Welcome to the Lansdale Life Church podcast.
If you're seeking a closer relationship with Jesus Christ, this podcast is for you.
Thank you for joining us today.
So, if you can open up your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 2, and we're only really looking at one verse.
And I'm really excited about what the Lord's been showing me in these scriptures, and so let's pray.
Father God, Lord, we want your will done in our lives.
Lord God, we want to be part of your will.
We want to be ambassadors of your will.
Lord God, we want to be used by you, Lord God.
Only you truly know us, Lord.
And so, Lord, we ask you to speak to us this morning through your word and in your spirit that we can all glean exactly what we're meant to have here.
Lord God, we ask you to just scrape away any bias or predisposition to what we think of these concepts, and instead just receive them fresh and new, Lord God.
Because we know this is your will for our lives, that we would walk in these things.
And so, we ask you for this in Jesus' name, Amen.
So, as I shared last week, I don't even know how much I'll get through signs and wonders, miracles, and gifts today.
I perhaps will get all the way through it, but it's really important to really grasp these things.
Last week, we talked about signs and wonders.
And if you can recall, the wonders were really things that happened that are illogical.
They're, I guess, paranormal, supernatural.
These wonders, you can't explain them, but they always carry with them a sign.
Remember we said that?
Like every time you see a wonder, there's always a sign with it.
And these signs are usually pointing to something even more significant.
And we went through examples of this where something happened that was magnificent, but Christ was actually pointing to something even greater, right?
And then other things that seem more subtle, you know?
I was thinking this morning about how, do you remember when Philip went and got Nathan and said,
I think we have found the guy that Moses was always talking about, Jesus of Nazareth.
And Nathan's like, what good can come out of Nazareth?
I mean, he can't be anybody special, right?
And so, as he comes towards Christ, he sees him, and he says,
here he is, an Israelite beyond compare a man who is righteous and zealous for the Lord.
You know, I'm paraphrasing.
And Nathan said, you know me, you know?
He says, I watched you under the fig tree.
Now, this fig tree wouldn't have been right nearby.
The Lord was seeing him in a vision, how he was studying the word, which would be normal in that culture
and to be in the shade underneath a fig tree, reading the word.
It was something that Nathan was shocked that Jesus had seen him there.
He goes, certainly you are the son of God, you know?
And he's like, you believe me just because I said, I saw you.
You're going to see greater things than these, right?
You're going to see angels ascending and descending upon the son of man.
That's me.
So him stating to Nathan, I saw you was the wonder, like, wow.
But the sign was you're going to see even more things than this.
Do you know what I mean?
It's even more significant.
And so that's the idea of signs and wonders.
I believe he's always planting those things in our lives to show us that he is real.
He is very involved in your life.
And he's always reminding you that he has a significant plan for your life, you know?
So those are the signs and wonders.
But now we're going to shift towards miracles.
And miracles are much more abundant in the New Testament.
You can read the word for miracles, dunamis, 120 times in the New Testament.
It's just miracles are everywhere.
But it's also because miracles are not just some significant thing happening.
It's a broad definition of the power of God.
In fact, miracles equal power.
It's the same word in Greek, dunamis.
It's power.
So miracles are power.
And that's what the Lord wants us to realize that we have his power upon us and in us.
Do you remember when Jesus was preparing his disciples for when he would ascend to heaven?
And he said in Luke 24, 49, he said, behold, I send you the promise of my Father upon you.
But tarry, it means wait in the city until you are in due.
That means clothed with power, dunamis, miracles.
You will be clothed with miracles from on high.
And so he was preparing them, don't do anything until you are empowered with these miracles.
And then even before, well, and then that happened in Acts 1, verse 8,
we read again that he was saying, but you shall receive power
when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem
and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.
And so we're reading in Hebrews chapter 2, how the Lord is saying,
don't neglect your salvation, your great salvation,
which the Lord proved through miracles, signs, wonders, and gifts of the Spirit.
Well, he's still doing that today, but he's doing it through his body,
which is us.
We are the body of Christ.
He still wants to be pouring out the signs and wonders and miracles
and gifts of the Spirit through us, if not us, then who?
Now he's going to do amazing things and the Lord doesn't need humans to carry out his will,
but he certainly likes to use us, doesn't he?
I mean, this is his whole design, that greater things will you do than these
when you are empowered from on high.
And so this is the idea that he wants to empower us.
When Jesus, even before his ascension,
when Jesus was preparing the 12 disciples, he said, I'm going to send you out.
And in Luke 9, we read that you will receive power.
He called the 12 together and gave them power and authority over all demons
and to cure diseases.
So he gave them this dunamis, the miracles.
And then in Luke 10, when he sent the 70, he did the same thing.
He said, I'm going to endure you with power
to do the things that I will do when I get there.
So prepare, let them show them what I am like.
And he's still doing that today, isn't he?
So when you look at the word dunamis, you know, miracles equal power,
the word dunamis, does it remind you of an English word?
You've probably heard this before, right?
Dynamite, dynamite, I can't help.
Every time I think of dynamite, those of you people who are around my age
of the 70s, right, good times, dynamite, right?
J.J.J., I don't know if any of you know.
Anybody who's underneath the age of 50, doesn't know what I'm talking about,
but they were some funny shows.
I love J.J., right?
But that was his thing, always dynamite, right?
But I can't think of this dynamite.
Really, when you read dunamis, it's where we get dynamite
because dynamite is powerful, isn't it?
We lived near a quarry in our previous house
and sometimes you could feel the earth, like you're just sitting,
I remember one time I was hunting in a field with Jake
and we're waiting for geese, I know you animal lovers, sorry,
but we're waiting for geese to come down
and all of a sudden we felt boom, like the whole earth shaking.
Now this is a quarry that's miles away
and yet still you feel the earth shaking from the power of dynamite, right?
Because dynamite blows up things, doesn't it?
Dynamite is power for destroying things.
And you know, the Apostle John, when he wrote in his first letter,
he says, that's why the Lord came to destroy the work of the enemy.
You know, the Lord wants to tear down all the strongholds of the enemy, doesn't he?
When he went into that temple, you know, we have this picture of Jesus
just being sometimes like, no, I'm just gonna say it,
a lot of these portrayals of Jesus makes him have to be meek and weak.
He was powerful, he was power, right?
And when he went into that temple, he said, what is this?
No, no, no, no, no, what did he do?
He turned over the tables, he chased them out of the temple.
You're not gonna do this in my father's house.
He wants to tear down the work of the enemy, right?
And now that he's in heaven, our chief navigator, right?
He's guiding us to do the same things.
I love what Paul wrote to the Corinthians when he said,
in second Corinthians 10, he said, although we walk in the flesh,
we do not war according to the flesh.
For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal.
That means fleshy, but mighty, and that's dunatos, or dunatos,
that's actually a version of dynamite,
mighty in God for pulling down strongholds,
casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself
against the knowledge of God,
bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ
and being ready to punish all disobedience
when your obedience is fulfilled.
So if we are obeying what the Lord's telling us to do,
we are invincible.
I mean, that's what that says.
We can punish the spiritual realm that is defying God's truth.
I believe that about me, I don't know about you,
but I believe that when I am confident in who I am in Christ,
I don't care what's in that.
I just feel like God's going to do whatever he wants to do right now in me,
and I am nothing.
I'm just a tent, but he's going to accomplish what he wants to accomplish.
I mean, it's significant what he can do.
He's always trying to tear down those strongholds, okay?
I can't help but think, and don't get mad at me for tying in a little bit of news,
but there was a recent explosion in the Middle East, okay?
And it was bombs that were designed to take out a greater threat, was it not?
If we believe the news, I believe hopefully this is all accurate, right?
But these are nukes that we're going to eventually be using as innocent people, right?
But what happened?
We took them out.
We obliterated them or whatever we want to say.
In the same way, the Lord is blowing up the enemy's design for evil in our lives.
He still tears down things, doesn't he?
You know, the enemy is always trying to build walls between us and God.
He's always trying to build up addictions in our bodies.
He's always trying to build up distractions, lust, whatever it is.
He's trying to build those things into our lives so that we avoid God.
But what is God trying to do?
He's trying to destroy those things so that we can have free access to Him.
He's trying to tear down those walls.
You know, I know, I just was thinking a lot this morning about these different things,
clips in the news, but, you know, when Reagan said,
Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.
I mean, once it was torn down, there was a lot of freedom, was there not?
And I believe the Lord wants to do that in you and I.
He wants to tear down the walls that the enemy is building up in our psyche, in our hearts.
You know, that callousness of our hearts towards God.
The Lord just wants to blow it up.
He wants to destroy the work.
But He also wants to build things up.
That's the power of God, right?
He also wants to build.
When you think of what believers have done in this world,
I mean, magnificent things in the far reaches of the world,
building hospitals, building universities,
building all these things for the betterment of society.
Now, granted, sometimes the enemy has regained control of those things,
which is very sad.
Some of the things, these organizations, you realize they used to be Christian.
Wow.
Like how far they've fallen, you know?
But that wasn't God's fault, okay?
The power of God built those things.
What happened is people surrendered them again to the enemy, right?
In many cases.
And so this is what the Lord wants to do.
He wants to be powerful in your life.
He wants to transform our life.
He wants to cast out addiction.
He wants to cast out sickness.
He wants to cast out whatever is warring against the Lord.
But He also wants to impute His greatness into us.
And so we are these ambassadors of this dunamis power, amen?
That's what He wants to do in our lives, is to transform our lives.
He wants to build up your bank account.
Now, I say that sounds like prosperity preaching.
No.
No, He doesn't want you to be enslaved to debt.
He doesn't want you to be enslaved to economics of this world.
We're supposed to be the head, not the tail, right?
And so He wants to empower your life, not to leave you meek and weak.
Now, I'm not saying there won't be times where He's teaching us things through those trials.
You know, like Paul said, you know, I know what it is to abound,
and I know what it means to be a based,
but I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
You know, Paul himself knew there were some good times there,
but there's been some bad times.
But guess what?
I can thrive in all times, right?
So He's always trying to cause you not just to survive, but to thrive, amen?
And so that's really what He wants to do in our lives.
And so let's read this one verse and then move on.
So remember, the Lord is telling us,
don't neglect that great salvation, which was proven to you.
And in verse four, Hebrews chapter two,
God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders.
We talked about that with various miracles.
And we talked about these miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit
according to His own will, the gifts of the Spirit.
So we're going to talk about this, probably won't dedicate enough time to it.
Who knows?
Maybe we'll loop back around next week.
But these gifts of the Holy Spirit, you know,
we're a charismatic church, a Calvary chapel.
That means if you take Baptist and Pentecost and squeeze them together,
that's kind of what we are, kind of a merger.
Because we believe all the gifts of the Spirit are for today.
And we believe that the saints are called to walk in these gifts,
whether we're all going to possess all of them.
You know, it alludes in Scripture that Paul says, do all do this, do all do that.
We're not going to try to decipher that.
What we're going to say is perhaps we have a lot of them.
And perhaps we have a lot of them that we don't even realize we have, right?
And so the gifts of the Spirit.
And so when Paul was writing about this, and you got to remember Paul,
I mean, signs, wonders, miracles, gifts were just exploding out of him, right?
I mean, he was just manifesting these things.
But that's not what captivated his heart.
Salvations did.
Seeing new churches born, seeing disciples of Christ,
that's what turned him on.
Seeing somebody healed, well, yeah, that's a part for the course.
That's to be expected.
But that's not what this is all about.
It's to glorify Jesus Christ, right?
And so when Paul was writing to the Corinthians church,
which was remember a Gentile church, he said,
listen, I want to warn you guys, because remember, they were idolaters, okay?
Like, they loved creating things they could worship.
They loved worshiping lots of different Gods,
because anything that seemed special or unique,
they wanted to worship it.
It's just paganistic, right?
And so, or polytheistic.
And so they got enamored by different things.
So he was warning them.
He was saying, wait, I'm trying to warn you here, okay?
Though you're going to see great things,
don't get caught away with the actually manifestations of the gifts.
Instead, be caught up with enamoration for the giver of the gifts, right?
Which is Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, right?
And so he said in 1 Corinthians, chapter 12, verses 1 and 2, he says,
now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant.
You know that you were Gentiles carried away to these dumb idols,
however you were led.
So he said, listen, don't get caught up in the sensational things of the gifts.
Expect them to be happening, but get caught up in the giver of the gifts, right?
Remember when Simon the sorcerer was in Samaria,
and he saw like Peter laying hands,
people were just like erupting in the tongues of the spirit,
and Simon is watching, and he was a believer.
But he's watching and he's like saying,
I remember when I had all this control over these people.
I wish I had that. I wish I could do this.
But he craved it for himself, right?
And then he said, listen, can I give you some money for this gifting?
And remember what Peter said?
Your money, and I'm going to paraphrase,
but he basically warned him severely that he is in jeopardy of his own salvation
because of getting caught away with the lure of power over people,
of attention, you know?
Because he knew Simon's heart was to be special to the people,
to be a ruler of the people once again,
but in the name of Jesus, you know?
Many ministers still do that in congregations.
They want to have that magnetism over the people
instead of pointing to Jesus, right?
So he's warning them about this.
You know, even remember Ananias and Sapphira, was it?
When they said, yeah, we sold this land for this amount,
and they came up and they're strutting up,
yeah, yeah, I'm giving it all away.
And like, is this really what you got for the land?
Oh yeah, that's all of it.
Boom.
The Lord took them out, right?
As a sign in wonder, but also as saying, look,
don't make this about you, okay?
So it's a warning.
So Paul's warning them, but then he gets into the gifts of the Spirit.
And we read this, 1 Corinthians 12, 7 to 10 and 28.
He says, but the manifestation of the Spirit
is given to each one for the prophet of all,
word of wisdom, and I'm summarizing them here,
knowledge, faith, healings, miracles,
which we were just talking about, prophecy,
discerning of spirits, tongues,
interpretation of tongues, helps, and administrations.
Now, just look at those for a minute.
When you look at those,
which things do you wish you had the most of?
Jesse says administrations.
I kind of doubt that, okay?
But let me tell you something.
I love administrations, okay?
Because I know it's something that I'm not natural at, you know?
And the Lord has been helping me in those areas.
I'm building in administrations.
I'm getting better.
But you know when you notice the organization you're in
or the group you're in has no administration?
It's when you don't have it.
It's a mess, right?
It's not run right.
Administration is a valuable gift of the Spirit.
It truly is.
And I believe when Paul was saying to Timothy,
look, you remember the gifts that we laid on you?
Okay, don't neglect them, okay?
I think he was saying the teaching and the administration
because he was in charge of a lot of things, right?
I value administrations.
Some people think, oh, it's so behind the scenes.
It's not sensational.
It's valuable to anybody to know.
You know, the brain is our administration, right?
I mean, thank God for the brain
or else we wouldn't be operating correctly, right?
So administrations helps.
You know, I love the fact that believers are so quick
to pour at and give
and really give in such significant ways
to the least of these.
Remember Jesus said, when you did it for them,
you did it for me.
I mean, those are gifts of the Spirit.
We shouldn't yawn at those things, okay,
just because they seem less sensational.
But we also shouldn't assume this is what I do.
Maybe there's more.
Maybe there's more, right?
I'm kind of seem to be working backwards,
but tongues, interpretation.
I don't interpret tongues.
I don't.
Maybe you do.
But I pray in tongues.
And what's interesting sometimes
when someone's praying,
you ever hear a prayer and you're like,
yes, man, yeah.
And you just like,
and you just something inside you is like screaming amen,
but very quietly, right?
And as you're hearing the prayer,
I just start praying in tongues,
but not loud,
because I know how people get all bent out of shape with,
wait, man, shouldn't there be an interpreter here?
So, but quietly, I just pray because,
and I don't even think about it.
I don't even realize I'm doing it.
I'm like, wow, something's resonating
in here in my spirit, you know?
I think praying in tongues is amazing.
And I really, and you know what?
No one taught me how to do it.
I heard a pastor one time saying,
you know, there's no right and wrong way to go
into your closet, lay on your face,
and just start praying.
Just say, Lord, I'm tired of my own English language.
I'm tired of the way I keep giving you
this Christmas list of the once.
Instead, Lord, I want you to pray through me.
You know, the spirit just yearns
and groans within you.
And suddenly, as you're laying on your face,
just praying, you start thinking of things
that you haven't thought of in days or weeks.
You're like, wow, I guess this is
what I'm praying about right now.
And you're praying, and you're seeing this real.
I don't know if you've ever done it.
Can I get an amen, somebody?
You know, you're looking at me like I'm an alien.
I hope not, but no, really.
Just give it a try.
I was telling someone who just went through
a significant experience recently,
and as they were telling me, I'm like, you know what?
Just start praying in tongues.
Well, I don't know.
Just start doing it.
Just go alone in a quiet place
and just say, Lord, if you want me to do this,
I want to connect with you in this spiritual way.
And perhaps the Lord wants to do this with you
because there's a connection,
because we can keep talking to God
and feel like we're just telling him things
rather than let him pray through us, you know?
And so the tongues, and there are, actually,
John Bevere has an amazing video series
on the different kinds of tongues,
and he says that there's four different kinds,
and I could definitely see that in Scripture laid out,
but different kinds of tongues and so forth.
But discerning of spirit, I mean, that's significant.
Identifying what is actually happening here, you know?
And not to get into all different examples,
but there's times when you can even be in a church environment
where you're saying, this doesn't feel like God, you know?
This doesn't feel right, okay?
There's something off, you know?
And perhaps it is, perhaps it isn't,
but then you have to navigate through that
because just because I think I'm right
doesn't mean I am.
So now you have to kind of discern
and then you have to navigate
because just because you are right
doesn't mean the person that you're going to talk to thinks you're right.
So then you have to navigate that too, right?
How do I sensitively deal with this subject of spirits?
But it's important to be in tune with the spiritual realm.
Also so that we can discern, hey, it's time to cast this thing out, right?
When it doesn't belong there.
And it's amazing how when you talk to someone,
they start off with what they think is the problem
and the longer you talk to them, it gets deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper,
and all of a sudden it comes down to them being molested as a child,
it comes down to them being neglected,
it comes down to all these other deep rooted things
that you're like, well,
your problem isn't the problem you think there is.
It goes far deeper, you know, the discerning of spirits.
But we have this capability.
We really do, you do.
It's really just asking the Lord, reveal this to me,
help me discern these things.
So why?
For the prophet of all to love people,
which we're gonna get into in a minute.
And then again, miracles, you know,
the Lord moving in power through you.
I don't know if you've ever been involved with deliverance,
but I'm telling you, it's like, it's not this like sensational,
like, you know, head spinning around.
It can be very subtle and very quiet until it's coming out,
until someone is vomiting, until someone is,
but like realizing that like,
I am who God chose to be in this place at this time to do this.
It's not as a matter of whether I'm confident in myself,
I'm confident in Christ.
I know what he wants to do right here, right now.
You know, it's believing him in you.
It's not trusting yourself.
It's trusting the power of God within you.
And then healing, you're laying hands,
you know, definitely get in the habit of laying hands
on people who are sick immediately.
I'm telling you, you know how many times you say,
oh, yeah, I have this issue or so, I'll pray for you.
As soon as you walk away, no, you won't.
I'm just saying probably, okay.
Unless you write it down, put it in your phone,
or you have a list, you'll forget.
Because you know how many people are asking you to pray
for them in a day?
Probably a lot, right?
Or people that you know you should be.
But the first thing you do is lay hands on them there
and just pray for whatever the situation is.
Because we need to be a house of laying hands on one another
and praying and believing that the Lord is moving through us.
I don't want to go there, it's too long.
But anyway, so does that make sense?
Healing, faith, you know what's interesting?
Faith is an interesting thing.
Because faith, the word says that we all have
a measure of faith.
That means everyone has the capacity to believe in God.
That's what I do believe that.
Like otherwise, God has designed people not to believe in Him.
I mean, that's kind of Calvinistic and it's a harsh God.
He doesn't want everyone to go to heaven.
The word says the opposite, right?
He wants none to perish, right?
So I believe that He doesn't design people for damnation, right?
He wants everyone to call upon Him, right?
Everyone has a measure of faith, a capacity to believe.
So it's something organic, right?
But then, okay, when we exercise our faith now
in terms of believing in Christ,
now the Holy Spirit anoints that faith.
Now it's a supernatural faith.
Now it's a spiritual faith.
He just gave you more faith, right?
And now we can actually believe like we've never believed before.
And the longer we go in walking out our faith,
the more you believe, you believe, you believe, right?
It's just like, how can I not believe?
I believe there's a wonder working God.
I don't know how that song goes, but it's a good song.
But like I believe because I've seen it again and again
and again, don't you believe that way?
The longer you walk in faith, you can't not believe.
You've seen too much evidence of your faith, right?
But then it doesn't stop there.
The word actually says you can add to your faith.
You can actually build up your faith.
So that actually in 2 Peter chapter one,
it talks about building up your faith.
So faith is a complex thing.
But what I do know is that the longer you walk in it,
the more you add to it, the stronger it gets.
And the more you believe, the more you receive.
That's the truth.
The more you see the conquering power of God
working through your life and knowledge and wisdom.
It's interesting, wisdom being the first gift mentioned.
I believe wisdom is important for all of the gifts
because sometimes and I've experienced as people
who have a gift, but they don't yet have the wisdom to walk in it.
They need it.
They need somebody to help the mentor them
because they can in a sense move in something
that they're not mature enough to handle
and it can go sideways.
It can get a little messed up.
And so it's important for if they're gifted for something,
for someone to come alongside them and say,
hey, let's do this together.
Like for instance, it was a young man.
He was, I love them.
He was so on fire for the Lord.
And he had so much faith that everyone,
he could lay hands on anyone.
They'd be saved and praise God.
But like he would walk up to people
and he would say, hey, can I pray for you?
And like, no thanks, no thanks.
And they're walking.
No, really.
And he would be chasing them down the street.
And I'm like, you know,
maybe they're not ready to receive
what you're trying to give them.
Like I don't know that you see Christ doing that.
Like running, please, please let me gird my loins.
Please let me heal you.
No, it was they came to him, right?
You know, that's not necessarily maturity
but he still had so much zeal.
I'm like, just slow down.
Don't you think they should want this from God
before they receive it?
You can't force things.
You know, Christ was not a forceful master
that made people be delivered.
They came to him, right?
And so anyway, that's a side note.
But so those are the gifts of the spirit.
But remember, it's for all of us.
We're all members of the body.
And Paul goes on in 1 Corinthians 12 verse 11.
He says, but one and the same spirit works,
all things, all these things,
distributing to each one individually as he wills.
So we don't need to be envious
if someone is manifesting a gift thing
that we say, man, I wish I had that.
I wish I had that.
Because then all of a sudden,
it's like a competitive spirit, right?
And it's a judgmental spirit, you know?
And then all of a sudden we could see things in the flesh
like, oh, look at the way they're carrying on.
You know, it just becomes judgmental.
You know what's interesting?
I read something that Chuck Smith,
who was the founder of Calvary Chapel,
and he was just such a tender guy.
You know, he really was just a loving guy
and super humble.
And he wrote about how he was at this church meeting,
and these young people just came.
This was in the 70s, you know, the Jesus revolution.
And these young kids just came from a healing conference
or a healing service with Katherine Coleman.
Did you ever hear that name, Katherine Coleman, right?
And if you watch videos of her,
I mean, she was unusual, you know,
just the way she moved.
I think she floated.
I think she really went, yeah.
And she had this show, I, what is it?
I expect a miracle or something about a miracle.
And she would just be, and she was very theatrical
and very, very animated to watch.
So anyway, so they came and they said,
yes, someone so just got healed, you know,
at Katherine Coleman.
And Chuck Smith was so transparent.
He says, when I heard that, I was like jealous.
Like, Lord, why don't you give me that gift?
You know, for him to say this,
this is the founder really of a movement
that has now 2,000 churches around the world.
Lord, why couldn't you give that to me?
And the Lord spoke to me, he says, you know what?
I gave her that.
And I gave you teaching the word.
I give people things that I want them to have
because I know they're going to be good stewards of it.
Don't be jealous.
And when I read, I'm like, that's so,
that is so transparent, you know?
And he just embraced her.
They were on TV shows together all the time
and interviewed and so forth.
But it's like, we don't have to envy someone else's gift.
We can celebrate it and say,
hey, how can I glean from this?
What can I, maybe this is for me too, right?
And so these gifts of the Spirit
are for all of us, aren't they?
And then in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, it gets into,
it's all about love, right?
It's all about love.
If you try to do these things in your own strength,
you know, like chasing a guy down the street,
maybe it's like a clanging symbol, okay?
Remember that?
If you read 1 Corinthians 13, it's all about love.
Like everything we do is to be showing people
that Christ loves them.
If he's healing them, if he's delivering them,
whatever he's doing, it's because he loves them.
He wants a better life for them.
There's times when a situation arises,
I'm thinking, yeah, I really don't, in my spirit,
feel like I have the faith for this right now,
whatever the reason is.
I'll go grab someone who I know does.
And you might say, hey, that sounds like,
you should be the guy.
If I don't feel like I'm connected in this situation,
I'm not gonna try to pretend or fake it.
I'll go find someone that I think is, you know?
Because especially if something just happened
through them or to them.
You know, that's the best.
I love saying to somebody that just received a miracle,
I'm like, please be an ambassador for that miracle.
You know?
Please, please try to give that away.
You know, it's like we're supposed to be pouring through,
you know, the Lord's pouring through us.
Give that gift to somebody else.
You know, you've just received it.
You know what it's like to be set free of that
or to be healed of that.
Give it to somebody else, you know?
I mean, that's really what he wants us to do,
to be receiving and giving, you know,
just to give it away, you know, because there's more to come.
And so, and then finally,
1 Corinthians 14, verses 1 and 3.
Pursue love and desire spiritual gifts.
So he says they're desire them.
There's nothing wrong with wanting these things.
Do you realize that?
But it's to pursue love.
If the motivation is right,
then step into it and say,
Lord, I wanna love people like they've never been loved before.
What can I have to pour out that love to others?
But especially that you may prophesy,
I'm not gonna get too much into this,
but he who prophesies speaks edification, exhortation
and comfort to men.
And you know, prophecy, I believe we are all prophets.
And you go, whoa, hold on, slam on the brakes.
What do you mean?
You're gonna all tell the future?
Well, in a sense, we can all forth tell the future.
We have the future right here.
We know the future.
We know the word of God, right?
If you speak the word of God, even if you paraphrase it,
aren't you speaking prophecy?
Because we know the end of all things, don't we?
We know how sin corrodes and contaminates and destroys.
We know the enemy wants to kill, steal and destroy.
We know all this, right?
And we know what God's promises are, yes and amen,
and his plans.
Don't we kind of have everything wrapped up
in the word of God?
We can speak prophecy.
Remember when the Pentecost came and they said,
you know, your old men will dream dreams.
Actually, I'm dreaming more and more dreams, I must say.
But anyway, but that doesn't mean I'm old, okay?
But, and your sons and daughters, they will prophesy.
Well, it's not just for them,
and also your servants will prophesy.
Like, that means like everybody,
everybody has the capacity to prophesy,
not saying, okay, that just happened.
Let's read the newspaper, all right, this, see?
The moon's, the moon's Jupiter and all that.
You know, I don't get in all that stuff
because there's a lot of prophecy that,
you know, may or may not happen.
I just know what the word says,
and if I live this out, God, I'll be just fine, okay?
I could just see who's in front of me and minister in that way.
But it's prophecy is important.
We all have the capacity to prophesy in the word of God, amen.
And so, as I was thinking through this, you know,
how sad it would be to have giftings or empowerment
that you don't realize you have,
and you never access them
and actually tap into your full potential.
And that's probably all of us.
It's probably me too.
All of us are probably gonna miss a little bit.
You know, we are His workmanship,
creating Christ Jesus for good works,
which God prepared in advance for us to do.
But what about when I get to heaven and Jesus says,
yeah, you know, I had a little things lined up for you there.
You missed them.
I don't think I'm gonna be, you know, judged for bad.
I'll be judged for rewards of what I did do.
So, you know, perhaps we'll miss some stuff, right?
But to miss out on the big picture.
So I asked Zach, he's always been kind of into the,
what do you call them?
Superheroes, comics and stuff like that since he was a kid.
And I don't know any of those things,
the X-Men and this and that and whatever.
I'm probably saying it all wrong.
But anyway, so I said exactly,
was there ever a superhero that had this power?
Who never knew he had it, okay?
Just for an example.
And he brought up Superman, okay?
And apparently Superman, he came to the world.
He didn't know where he came from.
But as he started to pursue things,
and I didn't, haven't read all the things,
but suddenly, hey, I think I'm looking through this wall.
Hey, I think I could see things that I never saw before.
Or hey, I think I can kind of jump higher today
or whatever it might be.
And before he knows it,
he's flying through the skies and he's doing these things
that he never knew he had the capacity to do, right?
Because he never unleashed what was inside him.
Now, I know that's a comic strip.
I know that's just, you know, that's a show, okay?
But you know, it's much more real in you and I.
Because we really are new creations
with empowerments in us.
You know, I was thinking,
while I was thinking about through this,
I remember a movie that was shot in the year 2000
in Philadelphia.
There's not many movies made in Philly.
But this one was.
And Bruce Willis and Samuel Jackson was in it.
And it was called Unbreakable.
Any of you guys remember the movie?
A couple little waves and a little.
So, but Unbreakable.
And all I can remember is this guy,
Bruce Willis, David Dunn,
he played.
Well, apparently he didn't get hurt.
Now, how you go through life at the age of whatever he was
in the movie 30, something to not know that is peculiar.
But he was in a major car accident.
Like the car was destroyed.
And he walked out of it without a scratch, okay?
And so the movie begins when he's in a train wreck
and the whole train is destroyed, derailed.
Everyone dies on the entire train, except him.
He doesn't even have a mark.
So the news and everybody is, you know, this guy,
it's amazing, how could this be, you know?
And so this other guy who played Elijah Price
was Samuel Jackson.
So he sees this article.
He's like, well, now Samuel Jackson had an issue
with the fact that he broke easy.
So his bones were brittle.
So if he even like bumped something, he could break his leg.
He had whatever that brittle bone syndrome is.
And so he was always, as a child, he was always, you know,
on crutches, sometimes in a wheelchair
and he got mocked as a kid.
They called him Mr. Glass, you know,
and he just was fragile, very fragile, right?
So Mr. Glass, I mean,
Elijah suddenly sees this article
about this guy who was untouched.
And he's like, I got to reach out to him
because this guy was really into the comics.
And he said, you know what?
If there's someone like me in this world who breaks easy,
maybe there's someone the opposite of me who never breaks.
Maybe this is the guy.
So through the whole movie, he's reaching out to him,
trying to convince him and so forth
that he perhaps is this guy, right?
And so finally, he realizes he is unbreakable.
He realizes he's stronger than he ever knew he was.
You know, he was a football superstar.
So he's finally putting this together saying,
maybe I was, you know,
maybe I was designed for more than this
and maybe this is really me.
Maybe I'm unbreakable.
And he finally realized it.
And through all this, he actually ended up rescuing some people
because he got a vision.
He started getting visions.
All of these giftings, these powers started coming alive in him
and he started perceiving crime around him.
He started perceiving like,
it's the making of a superhero, basically.
But he's seeing things
and Elijah was always encouraging him to move on in it.
The interesting thing was that this guy, Elijah,
wanted to be a villain.
He wanted to find a formidable opponent who was the hero.
He wanted to live in a comic world.
So little did Bruce Willis know,
but Elijah actually created the train wreck to find him.
And at the end of the movie,
you don't know this to the bitter end of the movie.
And as they're talking,
they shake hands and suddenly,
am I losing you?
Are you good?
So suddenly, what?
Well, it's 25 years old.
Don't worry about it.
You'll forget it anyway.
But suddenly, he realized he sees this vision again, right?
And he realizes this guy is doing this to find me,
the opposite of him.
And what Elijah said,
all this to build to this one phrase that when I heard,
I'm like, wow, I watched it yesterday.
Just to find this one moment, I'm like, wow.
So Samuel Jackson says,
you know what's really scary?
When you don't know why you're in this world.
When you don't know why you're here.
And suddenly, it made me realize like,
Bruce Willis was discovering something that he was.
And he never knew it.
What about us?
What if there's empowerment?
And this is more real.
This is not comic strip anymore.
This is reality.
These are miracles, signs, wonders, powers,
gifts of the Holy Spirit from on high
that have been imputed to you and I
to be Christ in this world.
As Christ is so are we in this world, right?
He has done this for us, to us and through us.
Do we realize it?
Do we want to actually embrace who we are in Christ
and move in this empowerment?
Does that make sense?
And I want to say, yes, Lord,
I want to access everything you have for me.
Because I don't want to leave it behind.
I don't want to get to heaven.
I don't know what that's going to look like.
So we're not going to have any regret up there or whatever.
Okay.
But I don't want to get to heaven and suddenly say,
there were silos untapped that you could have tapped into.
There were works that were just all around you,
that were just easy layups, all these.
And you didn't do them.
I don't know whether there's going to be that.
Maybe it'll be at the judgment seat before or with him forever.
I don't know.
But I don't want that to be me.
I hate regretting things.
I hate thinking that it was right there.
I could have had it and I didn't access it.
He doesn't want you to miss out on him.
That's why he says, you know,
walk at your salvation with fear and trembling.
Not that you're going to be judged and thrown in hell
because you didn't do everything he wanted to do
so that you don't miss out on what he's planned
for you to do. Amen.
Does that make sense?
I hope I'm not sounding harsh.
Are you guys good?
I can't even read your faces whatsoever.
But anyway, let's get the worship team up here.
I sound.
I hope I'm not sounding harsh.
I'm encouraging because this is reality.
This is reality.
You know, we have empowerment to heal the relationships
that have been frayed for years.
It's up to me.
It's not up to the other person.
I'm not going to wait for them to finally humble themselves,
finally ask for forgiveness,
finally come to me, you know,
and then I'll decide then.
No, no, why don't I just go and do the thing?
Because I have the power in me to fix the situation.
It's Jesus Christ within us. Amen.
I think Anna loves this sermon.
That's why she has to go out and cry in the spirit a little bit.
But let's all stand.
I don't really know how to end this service.
But I think we need empowerment, don't we?
Do we need empowerment from one high?
Do you want to be clothed in the power of God, the dunamis power?
I do.
So why don't we just ask for it right now?
Why don't we just cry out to the Lord?
Father God, I want your power upon me.
I want to be clothed in it.
I want to be drenched in it.
Lord, I want to be your wick,
that you'll just soak up through me, Lord God,
and burn bright in this world, Lord God.
I need your power, Lord, I need your power
to fix relationships, Lord, around me, Lord,
to fix my finances,
to help someone else fix their finances,
to be healed, Lord God, of physical ailments,
emotional ailments, mental ailments, Lord God.
Your power can do all these things.
It's your power, Lord God.
The blood of Jesus Christ sets us free, Lord God,
and we are free indeed.
So in Jesus' name, we pray for empowerment right now,
that you would shine brightly on us
and empower us to take on the world,
to tear down strongholds,
and to lift up the truth of Jesus Christ.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Let's give the Lord a round of applause.
Thanks for joining us at Lansdale Life Church
as we praise God and discuss His Word.
Don't forget to join us for Worship Lives Sunday mornings
at 10 a.m. Eastern on YouTube.
Be blessed and have a great day!