City Central Church Podcast
Steve Fry - Baby I'm Excited
Steve Fry of The Gate in Nashville, TN teaches on how the people of God should carry a constant gladness with them and asks the question, "They did it in the book of Acts, why can't we do it." Hear more from Steve Fry at http://www.thegatenashville.org
(audience applauds) Thank you. Thanks. Just feels like being at home, you know. Not just because my family live here, but because just what God's doing here is just kind of resounding everywhere. I told Brian earlier today, we got guys in our place called the Gate, which is a lot like you. We're about two years old. We're all about being a ministry center, you know, and we've talked a lot about Brian and I about what that looks like, and we've got guys in our fellowship back home that will dial Brian and just download his sermons, you're gonna be your website, and then say, "Oh, Brian said this, Brian said that," you know, and it's just really cool. So we feel like, you know, we're kissing cousins, you know, cousins anyway, I don't know about the kissing part, but it's, you know, we just feel very much at home here. So, hey, I'm gonna share something from the word tonight that I hope will really bring some hope and joy. Before I do, let me just tell you about the propaganda on the table back there that I have. Three books, one, this is the book on the character of God, and probably of the three, maybe this is the one I'd say, go after, because I just think that everything comes out of an analogy of God, you know, it just comes out of an overflow of knowing God. So this is like a 40-day devotional about God, and it just canvases different aspects of his character, you know, not just the gooey parts, like love and grace and mercy, but, you know, some of the hard to understand stuff, like, why is God silent, and what happens about his anger, you know, does God ever get angry and why? So anyway, I think it's a good primer, you know, on the character of God, so that's there. And then, you know, what we've been doing last several hours is talking about worship with all of you who are making a real commitment to be a part of the worship and prayer ministry, which really is all of us. You know, worship and prayer is not optional. You know, it's just one of the things. But there are some who have certain focuses on that, so we've been talking about worship the last several hours yesterday, and this book called Rekindle Flame is all about how to develop an intimate relationship with the Lord in your worship and prayer life, so that's that. And then this book is the latest one, True Freedom, and this is interesting. It was an interesting book for me to write, because it's really about authority, and authority is not one of the more popular words in our culture, but I think it's because we don't understand it. And if we really understand authority, we really understand submission from a biblical point of view. It's not about control at all, it's all about freedom. It's all about freedom. So we've had a lot of people respond to this book because it's been a mindset changer, because we have been, I think, so inundated with wrong concepts about authority that we're always afraid to be controlled. And if we get the authority piece right, and we get the lordship of Jesus piece right, and we understand how that works in our relationships, then there's freedom, there's real freedom. We don't have to be bouncing between freedom and security. That's what our cultures do, not just American culture, but we bounce between freedom over here, I want to be free, I want to do my own thing, but then we get on a limb, and we feel free and secure, so then we run back, and we submit to even more authoritarian structures that, because we want the security part. And we can be set free from this security freedom swing and find true freedom in Jesus. So that's what that's about. And then the Lord really told me tonight to do that song we sang, "Then Shall Every Knee Bow." I haven't been there for a long time. I actually wrote that about 25 years ago, and it just came out of a cry in my own heart. And it was one of those pictures that you see, and yet it was hard to be reinforced in my environment, because not a lot of folks were seeing that. And anyway, I finally recorded that song, "Then Shall Every Knee Bow" on the CD called "Rekindle Flame." It's the same cover as the book, it's the turquoise and stuff like that. So it's on that CD, but I have to say it was just very moving for me to go back and sing that again. And be reminded of something that the Lord had tucked away in my heart a long time ago. So anyway, the "Rekindle Flame" CD is back there as well. I'll take your Bibles and turn to Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. There's something here tonight. The Lord's really been speaking to me about over the last, I don't know, a few months. At the gate, you know, where I pastor, we have been in the Book of Acts for about a year. And we're at about the middle of chapter 5, you know. I don't know, I am just absolutely taken with what God did there, and I just keep coming back to this reality that, "Lord, why not now?" Just why not now? So there's a part of this that I want to break down to tonight from Acts chapter 2. It's just really simple, and really the most important point is the last one. So hang in there. I don't think it'll be long, but just kind of hang in there until the last point, because that's probably the most important. Okay, Acts 2, and let's look at, well, actually let's start reading in verse 42. This is just one of the best parts of Acts, because we're just talking about this radical community of faith that walked in the fullest of Jesus. In verse 42 it says, "And they continued, steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship in the breaking of bread and prayers. And fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. Now all who believed were together and had all things in common and soul their possessions and goods and divided them among all as anyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with the spirit of gladness. That's actually the better translation. In the spirit of gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favored with all the people and the Lord added to the church daily those who are being saved." Now verse 46 is what I want us to look at, that they continued in one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, and they ate their food with the spirit of gladness and simplicity of heart. Gladness and simplicity are one of the key marks of the presence of the Holy Spirit. If it ain't simple and you ain't glad, the spirit's not present, pretty much. Because where the Holy Spirit is present, there's going to be simplicity and there's going to be, and this is what I want to focus on tonight, the spirit of gladness. Now this word gladness is not the same as the word joy. It's a completely different root word in the Greek. Now the Bible talks a lot about joy and joy is cool, joy is the food of the spirit, joy in the Lord. Paul continually brought us back to joy in his letter to the Philippians. But the joy there that Paul talks about and that is used mostly in the New Testament is this inner current of deep assurance and this sweet peace and happiness that comes from the Holy Spirit. Not a circumstantial happiness, but a happiness that really comes from the very innermost part of your gut that is like this current, this river deep within. Okay, that's joy. It's something that is not based on our situation, it's something that is based on the reality of who Jesus is and who Jesus is and his promises. This word gladness is completely different. It is related, but it is actually a completely different word. And when the Bible talks here about the New Testament church being filled with the spirit of gladness, this particular Greek word has action to it. It actually should be translated jump for joy. That the New Testament Acts church was filled with the spirit of jump for joy. Or we could put it another way and describe it like this. Man, I'm excited. The spirit of gladness is better translated. They were filled with, "Baby, I'm excited." That is what it really literally means. And there's so much of the church that is missing the baby, "I'm excited." What is the deal? We have been absolutely doused with religion for so long that to actually consider people of God jumping for joy, it's offensive to so many people. They don't get it. I'm not picking a fight. It's just that religion, and I'm not picking on religion, but I think we need to pick on religion. It's just that that thing has so veiled our eyes that we've lost the sense of "Baby, I'm excited." This word gladness is what is used in the Beatitudes. My dad teaches on this. You've heard his teaching probably. In Matthew chapter 5, verse 12, it talks about, "Blessed are you when you're persecuted." That word there where it says, "Reecher received gladness of heart." Well, the word gladness there in Matthew chapter 5, 12 is this, "Blessed are you when you are persecuted, and just simply say, "Baby, I'm excited." Hebrews chapter 1, verse 9. He has anointed you with the oil of, "Baby, I'm excited." That's the literal meaning. Guys that translate the Greek, they get nervous about these real meanings. They try to soften it, try to round the edges. We don't want to get too emotional. Why not? We are so afraid of emotion because we're afraid of being manipulated. Well, listen, you know what? Jesus is not a manipulator, and there's a pure emotion that comes when we follow after Jesus that is so absolutely freeing that if we would ever walk in it and flow in it, the people would come running to wherever we are and they would say, "We want that spirit of baby, I'm excited." Now, where does this baby I'm excited come from? You've heard this from Brian, you've heard this from others, but you have to think about this. The baby I'm excited people here were 3,000 plus people who hardly knew each other. You can't get this emotional and this joyous until you take time to build a relationship and get to know each other. You've got 3,000 people, half of which, probably at least half more than that, came from different countries. They were all Jews, but they came from different countries and they were there for the Feast of Pentecost, they didn't know each other, and then the guys that stayed there because they just found Jesus, you know, what are they going to do? They had no place to go, so they were just cramming into people's homes right and left, right? So you have people that don't know each other from different cultural backgrounds, backgrounds, different ethnicities, all of them were all Jews, and yet they're all together within a few weeks, and they're baby I'm excited. Only the Holy Spirit can do this. Only the Holy Spirit can knit hearts like this. But where did this joy come from? I think that this sustainable joy was directly related to the quality of their community. When you read verse 42, we read, they were devoted to these four things. They were devoted to the Apostolic Teaching Fellowship Prayer and the Lord's Table. Now there's a lot there, it won't even go into it. It's just the simple snapshot of the people of God, 3,000 plus, that were walking in a devoted way. If you're devoted to their means, it means to give yourself completely over. It means to absolutely abandon yourself to that. It's the same word in the Gospels when Jesus, you know, when Jesus was teaching at the seashore on the seashore of their Galilee, and the crowd pressed in so much that he had to get into the boat. Remember, he gets into the boat and he says, "Push out a little bit so I can see the crowd." The word that is used there for Jesus getting into the boat is the same word used here. Jesus completely had to get him into the boat in order for him to push back from shore to see everybody. You can't imagine Jesus with one foot on shore and one foot in the boat. It just is unseemly to even imagine Jesus doing the splits. He had to completely get in the boat to accomplish what he wanted, which was to get a more panoramic view of who he was teaching. He had to completely give himself over to the boat completely. This word devoted here in Acts 2 is that these people completely gave themselves over. They were not divided in their minds between entertainment, recreation, and a bunch of other stuff that could so distract us in our culture. They were completely given over to these four things, the apostolic teaching, breaking of bread, fellowship, and so forth. One of the reasons I think we don't see more power released in the church is because we are still divided in our hearts. The word devoted here means persevering in. Persevering, it's not a good word for it, that they persevered in these things. When you read the book of Revelation, that description of the glorious church, it's amazing to read Revelation and read it from the vantage point of what the end-time church is going to look like. There will be a church, there will be a people of God, there will be a body of believers worldwide reflecting the fullness and the beauty of Jesus at the end of time. I shared with everybody yesterday, I said, if you're a good marathon runner, what you do is you scope out your race by looking at the end of the race. If you're going to run for 20 miles, know where the ending line is. Know where you're going to break the tape, because if you know, okay, I'm going to break the tape in 20 miles, I'm going to know how to run my race well. Run my race wisely. If we know what it's going to be like at the end, we don't know when the end is going to be, although I think we're getting pretty close. And we say, oh, yeah, well, I think when it really, really comes to the end, I think there's going to be a real power of God. I think there's going to be a real unity of heart in the people of God. I think we're going to be absolutely, totally given over to worship. We're going to be passionate and radical, and that's where we're going to look. If we're going to look like that at the end, why not look like that now? It's like, what are we waiting for? You know, I just, I don't get it. It's like, again, I quoted my friend, George Otis, yesterday. I said, do we think that Jesus is on, that God is on the moon, making revival pies like pizza pies. He's going to fling one every so often, and it's going to hit us on the shoulder just randomly. No, it's not that we get into alignment with what we know. I think the quality of community in this Book of Acts, people of God, is directly related to the fact that the 3,000 that came, and then the 5,000 that come a little later, they came fully on. There were no half-hearts here. I think one of the things that is diluting the work of God among the people of God in America, is we are not, and I want to say this carefully, but I don't think we are seeing the fullness of real radical New Testament conversions. Jesus is still presented as an appetizer in many settings. Well, come, and at least, why don't you get to know Jesus and get used to the idea of radical obedience? You'll kind of fall into it. You know, look at Peter Sermon. It's amazing. Look, look at this. This just absolutely frosts my cake. Here in Chapter 2, look at Peter says, Peter says, "Repent." Where is this? Yeah, 38. They say in verse 37, well, back in verse 36, "Therefore, let all of you know that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ. You crucified Him." When they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter, and the rest of the apostles, "What are we to do?" And Peter says, "Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus for the remission of sins. You should receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promise of to you and to your children, and to all who are far off as many as the Lord our God will call." And with many other words, verse 40, here's where I was wanting to go. With many other words, he testified and exhorted them saying, "Be saved or in the Greek flee from this perverse generation." When was the last time you heard an evangelistic sermon that ended with those words? Flee from this perverse generation. You know, Jesus has a love for every single man, woman, and young people, and young person, and child in the earth. His love knows no bounds. Nevertheless, if Jesus were here, he would say, "This is a perverse generation." Run! Let's not coddle it. Run from it. I mean, it's amazing how Peter preaches here. And 3,000 come to faith in Christ. I'm just saying that we need to believe God for real radical conversion. I was walking in darkness, and now I am in the light. I'm not straddling the fence. I'm not between light and darkness. I see Jesus. I want Jesus. I'm going to go for Jesus at all costs. That is genuine conversion. You know, somebody asked me once, not too long ago. They said, "Well, this is actually several years ago before I started this church." And they said, "What are you doing?" And I said, "Well, I'm evangelizing my church because I think half of them aren't saved." Now, you might say, "Well, that's just really honoring." And it may have been over the top, but I was just reflecting the fact that there are just so many that are courting Jesus and think that they are saved. When the New Testament, the apostolic bar of conversion was really high, you know? A lot of love, a lot of generosity, a lot of grace. But you had to come fully on and fully in. Because they were devoted, they were a man, I'm excited, people. And these 3,000 people who didn't know each other from many different nations and many different cultural distinctives, and many of them had been a part of the Hosanna crowd just weeks earlier, the Lord had brought these together, and that is a powerful statement of the power of the Holy Spirit, a supernatural infusion of an awareness of grace that goes way beyond psychological healing. I believe in counseling, I do. But I think that in many ways, the church, the body of Christ has given away some of its authority by having too much of a therapeutic approach to radical change of lives. I'm not anti-psychology, but I do think we have been taken in by the psychological thing. And you know what? We've got people by the gazillions, believers who love the Lord, who are in round, after round, after round, after round of therapy. Let me just keep trying to massage my heart, massage my heart. And you know what? God loves you, and God loves me, and God loves us. He wants us to be healed more than we even want to be healed. But you know what? We have lost something here when we have not allowed the Holy Spirit to absolutely do a full and complete work in those who are coming to Jesus, a supernatural faith, a faith that seems to transcend offense here. You had 3,000 people. They are weeks old as a community from different ethnicities, different backgrounds, different issues. And you know, later on we see they have issues, the Greek speaking widows and the Hebrew speaking widows, you know, they were kind of, you know, not getting along. They were getting along, but the Greek speaking widows were feeling like they were being overlooked. So it wasn't that they didn't have problems. But here just weeks after the day of Pentecost, you've got 3,000 plus people of various backgrounds, different persuasions that have all come together and they seem to be completely devoid of offense. How were these believers this way, these early believers? The first disciples had been made utterly desperate. What must we do? We're undone. This sense of desperation begins with 120 disciples who are so desperate that they just wait in the upper room. For, you know, who knows how long? When Jesus tells the disciples, the 11 there, "Go back to Jerusalem and wait for the promise of my Father." As I said yesterday, you know, they're not looking at the prophetic timetable thinking, "Okay, well, the feast of Pentecost is coming in 10 days. Good. We've got about 10 days to wait." They knew that after the fact, but they weren't looking at that and saying, "Okay, we don't have very long to wait." For all they knew, they were going to wait for months, years. Where were they going to go? They had crossed the line, they had crossed the Rubicon, they had crossed the point of no return. Those guys had nothing to go back to. Until we come to the place where we have nothing to go back to and we just say, "Okay, we're going to wait and we're going to wait. We'll grow old waiting. We're going to wait. We have no place else to go." There was a desperation that infused this early church. They knew they couldn't build a church. They didn't even know what to build. Isn't that cool? I think the Lord wants to restore something back to the people of God here 2,000 years later, where we say, "We don't know what to build. We're desperate." When I was a youth pastor, years ago, I was young. I was about 17 when I took over the high school in junior high groups, fresh out of high school. For the first year, I tried all the program stuff, get the manuals and do the fun stuff and do the kitschy stuff and all the stuff. After a year, we had grown from 40 to 20. I knew that it was not working, so the Lord said, "Listen, I don't want..." I'm not saying that we should do this. This is not a statement of arrogance or hotiness. For me, the Lord said, "Look, I don't want you to look at a youth manual for three years. All I want you to do is read the book of Acts. Read the book of Acts and do it. That's simple. We saw revival. We saw God do an amazing thing with hundreds of young people. It's not that the manuals are bad and it's not that those who write them are compromised. It's just that I think God is wanting to bring us back to this innocence and simplicity where, like them, they couldn't resort to a plan B because they didn't even know what plan A was. They were just utterly desperate and the desperation made them dependent, and that's the death's the deal. Their dependence on the Lord made them desperate for the Lord which made them devoted to each other. That was the quality of their community. I want to repeat that. Their dependence on the Lord made them desperate for the Lord which made them devoted to one another, and they were ripe for deprogramming. That's what made them a delighted people. What makes a baby, I'm excited people. One of the things that makes a baby, I'm excited people is a community together and we're together because we're all desperate, we're all dependent, and we don't know where we're going. Sometimes we get worried because we're trying to figure out where we're going. I'm not saying we don't have goals and plans, you know, management by objective and all that stuff. I'm saying that there's something about walking in the here and now with Jesus that we see in these early believers that produced in them a devotion to each other. We today in the American church were cautious to be devoted to each other because we're not desperate for the Lord. And desperation for the Lord is the real measure of our dependence on the Lord. We're not really dependent if we're not desperate. And if we're not desperate, we're not going to really be walking in true community which is one of the keys and secrets to this baby, I'm excited, anointing. The future of the Christian faith does not lie with those who entertain and have good programs. It lies with devoted disciples because the emerging generation wants authenticity and the very nature of a program church compromises its authenticity. Community, community, real genuine Christian community centered in the Holy Spirit. That is the key or one of the keys to this baby, I'm excited, attitude. You know, I think one of the things that we have to look in the mirror about is that we're allowing too many things to distract us. In Nashville, Tennessee, we actually have a place of worship for the Tennessee Titans. Now we don't. But I'm telling you, football is a God. And at what point, if we're talking about being an end time people, you know, so can you imagine three weeks before the Lord comes, that the people of God would be torn between full on obedience and taking their kids to the soccer match? Now, don't stone me on this. But you know what? What we have done is we have made God a part of our menu. And God is now saying, I will no longer be a part of your menu. I'm no longer going to be the object of choice between 50 different options in your life. And I'm not saying that they're bad. But you know what's happening is we've got, especially for parents, we've got the piano lesson for junior number one, we've got the soccer practice for junior number two, we've got to run and have a teachers conference for junior number three, and then we've got so many emails to respond to and texts to write, and we've got so many things to explore on the internet. I'm telling you people, it's killing us. And I believe that God wants to trim us to simple-minded devotion on him. And that's the secret here. Community, in Jesus, is the key, one of the keys to this joy. One of the things we're going to have to deal with. Now, you know, here it goes. We are a schizophrenic culture, especially those of us who have been drinking at the fountain of postmodernism and have grown up in it. And we've drunk at it in our universities and our schools, and we've been influenced from different sectors of our society 101 different ways. Here's the schizophrenia. Everybody, I know 35 and under crave community, but demand their individualism. That's, that's, how do you spell stupid? You can't have it both ways. There's a radical that, you know what? You know what? The issue of your uniqueness before the Lord right on. You are, you are uniquely made, uniquely given talents and abilities, and he uniquely loves you. There's nobody else like you. You are absolutely special to him. But that's different than demanding my own individual preferences and wants and desires and my own individualism as a philosophy. And individualism is killing us. You and I cannot really walk in genuine community and, and walk heart to heart, unless we are willing to say, "Lord, I am not going to demand my individualism. I am going to yield to you, and in yielding to you, find myself blended with the members of the body of Christ, so that Jesus is seen." Dear ones, this, this is just so much not about us. We, you know, we fight it in the gate. I mean, I just finished talking to six new families who are, you know, joining our fellowship. And I said, listen, I want, I want you to know something about ministry. We're trying to carve ministry in a way here that is not about you finding your slot and using your talents and skills to fit in. We don't want to be, you know, a clearing house for the maximization of your personal selfhood. Now, we want, we want you to discover your gifts and callings. We want to be there to serve you in that way. But first and foremost, ministry is about being like Jesus out there in your family, your friends, your world. It's just simply doing the Isaiah 61 stuff, setting the chapter free and binding up the broken heart. I said, that's got to be your framework of ministry. If you came here, if you came here to play in the worship band, if you came here to dance on the dance team, if you came here to start a Bible study group, forget it. First, you've got to minister, just simply be like Jesus and forget about your skills and talents. And then God will bring the rest. We have in the American church, we have allowed such a spirit of entitlement that people are flocking to churches to maximize themselves. They're trying to find themselves at the expense of the church. You find yourself when you come to Jesus, you lose yourself. And in losing yourself, you find yourself. But then the self you find is a self you can live with. Look at the barriers to the joy here. Consider the barriers that this group of three thousand had. We're looking, we're looking, you know, we're always looking for the big breakthrough. God breakthrough in Tacoma, God breakthrough in Asheville, God breakthrough. Okay, so look what happens when the spirit broke through in Acts two. They got instant opposition. Instant and convenient. Well, instant opposition, you know, we see this rosy picture in Acts two, but then by Acts chapter three, the whole healing of the blind man was just weeks after. We're just talking weeks, maybe a couple months after the day of Pentecost, and this is the first miracle that happened. You know, Peter and John and the guy that gave beautiful. Look at the opposition that is aroused. So God breaks through, they get instant opposition, instant inconvenience. One hundred and twenty people had to take care of three thousand new believers. That's three thousand pieces of emotional baggage all at once. Instant spiritual pressure. You know, we say God breakthrough, are we ready for the instant opposition, the instant inconvenience, and the instant spiritual pressure? When I came in here tonight and I'm hearing the incredible vision that God is releasing to you as a mission, then are we ready? Baby, I'm excited, opposition. Baby, I'm excited, inconvenience. Baby, I'm excited, spiritual pressure. It's all here, and they still walk in a baby, I'm excited, attitude. You know why? Because the opposition and the inconvenience and the spiritual pressure for them, because their minds had been totally altered, were indications they were doing it right. Beware when you get too comfortable. What is the joy maker? What is the joy maker and the joy taker? There's a joy maker and there's a joy taker. The joy maker is faith and the joy taker is unbelief. And faith here in the book of Acts, in this snapshot we get, faith came to these people, faith to walk in this baby, I'm excited. Now let me just come back. So okay, you've just come from Egypt as a Jew, came to the Feast of Pentecost, minding your own religious business, and all of a sudden you get doused by the Holy Spirit and you find Messiah Jesus. There you are, and you're living in somebody's home. You've only met three weeks ago, you and your family. This is the picture of what it was like, and yet they found a faith together as 3,000 disparate people, 3,000 mostly unrelated people, 3,000 people who didn't have a lot of commonality naturally, and they find a faith together by meeting together and experiencing the Holy Spirit together. It's just really that simple. You get together, that's why assembling together like this is so important. I shared yesterday, the whole idea of the people of God is, it comes before the universe, they were people of the creatures of God. Before there was a universe, there were creatures and they were assembled around the throne, worshiping Him. God, at some point, when He first created fathers of the Holy Spirit, first created whatever beings and creatures are back there in eternity past, whenever that is. What we see is we see them gathered around the throne assembling to God. It's what Jacob said in Isaiah chapter 49, "Let the gathering of the people be unto Him." It's as we gather together that we're reflecting the heavenly reality. What's going on in heaven right now? Heaven is not grand central station. Are angels coming back and forth, ministering God's ministering spirits as the book of Hebrews teaches us? Yeah, that's all true. But primarily, heaven is this ongoing together worship before the Lord, out of which comes mission and out of which comes power. But if you take that assembling together away pretty soon, you have no more fuel for mission. So you just get together like we did tonight, and the Holy Spirit starts doing His stuff, and then we go out and say, "Come and see what Jesus is doing." Faith comes by meeting together and experiencing the Holy Spirit together. But you know, I think the church is a lot -- it's a lot like the guys in the Wizard of Oz. Remember when the Scarecrow and Ten Man -- you remember that? Okay, now this is not going to be profound. So remember they come and the Scarecrow wants a brain. And the Wizard of Oz says, "So you want a brain, and you have as much brain as anybody else, but those brainiacs have something that you don't have." Remember that whole line, those who have a brain? You have as much of a brain, but those other guys have what you don't have. They have a diploma. Remember that whole thing? He says to the Ten Man, "You've got a heart, but what you don't have is da-da-da-da." Well, it's like the Wizard of Oz would come to us and say that we are no different than the first church, except that we don't have a coin and eel like they did. And I wonder if that is the reason why they had such faith. When you really get down to the coin and eel, which is the word for fellowship, their community that they walked in, that is what is often missing in the people of God today. The big connection between where we are and the baby I'm excited attitude is the faith that comes from a united corporate unity together, experiencing God together. And look at the way that faith progressed for them and we're coming in for a landing here. If faith is the joy maker, then look at the simple story of faith that begins in chapter 1. Number 1, their willingness to obey what they don't understand. That's where faith started. We demand understanding, and you know what? A lot of times we're just short circuiting the development of our own faith. So Jesus says to these guys, "Go in the upper room, and wait for the promise of my father." All they could do is obey. They didn't understand it all, but they obeyed. The willingness to obey when you don't understand, which led them to experience the rushing mighty wind. If you and I want to break through in the Holy Spirit, if you and I want to experience the rushing mighty wind, let's first be obedient to what we don't understand. We say, "God said some things tonight to us." And then maybe some things, you know, this just breaks my box here. It defies my categories. I can't put this anywhere. Go with it. Even if you know it's God and it smells like God, it sounds like God, but I don't get it. Then don't worry about what you don't get. Go with God. And then you're positioning yourself to receive the rushing mighty wind. There are so many of us that lose out on the rushing mighty wind because we in our own ways demand to understanding. We want God to make sense of things for us. I'll jump as soon as you make sense of things. So the experience the rushing mighty wind next to you, then the Lord creates opportunity. Look, when the Holy Spirit comes, there's this huge opportunity. 3,000 people get saved. When He does, when God, listen, when God creates the opportunity, lift your voice. Lift your voice. I had a friend of mine three weeks ago at the Grammy Awards. You would know his name, so I'm not going to tell you who he is. He's at the Grammy Awards because he himself is a pretty incredible artist. And I had lunch, wife and I had lunch with he and his wife. In fact, he had just come back from the Grammys. This would have been on a Monday, two weeks ago. And he was very depressed. And he told us the story. He said, "You know how when you're in these big, huge awards ceremonies or conventions, you know you have press rooms and a lot of times in convention centers, the rooms aren't big enough to handle everybody. So you go from one press room to another, I've done that. So I know what to feel like. One press room to another press room to another press room, giving interviews and being photographed. So here he is, this is my friend. And he's in line with all the journalists and newsmakers from all over the world. And he is two people in line behind Paul McCartney. So Paul is there. And the lead singer for, who was it? Duran Duran? I don't know. But anyway, some old 80s group. And he was there. And my friend was there. So my friend, you know, he's within spitting distance of Paul McCartney. And he says, "Wow." You know, because Paul is the kind of ultimate guy. So he says, "Man, if I get a chance, if I get a chance, I'm going to tell Paul just how much he influenced me. And I was eight years old, grew up on his music. Yeah, yeah, yeah." Well, he didn't get a chance then. He said, "Okay, fine." So then anyway, he went to another press room. And in this next press room, he again found himself two people behind Paul McCartney. Again. This time Paul is the first take the stage. And he's fielding questions from all the reporters. And they asked him about the song yesterday. You know, yesterday? Did you know what I'd probably say though? And Paul said, you know, yeah, that's been the most recorded song in history. Over 3,000 covers of yesterday. And then he made this admission. He said, "When I wrote that song, I heard every line and every chord in a dream. And when I awoke, I wrote it out word for word, line for line for my dream. And I don't know where that dream came from. And instantly the Lord spoke to my friend. I know where that dream came from. Came from his father in heaven. Even as an unbeliever. A few minutes later, my friend found himself face-to-face with Paul McCartney. And he had a moment to be able to tell Paul, "I know where that dream came from from the father." But instead, Paul had been a real fan of yours all my life. And he had 30 seconds. That was it. When it was over, the Holy Spirit said, "You had a chance." I gave you my word five minutes earlier to tell him where that dream came from. What an open door. And he didn't walk in it. By the time we saw him, my friend, hours later at lunch, he was a very depressed boy. When the Spirit starts moving in, lift your voice like Peter did. What would have happened? Listen, what would have happened? You know, the Holy Spirit comes this amazing thing and everybody's gathering around. These guys are drunk. And all the disciple's just kind of shuffle their feet. You know, speaking in tongues and shoveling their feet. Thank God that Peter lifted up his voice and began to preach. What would have happened had Peter not seized the moment and began to preach? All right, so this is the last thing because I know it's late. So where does this joy come from? Let me go deeper. The joymaker is faith. Faith is nurtured by genuine community. But actually, it goes deeper still. And this is the cool. This is to me. This got very exciting. The Holy Spirit has pioneered our empowering as surely as Jesus pioneered our salvation. Now, track with me here because I think we as a church are as a people of God. We're really missing something. When somebody comes to faith in Christ, do we lead them in a prayer or ask Jesus to be crucified all over again? No, we don't. We don't cry out for Jesus to be crucified all over again for everybody who comes to faith in Christ because he did it once and for all. And we receive what he has already done by actively praying and receiving what he's already done. In the same way, the Holy Spirit in Acts chapter 2 pioneered our empowering. We don't wait for another Pentecost. We step into what the Spirit started there. The rushing mighty wind has been blowing nonstop since this day of Pentecost. What's happened is that the church has gotten outside of the gale. I took a youth team back in the day. I took a mission team to Hawaii. It's a great place. And we had a day off. We were in Honolulu. We had a day off. And we went up on the cliffs overlooking Honolulu. In the Nepali cliffs or something. The wind sweeps up from Honolulu, from the valley. It sweeps up. And it's so forceful that the tourist attraction up there on the cliffs is that you can actually lean out over the cliff into the wind. And be sustained. We've got these amazing pictures of everybody leaning over. They're leaning into the wind like this. It's so forceful that you can't fall over. Now you know what? What the church, what the people of God need to do is they need to lean into the wind. And I think this is where we come back to the whole truth of worship. Worship is choosing to step into the wind. When we worship God, we are stepping in to the ancient gale of the Holy Spirit that began 2,000 years ago. What I'm trying to get us to see is we're waiting for something to break through. Listen, the breakthrough already happened. You're empowering already happened. Jesus died once and for all. The Holy Spirit has empowered once and for all. We've got to get back 2,000 years ago. What began to flow is still flowing. It hasn't stopped. We're waiting for something to break open. We get into the wind. It's blowing and we get into the wind as we worship Him. And as we worship Him in spirit and in truth, that's how we get into the wind. People want the fire. You'll get the fire if you step into the wind. When we worship, listen, what happened in the upper room, that hurricane hasn't stopped. The problem is that the people of God keep stepping out of the wind. We get back into the wind as we worship. Again, I'm going to hammer this home. Jesus died once and for all for our salvation. We don't ask Jesus to die all over again because He's already done it. The Holy Spirit has empowered us once and for all. All we have to do is just get into the wind. We're not waiting for another Pentecost, we're not waiting for something to happen. It's already happened. We've got to position ourselves. And worship is the key, I think, of getting into the wind. Just lean in. You'll get the fire. So worship, we come right back to this word, worship which stirs faith and faith generates joy and joy is sustained by real community. That's kind of the secret, I think, of the spirit of gladness. This baby, I'm excited. This man, I'm excited. It's really simple. Holy Spirit, He's already blown. The wind is blowing even now. We just have to get into the wind. Let's lean in. And you know what? It just becomes very simple. Thank you, Jesus. Lord, just right now, go ahead and get into the wind by worshiping. Just lift up your voice and worship the Lord. Lift up your voice and worship Him. Praise Him. [BLANK_AUDIO]