then when it comes to re-entering into the vision and the mission that Christ has for us as missionary disciples, we come up with every single excuse that we can think of. And so before we get into actually the meat of what I wanted to share, I wanted to just do a quick gut-chet audit of your heart and say, where are you with Jesus Christ? Is Jesus Christ the Lord of your life? Are you entered? Good, that was a good answer over there. Have you entered into his mission because it's one thing, brothers and sisters, to be growing in holiness. It's one thing to be personally committed to the Lord. You know, we have that universal call to holiness. We love to grow. Growing holiness means loving God, loving neighbor. We're comfortable with that one. We love to feed. But then have we responded to the universal call to mission, the great commission to go make disciples of all nations. It's two legs of a person. We need to grow and we need to go. It's, I like to think about it this way. If we're running the race, we need to step out and we need to grow. And the more we grow, the more we need to give it away. The more we give it away, the more, oh my goodness, we need to grow, right? But if both legs are operating, we are running towards the prize. We're running where our master is running. And so before we get into receiving a new vision from the Lord, before we get into kind of what is God doing and how do we step into it? We have to first ask ourselves, is Jesus the Lord of your life? In everything, personally, financially, everything. Are we in it? Are we in his mission? Are we trying to follow him where he is going? Because if that answer isn't solidified, if we don't have a resounding yes that he is the Lord of my life, then what I'm gonna be talking about is actually not gonna be that important. Because we cannot receive a new vision from the Lord unless we are first his. We cannot receive a new vision from the Lord unless we are first his disciple. If we believe, because if we try to receive a new vision from the Lord when we are not a disciple, it will be a false vision. It will be pride. It'll be a twisting of the truth that will actually lead to our destruction. And as we'll see as we go through scripture, whenever we reach out and try to take vision, whenever we try to manufacture a new vision, it leads to destruction. But when we receive a vision, when as good disciples we are led, that's what leads to the kingdom. That's what leads to joy. That's what leads to revival. That's what leads to the transformation that we're all looking for, okay? So let's pray. Lord Jesus, I pray that you just come down in this session right now, that your spirit would operate in me, that your spirit would operate in my brothers and sisters. Lord, open us wide open to your signs and wonders so that we may know how powerful you are. Lord, open us up to new prophecy, new speaking so that we may know where you are leading us. And Lord, break our hearts. Break our hearts for what breaks yours. Break our hearts, Lord Jesus. Amen. Okay, water break. Okay, so the talk title, if you will, is a new vision, seeing what God is doing. And it's drawn from the theme verse for the conference. So if you'll pull out your Bibles, no judgment, but come on Catholics. Pope Francis actually had some great words about it. He said, back in the day, you charismatic, you should carry around your Bibles all the time. You don't need to get back to that, you know? And I was like, but Pope Francis, I'm only 30 years old. And then it dawned on me, I've been baptized in the spirit for 22 years. So I guess I could be considered an old charismatic now or whatever you want to call it. All right, so theme verse Isaiah 43, verse 18. And my translation is a little different than the one they picked for the conference here. But it's basically, I mean, it is the same thing. Remember not the former things or consider the things of old. Behold, or see, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? Remember not the former things. See, I am doing something new. See, I am doing something new. And when Tanner asked me to give this particular talk and he said break open the theme verse for the conference and talk about seeing what God is doing, I enthusiastically said, oh, I can't wait to do that, Tanner, I will do that. That sounds great. And then I sat down to prepare and I thought, well, shoot, I've never really given a talk on this before. I have no idea what to say, which was really beautiful actually. It was a wonderful moment of like humility. Like, okay, Lord, it's all on you. And then God just took me on this beautiful journey that I'd like to take you on as well through the scriptures because what I started to realize as I read the scriptures, if you're actually looking for it, the theme of vision and sight runs through the entire scriptures. It's constant. It's a little overwhelming. There's this constant theme of God's vision and man's vision. And then the devil kind of thrown in there to mix things up. And there's this constant theme that when God's vision is received by man, good stuff happens. But when God's vision is taken or twisted, it leads to destruction. It leads to pain, it leads to sin, it leads to all sorts of different things. And so what I'd like to do is I'm gonna hopefully pull out what I've found is three ways throughout scripture. There's many ways, but there's three ways that I've seen that God grants new vision and helps his people see what he's doing new. And then, not coincidentally, the devil has three temptations or three lies that he attaches to those three things. And we're gonna see throughout scripture, there's three ways that the Lord is trying to lead his people. And then there's three ways often that the devil's trying to whittle away at that. And I recognize that there's a whole bunch more and if Dr. Han were up here, he'd probably break open about 55,000 different ways that sight is used in the Bible. And I'm definitely not him. So we're gonna stick to three, okay? So let's start in Genesis. Decent place to start. Genesis chapter one, verse 31. And also, I will not judge you if you look up these verses on your phone because I'm a millennial and that's what we do. So if that, as long as you don't get distracted, you promise no texting, no Snapchatting, you crazy people, unless you hashtag Stuby18 and then they'll love you forever, okay? All right, Genesis chapter one, verse 31. So this is after God has created everything, right? The heavens and the earth, the fishes and the sea. And he says this, and God saw everything that he had made and behold, it was very good. So right from the beginning, God is giving his vision to us about the way he sees his creation. He saw that and beheld everything he had created. And then prophetically, he speaks out and says what? It was very good. It was very good. So that's, in some ways, the operating vision of our story is that God looks at us in love. He looks at what he's created and says you are very good. That's his vision, fundamentally, to start. But then you go a little further in that chapter and into chapter three, all of a sudden there's a new vision that enters the scene. So we have the scene where the woman with the serpent, right? And of course the serpent begins by trying to immediately cast out as to whether or not what God said was what God said, right? And so there's that whole exchange of did God really say you shall not eat of any tree of the garden and then Eve responds. But then the devil says this, you will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was desired to make one why she took of the fruit and ate it. You see that? She saw it and here's the devil, classic the devil. He takes something that's true and just twists it ever so slightly. And his temptation is not that the tree wasn't good and actually the tree was good and it was a delight to the eyes. But there was that twisting and the key phrase here, the tree and she took of its fruit and ate. God's vision for humanity that was that we were very good and that his plan in some mysterious way was for us, for our eyes to be opened. He wanted to draw us into his heart, in his timing and in his plan and in his providence. But instead of receiving the gift, Eve saw something, caught a different vision and reached out and what? Took it. There's such a fundamental difference there that the Lord is showing us. That vision bestowed and given is beautiful and wonderful. Vision taken does not work. It leads to sin, it leads to death, okay? So that's this fundamental principle and what you're seeing in Eve is she has a desire to know what is good and evil. She has a desire to be like God because God put that in her. It was a gift and the devil saw that goodness in her and then tempted her in it and again she reached out and took it. We have a desire for vision. We have a desire for knowledge. We have a desire for the truth and those are very good things. We want to know what life is supposed to be about. We want to know the future but what often happens instead of trusting our good, good father, instead of trusting the father who loves us and has laid out a gift for us, we grow impatient, right? We wonder if it's gonna happen. And we're like, come on Lord show us. Show us what's supposed to happen. Teach me. And then we just grow so impatient that we just start taking. We just start taking ground for ourselves and whenever we take that posture we actually alien ourselves from the gift of the vision that the Lord has for us, okay? Okay, so let's talk about three ways that the Lord has in his providence chosen to reveal himself and chosen to reveal his vision and what he's doing. Okay, so the first one is in the miraculous, in the kind of whoa, right? In the blow you off your feet type of way or God where heaven meets earth in such a way that a new vision is born. Think about Moses in the burning bush, right? All of a sudden Moses who was going on one path thinking he was doing fine encounters God in this miraculous way and this burning verse that talks about how Moses saw this bush and it's consumed by this fire but it's not burning in and then out of that miraculous whoa moment God shows him a new way. Think about the whole, everything with the Israelites practically is a pillar of fire, pillar of smoke. That is a very dramatic, miraculous way to show where you should go, right? In some ways I think we'd all love a little pillar of fire to lead us around and then during the day it's a pillar of smoke and it's like, wow, I actually know where I'm going. This is wonderful, right? So super miraculous, think about the New Testament. St. Paul, going one way, pretty miraculous and think about the site that's involved with that. He loses his site, miraculously regains his site and now has a new vision for how he's supposed to live. St. Peter, when he's praying on the roof, he's granted this vision of all these animals and the Lord says take and eat. This is a miraculous occurrence. This is not like just a normal thing that's happening and it's in that vision, in that kind of incredibly miraculous moment that Peter catches God's view of the Gentiles and how we are supposed to bring the gospel to them because just right after that, that Cornelius has him over to his house and the Holy Spirit shows up and bada boom bada bing, right? That's biblical language for you. So you can see that there's this theme throughout all of the scripture that God loves to use the miraculous, the extraordinary, often to kind of get our attention. Very often the miraculous is more of like a shake-up moment. It's a, you're going this way and it kind of slap across the face, the spiritual slap, if you will, that then re-orients us and gets us moving in a different direction, okay? So the first is through the miraculous. The second is through prophecy. Turn to Proverbs, let's see, make sure I get this right. Proverbs 29 verse 18. You've probably heard this verse before, kind of quoted a lot where it says without a vision the people perish. A different translation of that. Where there is no prophecy the people cast off restraint but blessed is he who keeps the law. So when we are not operating in the prophetic, when the people are not listening to the voice of God and hearing his call about the state of reality and where we need to go, when we're not operating in that fundamental gifting, you know, St. Paul even talks about it, he desires that all may prophesy. It's part of our inheritance, priest, prophet and king. When we are not walking in our prophetic, we often don't know where we're going. And I mean, it's a pretty strong statement to say without prophecy basically the people perish. Because it's through prophecy, through the Holy Spirit speaking to our hearts and our minds that we begin to see that what reality is really like, the veil is lifted and all of a sudden, oh, now we know who we are, what we're made for and where we're going. Oh, this is actually the truth. And not only the truth in the moment but the truth as to where we're going. One of my favorite stories is when the Israelites come up to the promised land, even that phrase, think about that, the promised land. That's a prophetic phrase. It's a gift, remember, it's a gift. The Lord is giving them this land. Moses sends 12 spies into the promised land. It says, scope it out for us, will you? And they do, you know, they do their whole James Bond thing or whatever they did back in the day, you know? Probably pretty cool. And then they came back and they reported. 10 of them said, no, nope. They're big, they're bad, and they get so, they're so scared of the people who inhabit there that they actually change their report to say like, actually the land is garbage. It doesn't even like grow anything, you know? We don't even want to go there. There is no way we can take this land. There is no way we can take this land by force. Caleb and Joshua, they come back and they're like, what are we waiting for? This land is flowing with milk and honey, and God has already given it to us. It's his gift. We don't have to be afraid. He's already prophetically said, this is your land. I have given it to you. So the two of them are eager to receive the gift the 10 others are thinking about, I don't think we can take it. So what does that lead to? The 10 others and their tribes, pretty much anyone in that age are told prophetically, you will not enter the promised land because you did not believe my word. You did not believe in my gifting. Caleb and Joshua, you will enter because you will receive. That's the power of prophecy right there. Think about another example. John the Baptist, I mean here's a guy who just receives this unbelievable gift from the Lord and then just goes out and prophetically says, prepare the way of the Lord. Prepare, prepare, prepare. And so you can see throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament, the Lord starts to show his people a new vision of not only who they are and where they're going through the prophets. And not only like the prophets with the capital P, but each one of us listening to the spirit. And so if you're feeling stuck, one of the things I would suggest is that you spend a lot of time listening to the Lord and asking for him to prophetically reveal where he wants you to go, okay? And then again, we don't reshout and take it, what do we do? We receive it, okay? Now the third way is through heartbreak, through the Lord breaking something in us, then causing us to see a new way to live and how to kind of resolve the heartbreak. One way I've heard it called is holy discontent. I can't take it anymore, something needs to be done here. And then it's often in that holy discontent, in that heartbreak that the Lord starts to give us little breadcrumbs of clues as to how we can go to resolve the heartbreak within us, okay? Nehemiah, everybody's favorite book, right? Everybody loves Nehemiah. You've probably read it many, many times. So if you're wondering where it is, it's right after Chronicles, okay? So Nehemiah is the cupbearer of the king. So the Israelites have been thrown into exile and he is the cupbearer, which means he's right next to the king all the time and he's in a very privileged but dangerous position because if you think about it, if you hand the king the cup and he gets the runs, he's gonna blame you, right? I mean, so there's a very tricky situation right there. Sorry, I didn't intend on saying that. Oh, you have to forgive me, I'm 30, all right. So Nehemiah, at the beginning of Nehemiah, he hears that the gates of Jerusalem have been destroyed and that the people who have been left behind are scattered and are mocked and are under constant attack and this is his response. So chapter one, verse four. When I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days. I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. When he heard these words, Nehemiah's heart broke. Why did his heart break? Because he was open to it and because God's heart was broken for the situation, he received the heartbreak of God in that moment. And then what did he do? He wept and he fasted and he prayed and he sat in it and he let that holy discontent just stir in him. That was not something he was searching for, okay? He was not looking for heartbreak. I don't know of anyone who's looking for heartbreak, right? Nobody's looking for it. I would really love to be discontent right now. I would just love to be all stirred up. Wouldn't that be wonderful, yeah? No, that's not what we're looking for but God in different seasons of our life takes a piece of what his heart is breaking for and implants it into ours so that we can continue his work but the response has to be weeping, fasting, mourning, sitting and praying. Not rejection, not immediately trying to make it work, just receiving this heartbreak because then it inspires him to do really ridiculous things. He goes to this king who has conquered this people who has laid waste to their country and says, oh, mighty king, I need time off and I need money and I need men and I need supplies and we're gonna go to the land that you conquered and we're gonna strengthen it. We're gonna build up the city that you had conquered and make it strong again. What do you think? You know, that does not fly. That makes absolutely no sense but it makes sense because this is what God wanted. And the king says, okay, how much time do you need? How much men do you need? How much time off do you need? You're gonna make it strong? Okay, we'll make it strong, you know? Go, go do it. And Nehemiah comes back, builds up the city and then Ezra and Nehemiah are the ones who are able to bring the law back to the people, right? And God's plan is accomplished. The heartbreak that was in God for his people who were wandering and who didn't know him, who were unprotected, who were being mocked. His name was being mocked because his people were being mocked. His heartbreak over that was instilled in a man who was willing to receive it and that man then had the courage after weeping and fasting and praying to go do something about it. I don't know about you but I don't do a lot of weeping for what breaks the heart of God. And as I've been thinking about that, that actually breaks my heart. If I claim to know Jesus and to be his friend and to love him, then why am I not distraught over the things that he is? Because if my best friend's father dies, I weep with him. You know, when my wife is upset, I absolutely weep with her, you know? But why is it different for the Lord? And he tells us in his scripture what breaks his heart. He stands over Jerusalem at one point and weeps over the city because they don't know him because they're rejecting him. Jesus weeps when people reject the life and the truth and the goodness and the beauty and the plan and the vision that he has for them. Does that break our hearts? And if not, again, we don't want to reach out and take it but we absolutely want to be in a state of prayer to say, Lord, go ahead, break my heart for what breaks yours. Okay, so the miraculous, the prophetic and the heartbreak. So the devil doesn't like that too much because whenever God's people get a vision and receive that vision, he gets destroyed, right? So he doesn't want to do that. And so in the temptation of Christ, as I was reading, after he receives a new vision for his life in a particular way after going in the desert and fasting for 40 days, right? Jesus has tempted three different times and it's amazing. These temptations almost directly line up with the three things I just said. It's unbelievable. I mean, I shouldn't be surprised, I mean, the scripture, but it's absolutely amazing. Jesus goes off into the desert right before he begins his ministry, this new path that he's on, right? And the Lord, I'm sure in that time, was just receiving all sorts of grace and insight and just receiving what his father had for him and what he needed to do. And so he comes out of that time and the devil immediately attacks in these three areas. The first one is this, he's hungry. So he attacks the miraculous. He says, turn these stones into bread. That would be a miraculous thing, right? He's saying, turn these stones into bread. And Jesus said, you know, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God, God's vision, okay? Then he takes him on top of the temple and says, jump off, because it is written. It has been prophesied. He takes a prophecy and throws it at Jesus. His angels will stand guard to protect him lest he dashes his foot against the stone. Jesus throws prophecy right back at him, you know? You shall not tempt the Lord your God. So okay, the first one, the miraculous temptation. Second one, prophetic temptation. Third one, takes him to the high place, shows him all the kingdoms of the world, right? And tries to go after his pride, which ultimately is he's going after his identity. And why this is important is he's saying, he knows if he can shake the identity, especially when it's tied to pride, when we are not strong in our identity, if we are not secure in our identity as sons and daughters of the king, we will never have heartbreak for what the king desires. If our identity is not strong and firm in him, then his heart will never be able to enter ours and break it. And so the devil in whatever wisdom he has or whatever insight he has, is trying to erode Jesus' identity so that he will not be able to accomplish his mission, which his mission is about seeking and saving the lost because his heart is broken to seek and save the lost. You see that? And so what the devil's gonna come after you is he's going to try to eliminate the possibility of the miraculous because he's gonna try to convince us that it won't happen to us, that it's not for our time and place, that miraculous things don't happen, so he's gonna try to take that one off the table completely. Then he's gonna try to take prophetic words, the scriptures, and he's gonna try to twist them ever so slightly to his game, so we start to actually doubt them. He wants to twist it so we doubt it or we try to take it, remember? It's back to that taking thing. He's gonna twist the promises of scripture and invite us to then take the promises instead of receive them, so he's gonna go after the prophetic, and then he's gonna go after our identity. He's gonna erode your identity, he's gonna chip away, did God really say that? Are you really a son or daughter of God? You're not lovable, you're garbage, you're not good? I mean, you and I both know what you did last week. You and I both know how you spoke to your kids. You and I both know how you and your husband spoke to folk about your kids. We know what you did with your friends Friday night. You're not lovable, you're not a child of God. And when we don't resist that temptation, he whittles away at our identity, he whittles away, we become more ironically more proud and introverted and focused, navel gazing, you know, trying to figure out what's going on. And when that happens, the pride, the self-centeredness, the fear, the uncertainty, all that becomes a barrier to our identity in Christ, and therefore the heartbreak and the vision and the mission that he has for us. You with me? Good, okay, I'd like to tell a little story. So about four years ago, I got a call from my dad. He said, hey, I wanna go out to lunch with you. I said, great, we went out to lunch on a very regular basis. He was my best friend, pretty much a daily phone call, he and I. And we're sitting across the table at each other and there's something different in his eyes. There's just like this fire, there's something going on. I'm going, and he's like 60, let's see, 61 at this point. I said, dad, what's happening? And he said, Pete, I don't know how to describe it, but about a year ago, I felt very convicted that I was no longer living in the power of the Holy Spirit as I had in my youth. And this is an example of he was not dwelling in the past, but he noticed the past to inform his future. Consider not the things of the past, look, I'm doing something new. It doesn't mean we completely ignore what happened behind, but we don't dwell on it, we don't reach for it, and we don't pine for it. We let it inform where we're going, okay? And so he was saying, you know, I remember he's like, in my early 20s, 30s, when I first baptized in the Spirit, I was just super evangelistic, Pete, and I was trying to show the gospel with everybody, and it's not to say that he hadn't been living a very faithful life, he had raised my brother and I in the faith, and he was still one of the most evangelistic men I know, so I was kind of surprised that he was kind of evaluating himself this way. But he was just saying, I wasn't fully open to the power of the Holy Spirit, and he was reading some of the popes, and he was reading different things, and just felt very convicted that he needed to start praying, come Holy Spirit every day, come Holy Spirit, and praying more in the Spirit, and worshiping more in the Spirit, and just letting the Spirit fill his heart with power, fill his heart with courage, fill his heart with even just conviction as to where he goes. He had no idea what was gonna happen, he just knew that this is what God wanted him to do. So God speaks to him in a prophetic way and says, you need more of the Spirit. Fast forward a few months, and all of a sudden he's finding this incredible wound opening up in his heart, for his nieces and his nephews, for the kind of the young people in his life who had been raised in the faith, and who by and large were no longer living it. And all of a sudden he found himself actually weeping for their salvation. He found himself crying and mourning and being heartbroken over the state of his nieces and nephews. And he sat me down that day and kind of was like, what do we do about this? Like, what is this? I said, I don't know, but this is beautiful, dad. Like, this is, God is doing something in you, okay? God was drawing him back into the game. My dad was an excellent bench player. He was an encourager. He wore all the white things, but he had found himself on the bench and through the power of the Holy Spirit and through some heartbreak, God was saying, come back into the game. I have great use for you. The harvest is plentiful. You're gonna be a laborer, come on. And so what I started to see in him, he didn't do anything like super duper dramatic. He just started inviting his nieces and nephews out for coffee, he'd send them little emails, and he would just spend a tremendous amount of time just asking them questions and getting to know them. And then he would just start to kind of weasel the gospel in there every little bit and wait for the right opportunity. Weasel's probably not the right word. In the anointing of the Spirit, strategically preach the gospel into those situations. And he just started building relationships and I just started to see something happen. Fast forwarded about another year or two, I get a phone call from him. The phone call, none of us ever wanna get. But I'm sure many of you can relate to. He said, Pete, I don't know how to tell you this, but I have cancer. And it was an extremely rare form of cancer. Only 50 people in the country get it every year. And they had eight words in it because they couldn't figure out what it was. So they just kept adding adjectives to it. And so he went from a 63 year old, healthy, didn't smoke, didn't drink, worked out every day, small business owner, totally in the game. In about a calendar year, I found myself sitting next to his bed, looking at the man I love the most in the world, covered in these grotesque purple sores, having lost close to 100 pounds, and holding his hand as he went to be with Jesus. And his whole family was around him and he had persevered to the end. He had received a new vision. This was one of the most powerful things. The Easter before he died was the hardest day of his life when all of a sudden he was stripped of all attachments to this world and the Lord gave him a new vision for heaven. And he started pursuing it. But in that moment, as I'm holding his hand, as he is leaving, and we're cheering him on, we're saying, go dad, go be with Jesus. Go be with the one you love. When he died, this is God's honest truth, when he died, my overwhelming emotion experience was joy. It was joy. I was weeping. I was deeply saddened, but I was joyful. Why? Because this man loved Jesus Christ. This man had gotten into the game and I had seen him be faithful for decades, but I had seen a fresh springtime of the Holy Spirit erupt in him and a fresh fruitfulness in God's mission where he had been on the bench and he had entered the game at different points, but he had gone all in with Jesus before he got the cancer. And then when the cancer hit and God said, actually I have a different plan for you, you're gonna be more fruitful where you're going. When that happened, he was able to just run fullheartedly to the one he loved the most, to Jesus. And so I couldn't be upset. I was just so happy for him. I was like, you did it. You fought the good fight. You finished the race. The prize of everlasting glory is for you. And in many ways, my joy was able to be kind of complete in him because of the transformation that I saw the previous couple of years, because of his openness to receive a new vision, because of his openness to hear the voice of the Lord, to let his heart be broken and then to walk forward in some ways in a miraculous way into the lives of the people to whom he was sent. I mean, he kind of had an unfair advantage. I mean, who are you gonna say no to? They're like, hey, I'm dying of cancer. Let's get coffee. And they're like, yes, Uncle Chris, okay, you know? And then he sit down. I don't have a lot of time. So I know I've asked you a lot of questions, but I'm gonna tell you what I think now. Okay, Uncle Chris, you know? And he just preached the gospel. And so wherever you are with the Lord, whether you've got a lot of hair, no hair, gray hair, brown hair, whatever you've got, wherever you are, however long you've been walking, today can be a day where you start in a new vision, in a new fruitfulness, in a new anointing for where the Lord is sending you. Consider not the past. See I'm doing something new. And don't take it. Don't reach for it. Let it happen to you. Be wide open to it. Receive it. Because ultimately, the one who grants vision, the one who makes things miraculous, the one who breaks our heart is Jesus. I am the way of the truth and the life. He's the one who reveals the Father. He's the one to show us where we're going, the things that need to change in our hearts. And if we're his disciples, which basically means there's where he's going, I'm gonna follow him. It's almost the simplest definition of a disciple. What's my master doing? Okay, I'm gonna do it with him. What's he doing? I wanna do it too. And another kind of gut check question is, what is God saying and what are you doing about it? What is God saying and what are you doing about it? So today, this morning, as we go throughout the day, let's just be wide open to receive, to receive, to receive whatever vision, whatever purpose, whatever new sight that the Lord wants to give you. And I promise, if we are open the rest of this weekend, we will see miracles, we will hear prophecy and there will be heartbreak. Are you in? Yes. All right, let's close our eyes. Let's just ask the Lord. Where, actually, better way to put it. Just ask yourself, am I open to the miraculous? Am I open to God acting miraculously in my life? Am I open to dramatic movement of the spirit? Am I open to the Lord breaking through the monotony of my life and the normalcy in let heaven meet earth? Am I open to that? Now ask yourself, am I open to prophecy? Are my ears open to the voice of God? Am I open to hearing a new word, a word that may change me, a word that may challenge me, a word that may put me on a new path? Am I open to letting God speak prophetically in my life? And finally, is my heart broken? Do I have heartbreak? Do I mourn for the things that cause the Lord pain? Do I mourn for the souls in my life? Am I willing to be wounded for the gospel? Am I willing to be wounded for the salvation of my friends and family? Am I willing to have my heart broken in pursuit of the Lord and the pursuit of souls? Now Lord Jesus, I just ask, in this silence and in this moment that your spirit would come in great power, that you would move in signs and wonders to confirm your truth, to reveal how present you are, how good you are, how gracious you are. Lord, I pray that you would begin to speak to us in a new way, that you would give people courage to not only hear your word, but to say it out loud, to share it with the group the rest of the time, to share it with their neighbor. Lord, speak prophetically at this conference. Hey Lord, if we can't hear your voice, who can? So speak Lord, your servants are listening. And Lord Jesus, break us, break our hearts. Draw us deeper into your sacred heart, a heart that is pierced for love of the world. Let our hearts be pierced as well. Come Holy Spirit, come Holy Spirit.