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Well, that's we're going to talk about

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for the rest of our time this morning.

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Let's pray before we go any further. All right?

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God, I am talking to You,

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not because it's the churchy thing to do

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or what pastors do.

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I'm talking to You, God, because I know

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You can do things in all of our seats

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and all of our sites and online

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that I and nobody else can do.

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You can touch us with Your Spirit.

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You can enlighten us, You can encourage us.

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You can strengthen us, empower us and heal us.

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I believe this and I'm asking You to do this today

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and that you would help me accurately represent

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Your deep truth.

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And I pray these things according to the character

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and identity of Jesus. Amen.

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Well, as Chuck mentioned last week,

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Chuck did a great job last week, didn't he?

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Yeah, Great job.

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The Book of Acts, which we're going to

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spend a little bit of time in,

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could refer to some people as Acts of the church,

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Acts of the apostles, or as we're looking at it,

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Acts of the Spirit, Acts of the Holy Spirit.

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I want to mention today, I want to say this,

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today there's going to be weird things.

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Today weird things are going to be --

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Some of you weirdos are like, "Whoa, good.

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Yes, weird. I like weird."

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We do like weird. We do. We enjoy weird.

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This is why we enjoy fixating on Bigfoot.

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We enjoy fixating on UFOs.

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One of the more freaky books I read

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in the last year or so was on

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all of the disappearing people there are

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in national forests and national wilderness areas.

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Kind of freaky.

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I spent over 30 nights a year camping

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out in those kind of areas, and they talked about

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how many people just are abducted and gone missing.

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They're just gone.

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Like, people who are not mentally ill,

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people who are very fit, people who are who understand

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how to survive outside, and gone.

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And they don't get reported very much because

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they're not sure how to report it.

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Is this a county thing?

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Is this a local sheriff thing?

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Is this a National Parks and Recreation thing?

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Is this a forest service?

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So part of that is they don't get reported as much.

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There's a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot.

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And they have two reasons, two possibilities

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for why this might be.

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And we laugh at these, but two possible.

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One is Bigfoot.

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One is that Bigfoot is actually real.

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Bigfoot is real.

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And there's people who have stories of this and that.

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You might not believe in Bigfoot.

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Okay, well, okay.

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The other one is UFOs.

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People are getting abducted.

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These are the two ideas they come up with.

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There may be others, but there's something weird

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happening because too many people are going missing

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in national forests over the span of a year.

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I don't -- I'm not threatened

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by either one of those things, by the way,

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because the Bible is really agnostic

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relative to UFO and Bigfoot.

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There's a lot of things that are in the world

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that the Bible doesn't talk about.

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The Bible doesn't talk about largemouth bass.

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UFOs, I'm sure there are. I guess, maybe.

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Why? Is it because there's evidence

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that I've seen, I believe.

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No, it's because God is a creator.

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That's His core. He is a creator.

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Do I really think that God would create this earth

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and say, "Whew, I'm glad I did that. I'm done creating"?

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No, man.

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There were galaxies and planets and multiple universes

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that he was working on long before earth came along

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that the Bible was primarily concerned with,

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and long after.

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Who's to say that one of those things

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couldn't be more advanced than us

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and they're coming here and checking us out?

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Let's just hope they all know Jesus

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so they don't zap us with their lasers.

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Let's just hope that. Right?

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I don't know.

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All I know is this: I'm very comfortable

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with things that are weird and strange because

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my faith is weird and strange because I believe in a God

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who's done weird and strange things in and through me.

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I've seen weird and strange things.

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It's all through the Bible.

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It's what we're calling the series The X Factor.

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You know, the X factor is that thing,

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you just can't notice it, you can't define it,

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but it's real.

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Like, there are some people who, in terms of

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their attraction, they're just very, very attractive.

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You're just drawn to them. Right?

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Of course, it's your spouse if you're with them, right?

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Just say, "That's up to you, honey."

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Just tell them it's them. It's no one else. Just them.

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What is that?

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There's people who have that X factor,

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that that sexual allure, that draw,

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who will never make a cover of any magazine.

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And there are some people who make

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the cover of a magazine, they just-- they don't have it.

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It's the X Factor.

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Like, there's something about, I feel chemistry.

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It's the X factor, can't define it.

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In athletics, you ever see Tom Brady's 40 yard dash

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when he trained for the combine,

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when he did the combine for the NFL draft?

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He is a dork, an utter and complete dork.

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There is nothing physically about Tom Brady

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which would have indicated that he would be

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the greatest of all time.

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Why? He has The X Factor.

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There's something about how he sees the field of play.

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Something about how he behaves.

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Something about, he just -- he has it, The X Factor.

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The ultimate X factor is when God,

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God comes and fills us, He fills us.

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Jesus prophesied this in John 16.

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He says, "It's to your benefit that I go away.

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Because when I go away, the helper will come to you."

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By the way, in case slides are missed today,

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I've got 3 points I'm going to give you today,

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but I'm not going to actually give you the 3 points today.

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I'm going to just talk and then let you digest.

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I'm going to try something new this week.

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I'm going to give you access to my raw notes,

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the things that I use on this iPad,

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which is the scripture verses I use,

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my cues for speaking,

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the stuff that I have that doesn't make the cut,

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it's underneath the lines, certain sources,

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certain stuff like that.

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That way "I didn't get that point

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or I want to take notes."

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Please you can take no notes if you want,

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but sometimes what I say doesn't line up

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with what's actually in the notes.

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But if you want to look at it at the end of our service,

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I'm going to give you a QR code

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and you can just go there and you will see

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exactly what I have here, all the verses,

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all kind of stuff. Okay, cool?

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All right, good. You can do that if you want.

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Where was I? Where was I?

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What was I talking about? Qr codes.

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Oh, yeah.

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Jesus says, "It's to your benefit that I go away

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because when I leave the Holy Spirit,

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the helper will come and be with you."

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You would think that, no, it would never be our benefit.

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I'd rather have Jesus physically with me.

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Jesus says, "No, you actually want me to leave."

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He says to the disciples,

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"Because when I leave, you get an X Factor.

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Right now you have Me physically in the flesh

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who can encourage you, motivate you when I'm around you.

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But when I leave, there's going to be a new era

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of redemptive history that comes in

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where you're actually going to be able to possess,

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inhabit, inside of you is going to be the Spirit of God."

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What would you rather do: Be around God or have God?

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The answer is have God, the answer is have God.

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It's the X factor for all the things

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that people of faith can do.

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When this is unleashed,

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when the Holy Spirit is unleashed,

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is after Jesus leaves the Earth,

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which is about 50 days later.

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There's a high holy holiday of Passover,

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which is when Easter and the crucifixion

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and the resurrection, all that stuff happens.

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50 days earlier, Passover,

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and then another high Holy Jewish Day,

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holiday is Pentecost.

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So as their gathering at Pentecost,

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this is what we're going to read today.

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And let's hear what happens

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with the weird that happens by the Holy Spirit,

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the empowering that happens by the Holy Spirit.

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Here's what it says:

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The ultimate X factor is the Holy Spirit.

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Now, today I'm going to say two things.

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I'm going to refer to the Holy Spirit,

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and I'm going to refer to Holy Spirit.

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You might have heard during this weekend,

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Todd Pierce, he might have said,

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"What Holy Spirit does is this."

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You might have said at one point,

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that's that's the great thing about Holy Spirit.

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He blank, blank, blank, blank, blank, blank.

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It might sound awkward if you haven't heard that before

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because you think, wait,

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you're forgetting something there.

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It's the, like, the Holy Spirit.

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Actually, the majority of times in the New Testament

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that Holy Spirit is referenced, it's without the the.

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That's the definite article.

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You can do that and look at that in the Greek.

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I wouldn't say proficient. I know my way around it.

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I've been to cemetery.

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I know how that how that stuff, how that stuff works.

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And here in this specific instance,

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this specific instance where it says

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filled with the Holy Spirit,

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the is actually not in the manuscript.

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It's just filled with Holy Spirit.

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Now, don't go mistrusting the Bible now.

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Don't do that.

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There's other times where it does say the

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and the translator sometimes is like,

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it's just not going to read well,

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it's referring to the same person.

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So and it's tradition.

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So they put it in there to be be consistent

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but here in this but it is Holy Spirit,

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meaning it's a name.

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Holy Spirit is not an aura.

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Holy Spirit is not a sensation.

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Though there may be an aura,

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though He may give you a sensation.

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He's a person.

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That's why Jesus calls Him a person.

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It's to your benefit that I go away.

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The helper, also known as the Paraclete.

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Para, how we get paralegal,

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the one who will come alongside you,

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not just in you, but alongside you and will help you.

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He'll give you an X factor of strength.

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An X factor of comfort.

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When the Holy Spirit comes.

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And at this point, the Holy Spirit has not come

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and filled average people who have received Jesus.

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This is the moment where it does.

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All these people are gathered in this house

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and all over the place.

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All over the place,

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all the Jews from all over the Roman Empire

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have come to the high holy city of Jerusalem.

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And as they're there, the thing that Jesus prophesied

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about actually takes place.

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All of a sudden, wind breaks out.

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Pneuma, Holy Spirit.

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Spirit is the word pneuma, which is wind.

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Wind breaks out going in amongst them,

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going in around them.

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Wait, wait, wait, I've heard this wind before,

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I've sensed this before,

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but this is this is a different thing.

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This is an X factor that's happening.

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And as the Holy Spirit comes in,

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crazy things started happening,

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like people start hearing languages

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that they've never learned.

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[overlapping foreign languages]

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- Tongues of fire coming, resting upon them.

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It was like tongues of fire and wind coming

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and languages, this is weird.

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This is an X factor they couldn't describe and define.

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They're hearing, and now when I say they,

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I'm talking about Jews that are in the area,

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Jews who have not seen Jesus as Messiah.

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They're hearing Jesus, the words of Jesus

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in their own language, because the Roman Empire

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was all different kinds of people groups,

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all different kinds of countries and ethnicities,

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all different languages,

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and miraculously different tongues

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start to come out where they are hearing them.

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It is astounding.

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Now, one of the reasons why churches tend to

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not talk too much about Holy Spirit,

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is Holy Spirit is made by certain people to be divisive.

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Christians are just like everybody else,

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we love to judge and we like

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to feel superior to everybody else.

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We like to feel superior to people

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who are inside of our own church

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or inside of our own faith.

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And so one of the things that happens is

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the way I'm experiencing the Holy Spirit

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is not the way you're experiencing the Holy Spirit.

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I have these gifts. You don't have that gift.

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And one of the things that is used is say,

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well, if you don't have the gift of tongues,

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that is speaking in a language

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that you've never formally learned,

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you don't have the signs of the Holy Spirit inside of you.

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There's two different kinds of tongues in the Bible.

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One kind of tongues is what we're seeing here in Acts.

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It's the most profound kind.

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It's is the kind of tongue where a literal language

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you could learn at a university,

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but you haven't spent time learning at the university,

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you can instantaneously speak it.

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And you can do it to enable people to receive Jesus.

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This happened in one of our early Go Trips.

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In the early days of Crossroads we had a big thing.

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We were just taking people over to South Africa.

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Our first time in South Africa,

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our church I think was 4000 people

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and we took two groups of 300 over the summer.

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So we took over over a tithe

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of our church to South Africa, just overwhelming.

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It was amazing.

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It was back in the days of AIDS

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and government funding not being in.

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And we just jumped in, all in.

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And it was a really great and wonderful time.

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When we went over, we would do different seminars

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to help the locals.

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And one of my favorite stories is a woman

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who was teaching a music class.

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South Africa, has a bunch of different tribes,

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a bunch of different languages.

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Someone came up afterwards and said,

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"Thank you so much for what you did today.

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It was wonderful.

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We especially appreciate that you spoke to us in Zulu."

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And she said, "I don't know Zulu.

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I didn't speak to you in Zulu."

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They said, "Well, we heard you in Zulu the whole time."

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Tongues manifested in that moment.

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Either she was speaking it

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that she didn't know and it was natural

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or they were hearing it in that.

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That still happens. That's one kind of tongue.

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The other kind of tongue.

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And I don't have personal experience with this one.

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I wish I had this one.

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Some of you are going to judge me

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because I don't have this one

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is kind of a heavenly language

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as I've heard it described.

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In the book of 1 Corinthians 13:1,

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the ultimate love chapter in the New Testament,

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the Apostle Paul talks about speaking,

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"If I don't have love, I have nothing,

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even if I have tongues," he says,

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"speaking in the languages of men or of angels."

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So some people have what they would call

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a private prayer language, a heavenly language

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where they can pray and say stuff

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that sounds like gibberish to the --

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sounds like gibberish, but to them it's not

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and to God it's not.

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I don't have that gift. Wish I did.

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I want all of it, all of them.

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I want all the gifts.

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I don't have that one. Don't have that one.

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But this thing that happens in Pentecost

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is languages you could learn if you knew them,

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except getting them immediately.

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And the purpose is to bring people to understand Jesus.

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This last week a part of my regular discipline

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in getting with God is to do the Crossroads App.

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I recommend it highly.

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I probably, 2 to 3 times a week,

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I choose to post my journal notes.

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I don't every day, but 2 to 3 times a week I do.

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And this last week Acts 2 was in there

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and I posted it.

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And I'll just kind of distill down for you

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what I said there and actually blow it down a little bit.

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You can imagine what would have happened

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as there were thousands of people,

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thousands of people who were hearing tongues.

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It's going to say later on that God

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added to their number new believers, 3000 that day.

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So there are thousands and thousands of people

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who are gathered for this festival.

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And these languages are buzzing all around.

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And you can just imagine the confusion.

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It sounds confusing.

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And there's people there who come to Christ,

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3000 people, but there's also probably thousands

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as well around the area that don't come to Christ.

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They're just like,

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it sounds like gibberish and awfulness.

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And there's a person who's going to step forward

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and describe this, and it's going to be Peter.

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Peter is going to explain what it is they're experiencing.

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And let's see what Peter does

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while he grabs the microphone and explains

00:17:09

to all the masses what's happening here.

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Here's what it says:

00:17:14

But Peter standing with the 11.

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That's the 11 apostles. He's one of them.

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There was 12. One killed himself.

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That's how they're interpreting it,

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people just must be drunk.

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This is like a cacophony of sound.

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People don't get this crazy unless they're drunk.

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That's his comeback?

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You know, he could have said,

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"These people aren't drunk.

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You know, people like us don't drink."

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He could have said that.

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He could have said, "These people aren't drunk.

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You know, that's below our morality."

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He says, "It's 9 a.m.

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Come on. We don't start heavy drinking at 9 a.m.

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Come on, folks. Let's be rational here.

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We don't drink at nine."

00:18:07

I think this is awesome.

00:18:09

There's just something earthy about Peter.

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This is -- This is true.

00:18:12

But that's the defense that he gives.

00:18:15

And Peter is now going to go on

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and he's going to describe what is taking place

00:18:22

in that place and what can take place with you and I.

00:18:25

Many of us in here do not have The X Factor.

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You don't have the X Factor.

00:18:31

You may have the right beliefs about Jesus.

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You might -- You might even be going to heaven.

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And you might have enough of the Spirit

00:18:40

to have His presence in you.

00:18:43

But the X factor of power, the X factor of fullness

00:18:47

you don't have because either you haven't been told

00:18:49

or you're just not interested in that kind of life.

00:18:52

But this is real. This is true.

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This actually takes place.

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And when you get the X Factor,

00:18:59

you have the marks of Holy Spirit in your life.

00:19:02

Marks of Holy Spirit, marks of Jesus,

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marks of the Father, all the same,

00:19:06

all one, all the same, three separate identities,

00:19:10

but have the same values, the same systems.

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Three things, one is this Holy Spirit restores

00:19:15

instead of rejects.

00:19:21

The Holy Spirit restores instead of rejecting.

00:19:27

You may think right now that you don't have the X Factor

00:19:29

or God can never use you in for whatever reason

00:19:31

because of what you did in the past,

00:19:33

because of this or because of that.

00:19:35

You may think that, but the Holy Spirit doesn't think that.

00:19:39

You may think that, you may be hearing that,

00:19:42

but that's not what God is saying.

00:19:45

And the fact that Peter here,

00:19:47

Peter is the guy who gives the keynote address,

00:19:51

the key explanation of all that's about to happen.

00:19:53

And I'm only going to give you a snippet of it today.

00:19:55

The fact that it's him is astounding

00:19:59

and an example of the Spirit's work.

00:20:02

50 days earlier, Peter rejected Jesus publicly.

00:20:08

50 days earlier.

00:20:10

50 days earlier he three times in a row,

00:20:14

three times in a row, someone came and said,

00:20:16

"Hey, aren't you the one that --"

00:20:18

He said, "No, no, no, not not me. I didn't do that."

00:20:20

"Hey, aren't you the --"

00:20:21

And it actually says this in 2 Peter --

00:20:23

Excuse me, Luke 22:60, Peter said,

00:20:25

"Man, I do not know what you're talking about."

00:20:27

And immediately while he was standing there,

00:20:29

the rooster crowed and the Lord turned

00:20:31

and looked at Peter, and Peter remembered

00:20:34

the saying of the Lord how He had said to him,

00:20:37

"Before the rooster crows today,

00:20:38

you will deny me three times."

00:20:41

And he went out and he wept bitterly.

00:20:44

50 days earlier Peter denied and rejected Christ

00:20:49

three times publicly.

00:20:55

And he's the one 50 days later

00:20:57

who's giving the keynote address

00:20:59

that defines and describes the Holy Spirit.

00:21:02

Let me tell you something, one of the ways

00:21:04

that I know the Holy Spirit is active in you

00:21:06

is how good, how good you forgive.

00:21:09

When you're a crappy forgiver,

00:21:10

you do not have the X Factor.

00:21:13

When you are bitter, you do not have

00:21:14

the full presence of the Holy Spirit.

00:21:16

When you cannot get over what somebody else has done,

00:21:20

it's a sign that you may have the residue of the Spirit,

00:21:23

but you don't have the filling of the Spirit,

00:21:26

because where the spirit is, He restores.

00:21:28

He doesn't reject.

00:21:29

Peter gets restored here. Peter has been restored.

00:21:33

It's not here.

00:21:34

Right after, right after the time when Jesus comes back,

00:21:41

He interacts with Peter and He basically gives him

00:21:43

the same question three times,

00:21:45

looking for Peter to say,

00:21:48

"You know, I do. I love you, Lord, I love you."

00:21:50

He give him three times to say I love you.

00:21:52

It's kind of Jesus way, I think,

00:21:53

to offset the three times that he rejected Him.

00:21:56

So Peter and Jesus, they've gotten good with this.

00:21:59

They're good with each other.

00:22:00

And the fact that he's with the 11 Apostles

00:22:03

shows that they're good with Peter,

00:22:05

they're good with Peter.

00:22:06

When we as a church, when we as Christians,

00:22:09

our high standards means we never forget

00:22:12

the bad things that someone has done.

00:22:14

We're not being like the early church.

00:22:16

We're not being the apostles.

00:22:17

That's one of the things I love about Crossroads.

00:22:19

We'll have people here on stage who will share our past,

00:22:22

whether the past was an adultery,

00:22:24

whether the past is a pornographic addiction,

00:22:27

where the past is stealing from whatever it is,

00:22:31

church funds, which I did when I was 23

00:22:35

and the previous church I went to.

00:22:36

Whatever it is.

00:22:37

And by the way, repented for that, made it all good.

00:22:40

I got to explain this, because I know

00:22:41

some of you are freaking out right now.

00:22:43

"What? What?" It was 32 years ago.

00:22:46

Relax your sphincter. My gosh.

00:22:48

Like, we think some standard

00:22:50

because we are used to rejecting people.

00:22:52

No, the world rejects.

00:22:54

That's what the world does.

00:22:55

The world cancels.

00:22:57

When you have the Spirit you're about restoration.

00:23:00

Peter has been restored.

00:23:02

Peter has come to experience something

00:23:05

that is actually quite astounding.

00:23:08

The fact that Peter is given this address

00:23:13

is a sign of the health of the early church

00:23:15

and a sign of restoration.

00:23:16

Are you open to restoration yourself?

00:23:18

Have you been restored?

00:23:19

Maybe you've been restored,

00:23:21

but maybe you're still holding on to it.

00:23:24

One of the names for Satan is the accuser.

00:23:30

He will constantly accuse you.

00:23:32

He doesn't want us to forget our past.

00:23:34

He didn't want Peter to forget his past.

00:23:36

He would have loved for Peter to shut his yapper.

00:23:39

Peter is always the aggressive one.

00:23:40

He's always pushing.

00:23:41

That's one of the reasons I think Jesus loved him.

00:23:43

He's always pushing, he's always going.

00:23:45

So he's like, "Anyone else want to speak to this?

00:23:47

Anybody else?

00:23:48

They're telling us, they're saying

00:23:49

we're just a bunch of drunk people

00:23:50

and they're not understanding the Holy Spirit.

00:23:52

This is what Jesus talked about.

00:23:54

I'll do it. I'll do it."

00:23:55

He pushes forward and does it.

00:23:57

He didn't listen to the accuser say,

00:23:59

"You can't be the first person to describe

00:24:01

and define the Holy Spirit.

00:24:04

You can't be the first person

00:24:06

that brings 3000 people to Christ.

00:24:09

No, no, no.

00:24:11

Not the person who publicly rejected him 50 days ago,

00:24:16

who was apostate."

00:24:18

You might have heard that word apostate.

00:24:20

I'm sorry. I'm giving you a little Greek lesson here today.

00:24:22

I get into Greek and I can't stop.

00:24:24

Apostate A in Greek, A in Greek means not.

00:24:30

Postate or postao is the word for faith.

00:24:34

So apostate is no faith, not faith, not.

00:24:37

Just like Holy Spirit has that definite article,

00:24:41

there's things you can clue together

00:24:42

about the identity of God.

00:24:44

They didn't say that Peter was disqualified,

00:24:46

but the accuser will tell you because of what happened

00:24:48

you can't be it.

00:24:49

Like the accuser tries to tell me all the time.

00:24:51

"Brian, what are you -- What are you talking about?

00:24:54

Do not -- you can't write a paper every week.

00:24:57

You're not a good student.

00:24:59

You took seven years to get your four year education.

00:25:02

You're not a good student. You're stupid.

00:25:04

Don't put your --

00:25:05

Don't put your sermon notes out for people

00:25:07

because they're going to see typos

00:25:09

and they're going to see you're not all that smart.

00:25:11

They're going to see that you just don't."

00:25:14

And I go, "I'm not going to be accused of that.

00:25:16

That's not who I am right now.

00:25:17

Maybe who I was."

00:25:19

Typos are still there for sure.

00:25:22

Well, it was, but I'm not going to listen to the accuser.

00:25:26

Ike I've said before, I've felt before

00:25:29

like I'm disqualified because I've done porn

00:25:31

more recently than I care to admit.

00:25:34

And I'll think about that and I'll go,

00:25:36

"Oh, no, I can't. I can't, I can't."

00:25:39

You might have lived with your grandmother.

00:25:41

You might have lived with your grandmother,

00:25:43

and then you get to a place where you're actually

00:25:46

owning multiple properties because God's blessing you.

00:25:49

But you think of yourself still as a couch surfer

00:25:51

who had to live with your grandmother.

00:25:54

No, the Holy Spirit restores.

00:25:56

That's not defining us.

00:25:58

You might have had a bankruptcy, credit card debt,

00:26:01

bad business practices, whatever, bankruptcy.

00:26:03

And then you live that cloud thinking,

00:26:05

"Well, that means that

00:26:07

I'll never be good with money again.

00:26:08

That means I can never do anything significant."

00:26:10

No, no, because the Holy Spirit restores.

00:26:14

You might have been involved in an abortion.

00:26:18

And you might be thinking, "I'm not --

00:26:20

I'm not qualified to have my own family. I'm not."

00:26:23

That was, that was then.

00:26:26

God doesn't reject, the Holy Spirit restores.

00:26:31

This is the X factor of it.

00:26:33

And here's -- this is why people have

00:26:35

the Holy Spirit inside of them and are abiding Him,

00:26:39

this is why we want to be around them.

00:26:41

They have that X factor

00:26:42

because we're sensing them wanting to restore us

00:26:44

and hang with us.

00:26:45

There's just something about them.

00:26:47

Second thing that happens is that

00:26:49

the Holy Spirit reaches instead of insulates.

00:26:53

He reaches instead of insulates.

00:26:56

This miraculous outpouring of tongues

00:26:59

was for the purpose of reaching more people.

00:27:04

When you think that the gifts of the Holy Spirit

00:27:06

are all about giving you a spiritual experience,

00:27:08

you're missing what the Spirit does.

00:27:11

When you feel like you are supposed to grow spiritually

00:27:15

so that you feel better emotions,

00:27:17

you're missing who the Spirit is.

00:27:19

He does like us feeling emotions.

00:27:21

It is great when we have good experiences.

00:27:23

I want more of those.

00:27:25

But the main thing the Holy Spirit is doing here

00:27:27

when He is unleashed is reaching new people.

00:27:30

There is tongues so that new people

00:27:32

can hear about Him and be reached.

00:27:34

I think one of the reasons why God's blessed our church

00:27:36

and why so many good things are happening is

00:27:38

He sees that we're about reaching other people.

00:27:41

And as soon as we get insular

00:27:44

and just word about the Holy Spirit is for me a

00:27:47

nd just me, the X factor of whatever God may

00:27:50

or may not be doing a Crossroads

00:27:51

will kind of leave the building.

00:27:53

The Holy Spirit reaches new people.

00:27:55

It's really sad how many people feel cynical

00:28:00

about something that is growing, whatever it is,

00:28:02

whatever nonprofit or whatever it is.

00:28:04

It's really sad.

00:28:05

Can you imagine how it would be,

00:28:07

what would be said about 3000 people

00:28:09

coming into the early church on this day.

00:28:11

"Oh, something's weird there.

00:28:13

Someone's padding their pocket with something.

00:28:15

There's something really shady going on there.

00:28:17

There's something."

00:28:18

There's something healthy when the Spirit is unleashed

00:28:21

because that's what He wants to do,

00:28:22

He wants to impact other people.

00:28:24

He wants to reach new people instead of insulating.

00:28:27

Many of us are very insular in our faith.

00:28:29

We keep the Spirit to ourselves

00:28:31

and then we therefore don't have much of the Spirit.

00:28:34

We're about ourselves.

00:28:37

We're about our own finances.

00:28:39

We're about my own vision, about my own family,

00:28:41

about my own church experience,

00:28:43

the way I want to be, about my own vacation,

00:28:45

the way I want to do a vacation, about my own values,

00:28:47

about my own political opinions ruling,

00:28:49

about my own, about --

00:28:51

We're insular, we're insular,

00:28:53

and we're missing the X factor of the Spirit,

00:28:56

which is outward, going outside of us.

00:29:00

The Holy Spirit has come to empower and equip us

00:29:03

in part to go outside of us

00:29:05

and reach more and additional people.

00:29:07

This is just what Jesus says.

00:29:09

Why the last thing Jesus says is

00:29:11

go into all the world, to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria,

00:29:14

and the ends of the world. Go.

00:29:15

He doesn't say stay in your holy huddle

00:29:17

in your comfortable little church.

00:29:19

He doesn't say stay within your own faith tradition.

00:29:22

He didn't say stay within the moral boundaries

00:29:25

for your life and feel superior to others

00:29:27

because you're more moral than them.

00:29:28

He says Go. Go.

00:29:31

Are you going? Are you up for an adventure?

00:29:33

That's adventure.

00:29:35

We need the Spirit if we're actually going to be

00:29:37

on a spiritual adventure.

00:29:38

Third thing is that the Holy Spirit,

00:29:41

Holy Spirit convicts verses condemns.

00:29:48

Convicts doesn't condemn.

00:29:50

Peter was convicted

00:29:53

after he had denied Christ three times.

00:29:55

That's why he weeps bitterly.

00:29:57

He's convicted. There's a piercing.

00:30:00

Very few of us can delineate between

00:30:03

conviction and condemnation.

00:30:05

Sometimes you might be in a Crossroads service

00:30:07

and you feel, you go, like, "I felt so judged."

00:30:10

I assure you you were not judged.

00:30:12

You were likely convicted

00:30:14

and you didn't like how it felt.

00:30:16

And so the only way you could address it

00:30:19

was to say, "I felt judged."

00:30:20

There's a huge difference

00:30:21

between convicted and condemned.

00:30:23

Convicted is a piercing of, ooh ah.

00:30:27

The Holy Spirit, He will do that to you.

00:30:31

But He doesn't condemn you.

00:30:34

It's not this now defines you, this is your identity.

00:30:37

He doesn't do that.

00:30:39

In the book of Romans 8:1, Jesus --or not Jesus,

00:30:41

excuse me, the Apostle Paul says:

00:30:49

No condemnation.

00:30:52

Conviction, absolutely.

00:30:53

Calling out that something's wrong,

00:30:54

but no condemnation,

00:30:56

no ongoing recollection of all that's wrong.

00:30:59

And this is now your new identity.

00:31:01

This is what the Holy Spirit does.

00:31:03

He convicts us.

00:31:08

Peter goes and he unleashes all of this truth

00:31:12

on all of these people, and he does this

00:31:15

to help them see that you can have

00:31:17

the power of God that operates in your life

00:31:21

and through your life.

00:31:23

There's a confidence that people

00:31:25

who have the Holy Spirit operate in.

00:31:27

I don't mean loud. I don't mean extrovert.

00:31:32

The Holy Spirit works in extroverts and introverts,

00:31:36

works in people who have speaking skills

00:31:38

and people who don't have speaking skills.

00:31:39

I'm not talking about those kind of things.

00:31:41

Some people have charisma,

00:31:42

other people don't have charisma.

00:31:44

The Holy Spirit isn't necessarily

00:31:45

going to impact your personal charisma

00:31:47

and make you a great salesman.

00:31:48

Maybe, maybe not.

00:31:49

Those things are maybe things we want,

00:31:52

but those aren't necessarily marks of the Spirit.

00:31:55

These things I'm talking about right now are marks:

00:31:57

being outside, being convicted, having restoration.

00:32:01

These are marks.

00:32:02

And when you recognize the presence of the Holy Spirit

00:32:04

that Jesus said that you'd rather be --

00:32:07

have the Spirit inside of me than have Him there.

00:32:10

When I go into a key meeting, when I go some place

00:32:13

where there are maybe power structures,

00:32:15

maybe there are power brokers.

00:32:18

And I walk into a meeting and I'm talking now,

00:32:21

like, when I was 30, not like

00:32:23

now I'm an older guy in the room and I walk in.

00:32:25

I'm talking about when I was 30,

00:32:27

going into places where I had no business to be.

00:32:29

The reason I was able to do that is because

00:32:31

when I walked in the room,

00:32:33

and when you walk into the room,

00:32:35

God enters the room.

00:32:37

God enters the room.

00:32:39

I'm not entering the room based on my education

00:32:42

and all that stuff.

00:32:43

But when I recognize, I recognize that

00:32:46

God's presence goes by wind and fills me, He fills me.

00:32:51

I am not divine because I am divine as a natural human being.

00:32:56

No, you're not divine.

00:32:57

There's nothing about you that's divine,

00:32:59

divine at all,

00:33:01

unless you actually are possessing divinity,

00:33:03

which is what the Holy Spirit does.

00:33:04

And so the Holy Spirit, as He's in me,

00:33:07

when I enter and when you enter a room,

00:33:08

God enters the room, righteousness enters the room,

00:33:12

faithfulness enters the room,

00:33:14

Grace enters the room, restoration enters the room.

00:33:18

All the attributes of God enter,

00:33:20

the creativity. Creativity enters the room.

00:33:23

Love enters the room.

00:33:25

Conviction enters the room.

00:33:27

Standards enter the room.

00:33:29

Power enters the room.

00:33:32

And when you know this and you sense this,

00:33:34

you just walk in the identity that God has given you.

00:33:38

This is the X factor.

00:33:41

This is not religiosity.

00:33:42

This is not who believes right.

00:33:44

It's the x factor of the presence

00:33:46

and the power of the Holy Spirit.

00:33:49

Now, let's take a look at what Peter says to everybody,

00:33:54

because this is important for us, many of us.

00:33:56

I'm going to say a prayer in just a little bit.

00:33:58

And the prayer I'm going to say

00:33:59

is going to help those of us

00:34:01

who came into Crossroads today already being believers,

00:34:05

but the spirit seems to have drained out from us.

00:34:08

There's just not a lot of power in life.

00:34:10

I'm going to say a prayer for that

00:34:11

and I'm going to say a prayer

00:34:13

and you're going to say a prayer for those of us

00:34:15

who came in today and you want that power,

00:34:17

because you don't have Christ, you don't have Jesus.

00:34:20

You're a nice person.

00:34:21

No one probably --

00:34:23

people probably just assume you're a Christian,

00:34:25

but you're not.

00:34:27

You're just a nice person who goes to church.

00:34:30

You haven't actually made a commitment.

00:34:32

You haven't given your life to Christ.

00:34:34

You haven't entered into relationship.

00:34:35

And Peter addresses this.

00:34:37

Let's look at it. Here's what it says, verse 38:

00:34:42

Peter said to them --

00:34:44

this is part of his part of his sermon proper.

00:34:56

Now, it's interesting here the the is it,

00:34:59

the Holy Spirit, so it can go either way.

00:35:00

You can say Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit.

00:35:02

So in this situation in the Greek,

00:35:04

it is the Holy Spirit.

00:35:19

Promise, it's the promise.

00:35:21

The promise of the presence of God.

00:35:23

It's for you, if you want to repent, meaning,

00:35:27

if you want to turn from the life of your self

00:35:30

to a life of God,

00:35:32

the life of being insular to a life of the Spirit,

00:35:34

a life of being about my agenda

00:35:36

versus the life of being about God's agenda.

00:35:38

A life of accommodating my past

00:35:40

and making up for my past

00:35:42

and doing good deeds from my past,

00:35:43

turning from that to,

00:35:45

no, Jesus did the good deeds from my past,

00:35:47

He died on a cross.

00:35:49

I'm going to repent.

00:35:50

And Peter says, "This is the way it is.

00:35:52

You receive Christ and you receive the Holy Spirit.

00:35:56

You repent and you're baptized."

00:35:58

We don't have any baptisms today,

00:35:59

but you can receive Christ right now.

00:36:02

You can make a new commitment

00:36:03

and a new ask of the Holy Spirit.

00:36:05

Let's do that right now. So here we go.

00:36:09

Merciful God, I pray for all of us

00:36:14

who have just gotten stale in our faith

00:36:16

and there's no X factor to it.

00:36:20

We're just following rules,

00:36:21

or even not following rules.

00:36:22

We're just not abiding in You and wanting You.

00:36:24

We say to You right now, I want you.

00:36:27

Just tell Him right now, tell Him I want you.

00:36:28

I want you.

00:36:30

Tell Him right now, fill me with Your Spirit.

00:36:32

Tell Him, fill me with You.

00:36:33

God, bring the winds, the winds of change

00:36:36

through all of our buildings

00:36:38

and through our bars and coffee shops.

00:36:39

Bring the winds of change, the winds of Your Spirit.

00:36:42

We receive You, Spirit, we want You. We want You.

00:36:45

And then to those of us who've never received Jesus,

00:36:48

just say this. Repeat this after me.

00:36:51

Jesus, I want You.

00:36:53

I want to turn and follow You.

00:36:57

Forgive me for my sin and I will abide in

00:37:02

You as best I can the rest of my life.

00:37:06

God, take these prayers we've given

00:37:09

and these commitments.

00:37:11

And I don't even have to ask You to be present with us.

00:37:14

I know you are present, but I'm asking that

00:37:17

You help us in some way be more aware of it

00:37:19

as we take steps, aggressive steps towards faithfulness

00:37:23

and being in tune with the X factor of Your Spirit.

00:37:26

You're good. Amen.

00:37:29

[wind whistling]

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