Pastor John Brandt
https://newharvestministriesneo.org/
New Harvest NEO
Work of the Spirit (Acts 8:1-24)
John, I mean, we're going to be in Acts, chapter 8 this evening. We'll just start with a prayer. Father, we come to you in prayer this evening, Father. And Father, I just want to recognize just how awesome you are. The God of righteousness, justice, mercy, love, sustainer of all, in authority overall, sovereign overall. Father, we just look to you for all our needs. We just put all our trust and care in you. Father, if there's people out there this evening that are not living in your rest, I pray that you could give them a heart to know this evening or when they hear your word to be drawn to you that they can live in your rest right now as they're breathing. Just knowing that all authority has been given to your son, that created all things through him, just knowing that as fact. Father, just does my soul well. And I pray for other people's souls. I pray that the harvest is ripe and the laborers are few. Father, I pray for more labors that you can send and draw them to the church. Do we just thank you for all these things in Jesus' name, amen. All right, we're in a book of Acts and I don't think I'm gonna, because of a pretty big block of scripture, I'm not gonna read it so we can be seated. Acts chapter eight, we've been working through our way through the book of Acts. Luke, the physician Luke wrote the book of Luke and then proceeded the right, the Acts of the Apostles, the starting of the church, the Pentecost on Christ, had the resurrection in the 40 days that he came back and had spoke with the Apostles. I have a bookmark there too. So, we covered Stephen is martyrdom. Just been mulling over this quite a bit and just to kind of bring us up to it a little bit. I, first, some of the first thoughts that come to my mind is Stephen, I still haven't gotten Stephen out of my mind yet. His, I feel that I've got to know Stephen better through reading the book of Acts that I could see the spirit of God just glowing and just radiating out of his face of his, just his godliness, the spirit just working in him. The fact that, that we have another Saul is going to be introduced here that gave the thumbs up for, for the death of Stephen. And it, the church had had gotten overwhelmed the Hellenistic widows and were being neglected and the Apostles were, the numbers were being added to them greatly every day as the people were being drawn by the spirit and come in to believe and the Apostles were becoming overwhelmed to the point that the, some complaints of the Hellenistic Jews were possibly not being taken care of. And the Apostles says that that's not beneath us but our job is to continue. It's more important for us to continue to pray, to prepare our word, to continue sharing the gospel, the good news. So you go amongst yourself and choose seven. We're searching for a pastor at a church I'm a member of and it's interesting I go into the pastor's office and they're on the chalkboard. There's a whole list of qualifications that they're looking for. And qualifications are good. I'm not saying that we shouldn't do that. But I'm thinking about if I were to choose the apostle to the Gentiles, you know, I'm thinking about that, how the qualifications and I see that the orders were given for them to choose seven among them. And they chose this man, Stephen, who had all, he was a Hellenistic Jew so he could speak the language of Greece and he was full of the spirit and love and apparently I know he loved God with his heart, mind and soul and he was loving others as Christ loved him and he was a part of the church and he was just, I mean, for us, that would be all the qualifications for me. That would be the man we wanted. Matter of fact, that was the man that 20,000, 30,000, I don't know, the numbers were being added to greatly there, Jerusalem, daily they're being added and the people, the spirit filled people, then had came up with these seven, Stephen, Philip, five other ones. But to me, Stephen had all the qualifications to be our apostle to the Gentiles. See, he had all the qualifications. And in here, we just through the book of Acts, we've been working through it, we just, the sovereignty of God just flows out over and over again. And here we see Stephen, who I would choose, but then here's Paul, here is Paul Saul, who gave the thumbs up to murder Stephen, to murder him, a Christian. Now the people at that time, and we can even think in our time though, we have a hard time understanding things that go on in our life and God knows the big picture. He knows the tapest, he knows the mosaic picture. We kind of see the back of the mosaic tile, the tapestry. We don't get to see the full picture. For the church at that time, they had to be terrified to think, oh my goodness, Stephen, so full of grace and the power to be martyred in front of us. And to see Saul giving the thumbs up on this day. And then we see, I'm not gonna get into a lot of Paul, how Paul was chosen to our apostles, that's gonna be coming up in the next message. But God had ecological chosen Paul Saul. The only time that word is used for this specific task, to be the apostle to the Gentiles. So here's God, the qualifications for God can take a absolute sinner, warn against him, convert him, and use him to me as one of the most important tasks for me as being a Gentile in my life, as Paul being my apostle, my mentor, his readings. For God to take him and accomplish what he wants. You know, what they meant for evil who Saul, Paul was a part of, God didn't orchestrate that. Paul did, the people, rejecting God. Paul gave him the okay on that. But for God to turn his heart to take that heart of stone and turn it to a heart of flesh for him to be that apostle. Apostle, his qualifications, right? So in our world today, we see, I guess God, he will qualify to call. He's not looking for the qualified. He can take anybody and qualify them. And he did that with the apostle Paul. But as we're reading in chapter eight, we start off. Now, Saul was in a hearty agreement with putting him to death. And on that day, a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem. And they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea, Judah, Samaria, except the apostles. And some devout men buried Stephen and made a loud lamentations over him. But Saul began traveling the church, ravaging. Paul began ravaging the church, entering houses after house and dragging of men and women. He was delivering them into prison. I do wanna point out that the apostles stayed back and they gave Stephen a proper burial. They had lamentation over them. They probably had the professional whalers come in with wail and scream for days, for a week, for the loss of such a godly man that they had lost. We have family members die. We have people die in our community. And just a thought that this man was so highly regarded, so filled with the spirit that they had this lamentation over the loss. I think some people, some people that pass, it's sad to say that some people say good riddance. Isn't that a sad thing? And the same Jesus is out there for everybody to call on that name of that Lord. But here we see the lamentations over Stephen. But we see Saul ravaging the church. And it's just God's sovereignty is so amazing to me that a simple fact that here he's using Paul. Paul is being used for what was meant for evil for good because what had happened at that point because of that, the death of Stephen, it caused the believers of the church to explode. They began to scatter all over the region. And it's really interesting to me the fact that Paul was, we see Paul mentioned in scripture and he gave the thumbs up was the starting of that. And then Paul's conversion then to then be the apostle to the Gentiles and go and share the gospel is just astounding how God works. How God's sovereignty allowed Rome to take over the world, the common world as it be known, to put the Roman road to allow the apostle Paul to walk throughout the common world, to allow the Romans to overcome the Greeks, to have the language in the culture, that there was a common language, to have Paul, Saul be grown, to grow up and to know the language and to be able to communicate and be able to go along, all that was all predetermined 'cause he was equal, lodged before. The foundation of the world's his every footstep was chosen by God, what he was going to do. And I just mulling on that fact and thinking over that. And then we see that Philip, this was the next one in line 'cause there were seven of them chosen. Then we see Philip now, he goes out to Samaria, he begins to proclaiming the truth of God's word and he goes on to say, therefore those who had been scattered went about proclaiming the good news of the word. Now Philip went down to the city of Samaria and began preaching Christ to them. They began preaching the good news of the word and what actually is the good news of the word? Well, we know that all the sermons that Peter had been given, he became in his Old Testament scholar, he began to point out everywhere, Jesus was in the Old Testament, that came to fruition, that he came to life. He manifested himself in the form of his creation and Peter starts showing everywhere in the Old Testament. The two on the road to Emmaus were walking. Jesus said, come down to them, pointed everywhere out in the Old Testament. They become these Old Testament scholars pointing to the Messiah come, who the people had rejected, his own people had rejected whom you crucified, denied him rejected, who all the prophets who you've rejected, the word of God. The good news was this Messiah had come, he lived and more importantly, more importantly to know the good news is the last thing that Jesus had said to his apostles. And before I tell you that, you already know what it is 'cause I just keep going over and over again. To me, we have to look at, we're in Acts and we're in an intermediate period here. We went from defense and we're in offensive state right now and there was this intermediate period of time, a block of time that we were transitioning from the Old Testament into the New Testament. But the last thing that Jesus had said, which should be the best news even for us today to know when he said, all authority has been given to me on heaven and earth. Go for making disciples out of all nations, all nations. And then with the promise, I will be with you till the end of the age. Well, that's good news. I mean, that news doesn't get any better than that. It shouldn't that news be being proclaimed today? And it's interesting how that it's not. And it's interesting how I hear people's eschatology and they don't even understand what's going on right now. What's taking, if you don't understand what's taking place right now in the present time, how could you ever begin to interpret scripture in God's word to tell me what's going to happen in the future? Right now, all that authority's been given to Jesus. So that's the good news. That's the good news back then. That's the good news right now. So here's Philip, went down to the city of Samaritan and he began preaching Christ to them and the crowds with one accord were giving attention to what was being said by Philip. And they heard and saw that signs which he was doing. Now, Philip had miracle powers. This was in the intermediate period. My brother don't like me to use it, I put a time on God's miracle powers because God is totally capable of having, miracles are going on right now to this day. But we just have to define some of these miracles that were taking place and we have to ask ourselves why were these miracles taking place? What was the reason for it? So we had in the Old Testament you had all the prophets had come about and they proclaimed the truth of God's word. They had some miracle abilities, some of them. But Jesus came into this world and he says, I am the Messiah, I am the one that was prophesied to come. I am here and he then was able to cause people a blind to see again, the death to hear again. The dead to raise from the dead. Now, nobody, nobody, no magician, no magic, nobody can raise the dead back to life. Jesus raised the dead back to life, Lazarus. And he was surely dead, he was four days dead where the skin was cleaving off the bone so dead. And Jesus brought him back to life to show that he was the prophesied Messiah to come that he is here establishing his kingdom, no denying it. The miracles that he's performed over and over again. And these miracles showed that he was from God and Jesus then gave these same miracles, extra gifts to his apostles to be able to perform miracles of healing, speaking in tongues, casting out demons. Jesus had the Holy Spirit had given these powers, these abilities. Well, here we see Stephen had it, we see Philip had it. We know Peter and John had him. We just heard the lame man that was made to walk before the temple that he had the healing powers to the Holy Spirit was able to actually physically heal people. We see Philip had this. So here we find that Philip is healing people and he's also casting out demons. People that were demon possessed were casting them out. Verse eight, so there was great joy in that city. Now they knew that he was from God because of the miracles that he was performing. And it's interesting that Jesus was there with the woman at the well at one time and how she went back and told her story of Jesus, the I Am and the fact that so many came to believe that Jesus spent a couple of days there and they were coming to believe him by believing. We know we'll spend eternity with our God and it just makes me think, well, what did it take in place? We see this guy, Simon, coming in there after Jesus had left. Now Simon comes into this area, this region, and he's this guy that does these magical acts, this magician and people believe them, him to be a very important man that he probably had come from God too. So let's just read a little bit what the scripture says. Verse nine, now there was a man named Simon who formerly was practicing magic in the city and astounding the people of Samaria, claiming to be someone great. And they all from the smallest to the greatest, all of them were believing this Simon. We're giving attention to him, saying this man is what is called the great power of God. And they were giving him attention because he had had for a long time as astounded them with his magic arts. But when they believe Philip proclaiming the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were being baptized, both men and women. Even Simon, even Simon himself believed. Now this is very important part of this, that Simon himself, this apostate, this troubled individual needing all this attention of that he has this power, he had to be just full of his self using taking advantage of people. But he believed and he was baptized and being baptized, he continued on with Philip as he observed signs and great miracles were taking place. He was constantly astounded. Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For he had not yet fallen upon any of them. They had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they began laying hands on them and they were receiving the Holy Spirit. Now this is, I've been working on this and mulling on this and reading the scriptures about this and trying to get a greater, a better understanding. I think it's a couple of things and I don't know if I absolutely can tell you positively, but I'm just going to make some statements of fact, talk a little bit about the Holy Spirit and what was taking place. I think my brother Logan, because some of the gifts God gives us wisdom, he gives us knowledge, he gives us tongues, he gives us healings, he gives us interpretations. So these are extra gifts that are given to people. So we being in the body of Christ, we are to utilize the whole body of Christ, not to think that we're the head that we do need to rely on our brothers in this body of Christ. And so pointed out to me that some of the Old Testament saints that they were saved, they believed in God and they were saved, but the Spirit may not have filled them, be filled with the Spirit, the promise, it's new covenant language and it's new covenant, not language, but it's being filled with the Spirit as the promise of Jesus himself who says he's going to send the Spirit, he told the apostles, go back and wait, I'm going to send the Spirit. And that the regeneration of the soul that the Spirit of God comes in and fills that soul. One Spirit for all, the same Spirit for gifts that are given for all. But I ask myself, what was this that Peter and John had given them the laid hands on and gave them the Spirit? Was it that they were then going to be able to do, give them some gifts of healing or speaking in tongues or some other things? I don't really know, I just complexed about that a little bit. But what I do know that since this time period, the transition period from the Old Testament to the New Testament, when these miracles were happening, we should define them in a certain and accurate way. In other words, a healing when a man was, when we talk about if you were given the gift of healing, okay, that the healings in the Bible, this man was lame since birth. He's 40 years old now. When Peter and John, when he was healed, he got up, had full mobility, he clicking his feet together, he's dancing, completely healed. Understand when the gift of healing, someone has that through the Spirit, it's a complete healing, all right? When Lazarus was dead, he was four days dead. That's the definition of healing. Now, another definition that we see in Acts, when we talk about tongues, it's people speaking in different languages, okay? The definition of giving the Spirit, the gift of tongues as these people, were able to speak in different languages and prophesy the Old Testament and share the truth of God's Word to a people and they were astounded. Some people were given the gift to understand languages that they wasn't able to understand, to be able to interpret. So these are my definitions that the Bible comes up with for understanding the Holy Spirit. And it just amazes me that I believe we have some aspects, some people that need to have that for their belief to be believed that this is truly happening, that they have to see, that they have to have these miracle powers, these gifts. But I haven't seen that. I'm still looking for any of them who proclaim that. But here we see Philip and Simon. And this is, this is good news for Simon too. Even Simon himself believed and after being baptized, he continued on with Philip and as he observed signs and great miracles taking place, he was constantly astounded. Now, when the apostles and Jerusalem heard that that Samaria had received the Word of God, they sent them Peter and John, whom came down and prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for he had not yet fallen upon any of them. They had simply been baptized in the name of Jesus. Then they began laying their hands on them and that they were receiving the Holy Spirit. Now, when Simon saw that the Spirit had been bestowed through laying on the apostles' hands, he offered them money. And this is really interesting too, because in today's culture, I see the same people that proclaim to have these gifts. Money is big on their list. And here he is offering them. And here's Simon, the musician who wanted these miracle powers, these gifts, this was just to glorify who? So glorify Simon, okay? And he says, "Give this authority to me as well, "so that everyone on whom I lay my hands "may receive the Holy Spirit." But Peter said to him, "May your silver perish with you "because you suppose you could obtain "the gift of God with money. "You have no part or portion in this matter. "For your heart is not right before God. "Therefore repent of your wickedness of yours. "And pray earnestly to the Lord that, "if possible, the intention of your heart "may be forgiven you. "For I see that you are in the gale of bitterness "and in the bondage of unrighteousness." Now, I love this. Simon could not have come up with a better answer when he just got hit with this. And if you're mourning, grieving the spirit, this would be a good answer for you also. But Simon answered and said, "Pray earnestly to the Lord, "for me yourselves so that nothing of what you have said "may come upon me." He understood the water that we, he was in. He understand, grieving that it was the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And he says, "What is Jesus? "The prayers of a righteous man of valeth much." He immediately says, "You pray for me." He knew the trouble. He knew what he did for himself. He got himself in a jackpot. "You pray for me." And I think we should all take that as a lesson to look at people in our lives. I would consider the way these words were almost that his soul was not regenerated, but he said that he believed and he was baptized. So then it makes me think, well, he was because in John, it tells me that you must be reborn again and the requirement for that is believing, believing, believing, believing, these people believed. And then the Spirit had fallen onto them. Now, the Holy Spirit, so you don't, so, what is the Holy Spirit falling upon? What is this extra, if it's extra? I don't know if that's the right word, but here's what it is. I'm saved, my souls regenerated. When I come to share God's word, I pray to the Spirit that I may be filled with the Spirit, be led by the Spirit, be guided by the Spirit. They have great preachers. They were already saved and every week they're not, they're not being resaved, the Spirit's flowing out of them. And I'm gonna have a couple examples that were just recently in my life that I can show you where the Spirit is working. The Holy Spirit is working, it's fallen upon me. And I believe each and every believer, if you keep your eyes open long enough, you can see where the Spirit has fallen upon you in your life after your salvation, you can actually see it. And it doesn't have to be on your command to show somebody else that you have this certain power ability. And I wanna tell you something. I remember coming here to this church, 15 years ago, and there was a brother, Guy Morton, was preaching. And he says, "I hope y'all bought your red Bibles today." And there's that red hymn though, over here. I'm sitting there and I grabbed this, I says, "I got my red Bible." You know, that's how ignorant I was to God's word, okay? But see, there's something about the Spirit. And he, what's referred to him is he, he draws us, he leads us, he saves us, he continues to make intercession on our behalf. And here's the Holy Spirit drawing me to the Lord, to the point where I completely surrendered, I hollowed out to the name of the Lord. I received this forgiveness, what a beautiful thing. And then what happens then with the soul, the regenerant soul, then he begins to hunger and thirst for God's word. He begins to pick up the red Bible and realize it's a hymn though, it's not even a Bible. And then he says, "Well, where is my Bible?" And what do you do? You grab that Bible that's been sitting on your table for your family Bible. This is the Bible that Grandma had, you know? And you got in, you get started digging in the God's word. And I got to a certain point, see, in God's word, when it, in Romans 8, 1, and I found out that it's a, it's, I don't know, what do we call that? What the, it's a textual variant, but we can find the same thing in Galatians. But when I heard, and it said there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. When I heard that, that was the most, that was the most rewarding and exhilarating thing in my life after feeling condemned my whole life and worthless and just uncapable. And they hear that my Lord and Savior is going to forgive me that there's no condemnation. My sins are forgiven as far as the east to the west. Oh, well, how awesome is that? You begin to hunger at Thurston, you pick that up and then you start saying, what's going on in my life? And I picked this Bible up. I put the red handle down. I picked this Bible up. And I wanted to just bring this Bible because I got into the Romans and I started, if you could see I got all this different highlighted in here. I start highlighting it. What's the spirit? What does it do for me? You know, the spirit, the Holy Spirit, he, he drawed me to the Lord. Then I begin to walk, then I begin to walk after the spirit, motion, I begin to walk after the spirit, being sanctified, walking after the spirit. He draws me. I begin to walk after the spirit. He begins to lead me. The spirit then begins to lead me, as my Savior. Then he begins to make intercession on my behalf because I don't even know how to pray. And the Holy Spirit begins to make intercession on my behalf. See, this is a miracle. This is a miracle that happens in every regenerated soul. I do not need to lay my hands on somebody and have them begin to speak in tongues or to be able to heal them to prove that my God is real. I know he's real. But I started highlighting these things. And it says, but after the spirit, verse two, for the law of the spirit is life. The spirit is life, verse four. Walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. It's a walking motion. I begin to walk after the spirit. Verse five, for that they are after the flesh, do the mind of the things of the flesh, but they that are after the spirit, the things of the spirit. We begin to meditate and pray, hunger and thirst and for his word. Six, but to be spiritual minded is life and peace, but to be spiritual, be carnal minded is death, but to be spiritual minded is life and peace. You can live in the God's rest and peace right now in your life today and all this chaos. Verse nine, but you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. If so, be that the spirit of God dwell in you. Verse 10, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. Verse 11, but if the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken, renew, the old things have passed away. The new has begun, your mortal bodies by his spirit, the spirit has led, has drawn me, it's leading me. Now it's indwelling me, verse 13, but if ye through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body ye shall live mortifying the deeds of the flesh, the sins that we once committed mortifying them. And how many of us, my brother calls them bosom sins, how many of them you may not commit that sin in your life no more, but how many of you just sit around and massage it and think about it? I'm telling you, thinking about your previous sins and trying to get enjoyment out of them is as bad as sinning. We're not to do that. It says to mortify the deeds of the flesh. The spirit in me enables me to do that. That is a miracle. I was unable to do that with my own power. But if ye through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body ye shall live. For as many are as led, being led by the spirit, the spirit of God, they are the sons of God. Verse 15, "For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba Father." We cry out to our God. The God that was so punished, it was such a punishing God to me through my whole life, I felt so condemned. This punishing God has now forgiven me and his spirit in me to where I can cry out to him Abba enduring my Father. Verse 16, "The spirit itself bears witness for our spirit." Now the spirit, now it drew me, it's leading me and it's bearing witness, the spirit itself with my spirit, that's the Holy Spirit in the believer communicating with them. Verse 26, "Like the spirit also helpeth with our infirmities for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the spirit itself makeeth intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." That changed my life and I think having an accurate understanding who the Holy Spirit is and I have something that I had printed off back at that time, John MacArthur who we should keep in our prayers is with his health issues. He's been an inspiration of my life but this comes to grace to you, this is something that he had written and it's always touched my heart. And it says, "First of all, a way to perceive the Holy Spirit that might help us in this. The Holy Spirit is to our spiritual lives what the Creator is to the physical world. Without God, the Creator, the physical world would not exist and without his continuous sustaining, upholding and preserving power, the world would crash out of existence. You understand that the Holy Spirit sustains us, it holds us, we would crash out of existence the same way God does with the world. And similarly, in terms of the spiritual dimension, without the Holy Spirit, we would never have been recreated. Never did that newness of life recreated. And without the sustaining, preserving, upholding power of the Holy Spirit, we too would crash back into the physical deadness from which we came. So the Spirit of God is the very agent by which we were given life and the very agent through whom that life is sustained. And also the very agent who will, in the end, bring that life to full consummation and eternal glory. Now, market that the Holy Spirit is not an influence. The Holy Spirit is a person. We never refer to the Holy Spirit as it. We always refer to the Holy Spirit as he. And he is the third member of the Godhead, equal to the Father, equal to the Son, in deity and personhood. Personality, if you study the Bible, for example, you will find that the Holy Spirit possesses mind, emotion, will. He knows the deep things of God. He loves the saints, he makes decisions, he speaks, he prays, he teaches, he guides, he commands. He fellowships, he comforts, he may be grieved, he may be quenched, he may be lied to, he may be tested, he may be resisted, he may be blasphemed. And all these things indicate that he is indeed a person. And when you look at the Bible, you find that he has all of the attributes that all the rest of the Trinity and the Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit is eternal, that he is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, holy and glorious, the Bible calls him God, Lord, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of Yahweh, the Spirit of the Lord God, the Spirit of the Father, the Spirit of the living God, the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of his Son. And he is called the Comforter. The Bible tells us that he was active in creation. There's an accurate definition of the Holy Spirit. And that just brought me back to that understanding of who the Holy Spirit was, even though sometimes, maybe like yourselves, you'll get to passages and you may be struggle with it a little bit. But I think knowing the Trinity, knowing the Holy Spirit, and I really think in times with we have this whole, all new, this whole AI technology coming out, well, it is going to be deceive people, lie to people, that if you do not know God's Word, you're gonna be in big trouble. You can be a believer and if you do not know God's Word, you will be in trouble. Knowing God's Word is going to protect you, allow you to be in God's rest and be able to share the truth with other people. 'Cause the days are coming where there's going to be a lots of deception and lies. There already is through people manipulating it. But now we're talking about a technology doing it. So just a little recap thinking back over at the, removed, we're transitioning away from Stephen now. We're moving into Paul, our Apostle Paul. The Shania glory that come out of Stephen, that was glowing from him, his commitment to the Lord. God's sovereignty, how God works through his church throughout redemptive history. Do we see the same, we see some of the same things going on today as we see in the Bible with Simon, the musician who's wanting to have these powers to for selfish and self-centered reasons? Not to glorify God. We then hear and see the true understanding of the Holy Spirit, who God is. And I think most of all, the good news, what they were proclaiming was the fact that that our Savior has all authority on heaven and earth. And it's our jobs for each one of us. Now I don't know what gifts God has given you. He's regenerated the souls of all his people. You were drawn, the Holy Spirit had drawn you. It redeemed you, redeeming you, bleeding you, it's guiding you, but then there's gifts. We all have certain gifts, gifts of knowledge, wisdom, certain gifts that God gives us, callings that are evident in every believer that I do believe go on right now today. And I think it speaks a lot about the body of Christ. It talks about the same spirit, the same Christ that's distributed in the church, the body of believers. And I think we really need to rely on the whole body that not one of us is the head, only Christ is the head. And we need to rely on other believers in their gifts, true gifts from God. And I think I've met people in my life with a whole lot of knowledge, but they really lack some wisdom. I've met people that mourn and grieve the spirit. They've been saved and they've concluded that they have a, they're sin nature in them so that they're just going to, they just give up to the fact that they're gonna sin. And I don't go for that. When we have that Holy Spirit in us, the miracle that is able to do is it gives us control of our, it begins to give us control of our lives and ourself. And He's telling us not to sin, but if we do sin to confess our sins and surely He'll forgive us. We have to understand that we're representing a holy and righteous God as representatives for Him. He's given us the Holy Spirit in us to act accordingly. Shouldn't we do that? I understand if you're mourning or grieving the spirit, you may not act on that. And I wanna talk about the spirit just a little bit before I close. There was a, so how does the spirit, how does the spirit fall? And I mean, there are several inches of my life, but the most recent one, I'm driving down the road and I'm sharing with a young man. I'm sharing with him the fact that about a problem in his life that he's basically powerless over. He's doing the things he don't wanna do. He's not capable of doing the things he wants to do. So basically he's powerless over something and he doesn't want to admit to his powerlessness. Then I begin to tell him the most important thing what he needs to know because he's gonna go into now, he's gonna start going to three different types of counselors to get counseling to help him with his secular, worldly problems and then he's gonna have worldly answers and they ultimately always end up with some type of pill to help them when you go to this counselor. And it's very concerning that they're going to rely on a pill or this and I says this is what you need to know. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. All things came into being through him. Apart from him, nothing came into being. He was the light and life of the world but the darkness could not comprehend. Do you know why that was written? Blank look was written for those who hear it or read it will come to believe and by believing they can spend all eternity with God. And the word, I let them know that the word is Jesus an accurate understanding who Jesus is. Says it right there, very simple. You need to believe that. I said, you'll go to some places and I had to back up and say, you know, there was a point in my life that words didn't really matter, statements, phrases. Didn't really matter. But now statement, words, phrases, they matter to me. I stumble, I stutter, I get things wrong all the time, I know it, I'm sorry. Logan's praying for me, he's working with me. But that's just the way it is. But the fact that I pay attention now and there's a group that tells people, you just gotta give a God of your own understanding. That's, you just gotta find a God of your own understanding and it's like, and everybody thinks that, oh, well, I could just make my own God up. That's wonderful, I love that. I mean, what better thing? You can make your own, so everybody can have their own God. That's not what it says. Doesn't say you have the right to make your own God up. Says you have to have the God of your own understanding no matter how inadequate it may be. It's telling the person that, listen, I'm preaching the gospel, I'm preaching the accurate and true, but you need to get an understanding of God. Personally, you need to understand God. It's not gonna be the way someone else tells you, you need to understand God. No matter how inadequate it may be, you need to realize you are not God. And then the phone rings, phone call rings. It's my brother. He's in Columbus or wherever he's coming home and he's for abolition of abortion. And he says, "You won't believe the conversation I just had." I says, "What's that?" He says, "There's this man that says, "I'm against abortion." He says, "But I don't believe that whole Jesus thing. "I got my own higher power." And Logan, he's like, "Yeah." He says, "You got a God of your own understanding, "no matter how inadequate it may be." And let me tell you, Jesus, if it ain't Jesus, it's inadequate and you need to have Jesus in your life. And I says, "Wow, that's awesome, brother." I says, "Did you hear that?" 'Cause the gentleman I'm driving down the road. Now how does that happen? Now how does that have the exact same conversation at the exact same time with two different people at the same time? That's the Holy Spirit has fallen upon me, has fallen upon my brother and we're communicating the good news, the gospel of Christ to the world. That's exciting. That's a healing going on. And so when we close in prayer today, I want to pray for both of these men. I want to pray for both of them in that the spirit that has fallen upon them to hear the truth of God's word. See, because that's just mathematically impossible. That is being led by the spirit. So that to me is in my life, connecting the spirit fallen upon me. And I'll tell you, it gets no better than that. And I have several times in my life that I could tell you, but time is running short. But I just want us to close in prayer and think about these two men that got to hear about Jesus. Let us just bow our heads. Our heavenly gracious Father, who sits in all authority, at the right hand of God until He makes a footstool out of all of His enemies, Father, who has sent us the Holy Spirit and dwell in us to spread the gospel, the good news to truth, to all of those, to all the world, to all every aspect of the world, and to know that you've promised that you're going to be with us today into the age, Father. Father, we pray for the men that we minister to. We pray for all the men we minister to. We pray for all the prayers that we pray and petitions to you, Father, that you could give these people a heart to know and ears to hear and eyes to see. But specifically, God, we pray today. I pray right now, Father, I pray for these two men that got to hear the same message, the same truthful message of Jesus, your Son, who He is. I pray that you can turn their heart. I pray that you could take their heart of flesh, Father, take that heart of stone, Father, and just give them a new heart. Give them a new being, give them a new purpose. Father, we just pray for that. We pray for this facility here. We pray that God's word can be expounded upon. We pray for a hedge of protection, that continual hedge of protection around your church and to encourage all of your believers, Father, to continue to encourage them, just continue to sustain them and let them know that you are God. In Jesus' name, I pray, amen.