Hello, thank you for joining us. We've been talking about the pitiful church versus the powerful church and what place we as individuals are going to take. So we hope you can follow along and listen in on the message. Please connect with the Rise and Shine by visiting our Facebook page at facebook.com slash a Rise and Shine TV show or emailing us at a Rise and Shine TV at gmail.com.
We look forward to connecting with you. If you've been following us on this message that we've been going through, we're going to pick up in Acts and chapter two and verse four. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now we're talking about this because there's a lot of misconception out there.
You know, there's even those that would say that they are Spirit Field and to, I think, what a lot of them are referring to is that we're a Spirit Field church because we're enthusiastic. We are excited. We are upbeat. We are those things.
You know, just kind of motivated. Motivated. Yeah, we're excited. We're not just, you know, like the old school, you know, three hymns, you know, and that kind of thing.
You know, we got the lights, we got the this and we got this and that and that. But you know, you can't find any of that in the Bible. And here it says that when they were filled with the Spirit, they spoke with other tongues. And so when I got filled with the Spirit, I spoke with other tongues.
When you got filled with the Holy Spirit, you spoke with other tongues. And this was a, it was a situation. It was a thing that happened to us that was very notable. We knew, we knew that, oh my gosh, this is different, you know, and it was huge.
You know, sometimes it can be emotional. Maybe it won't be, you know, but things follow it. And it is definitely a notable experience that you will know when it did happen. It's like, you know, how can you tell if you're born again?
Well, if you're not real sure then there's a real good chance maybe you hadn't been. So new birth is an absolute dramatic change. The old man on the inside dies and there's becomes a new man. The things that you once liked, you'll now hate, the things that you used to hate now, you will like and you'll want to go to church.
You'll want to do this or you'll want to do that. You said, well, I don't go to church, but I'm still saved. Well, you'll have to figure that out. I'm not even going to go there.
I mean, that's totally up to you. All I know is me when I got saved. I wanted to go, you know, and I thought they were all precious people. I didn't, you know that they were other people just like me, you know, and they saved with the very people that in time when I did get filled with the Spirit, they would turn away from me.
And so I was like, well, I'm not going to do that. See, all I knew was I was just different. I didn't want to do drugs. It's not that well, I can't do drugs.
It's just like, well, really, that's not it. I don't want to. I have no desire. You know, I want to follow and serve the Lord, you know.
And so when you're filled with the Spirit, you will speak with other tongues and we wanted to bring that out because that's just extremely important that I believe it's going to have to be for every believer. Now you can make up your mind, your decision or you're going to be a part of the 120 that went to the upper room, so to speak. Now, if you're choosing that as an analogy or you're going to be the 380 plus that was somewhere else doing something else when they were supposed to be over here, see, that's, I think we'll probably see a lot of that. They'll be those that'll say, you know, I don't really want that.
This is not something for me, you know, and they'll, but I believe they'll be those that will. Well, those that will. That's what we're talking to. That's why we're here.
Okay. And that's who we're sharing these truths with because we believe your heart is in a place where you're capable of hearing and receiving this. Amen. And we're doing this because I know the Lord keeps putting this on my heart.
I cannot get away from it. I can't. It's critically important. It's important for this hour.
It's important. And we're going to fulfill the plan and purpose of God in these last days and bring the harvesting of God. And we wanted to bring that out because that is the biblical sign. That's not a sign that we chose.
That's not a sign that we chose because of the church we go to or because of something that we've heard from somebody else. That scripture plainly says this is the sign. And the amazing thing of it is too, when you put that in, you know, agreement or just in context with the setting in that chapter, what was the very next thing that happened? After this power that they received came on them.
Peter, the one who's foot in mouth made so many mistakes. I mean, he said things he shouldn't say. I mean, just all kinds of, you know, really issues, you know. Constantly reviews.
Yes, constantly being. I mean, if we were Peter, you know, and Jesus said things to us that like Jesus did, you know, we'd probably be gone. But here's the same man. After that power of God comes on him, stands up in the midst of all these, the people that crucified Jesus and preaches a message, a short message that pricked the hearts of over 3000 and they came to the Lord.
Yes. And that's the power that touched the lives of people. It wasn't Peter. It was the anointing on Peter and Peter simply cooperated with that anointing and that power.
Yes. He just simply was willing to cooperate and let God use him. And when it's all over said and done, you can't even take the credit because you couldn't do it. You did something only because he enabled you to do it and he therefore is the only one that could get the glory and the honor for it.
See him? That's what we're talking about, that very thing right there. Let's turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 2. We're looking verse over there.
We have the apostle Paul who was called by God and it's amazing that this man evangelized almost most of the known world in his days. He did more in that short period of his life than many have done in decades. I mean generations rather. You know, he's just amazing what the man did.
But he wasn't, and he didn't just do what he did because when he studied Paul and he was a very, very educated man, extremely intelligent and he was way beyond most of them. In his religious crowd, he had said, but you go to the book of Philippians, the third chapter and that's why he said, I count all things but done. In other words, I lay everything aside. He said, in other words, all my pedigree, all of my education, all of my accomplishments, all of my everything that I have acquired on my own naturally.
Now, if you go back and you read it, he said that the power of Christ, that Christ, that Christ is that anointing. See, Paul understood the importance of the anointing in his life. That's why he said, I count everything else that's why Jesus said to him, he said, my grace is sufficient. He said, therefore, I would draw the glory of my infirmities that the power of God may rest upon me.
In other words, he understood that when he was incapable, when he was unable, the Spirit of God was more than capable to do through him. See, that's why so many of us have a hard time being used. We still want to struggle and do it ourselves. We need to learn how to just throw your hands up, give up, lean back on him and let him do what he's called you to do through you.
Let him empower you and do it. That's how I do what I do. That's how we do what we do. I'm not, this is not me.
I am not, in my high school days, I didn't do this. I was not a public spirit. I hated it. I didn't want it.
But when the Spirit of God comes home and you just can't help it, you just become a different person than you were and then God's able to use you in ways that you never knew. And so Paul was that way. Paul understood the power of God in his life and how important that power was and that's how he accomplished all that he accomplished in his lifetime because here in writing the Church of Corinth it had a lot of issues and a lot of problems. Paul makes a statement here and we'll just read verse four and five.
You want to read verse four and five fours? You want to read the other? You can read the other. You can read the other.
That's above it if you want. But we're just going to read those two for time's sake. Okay. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.
That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. Now see here he says that he's what he's doing. He's reminding them of when he was there. He's writing this later after being separated from them for a time.
He writes this later and he's reminding them when I came to you. He said I didn't come to you with a whole bunch of discourse and this great ability to be a public speaker and all this stuff. He said no. He said I came to you preaching in the power of God.
What was it that turned that city, a lot of that city and that many in that city, that was a huge church. And this was a very corrupt city at that time. And they, I mean it was filled with idol worshiping and all kinds of stuff. And how could Paul go into a city like that and be able to preach and be able to convince these people to turn away from all this idol worshiping and all this stuff and turn to Jesus Christ.
You don't do that but just go on in and be a nice person and having lectures. You go in with signs of miracles and wonders of the power and the presence of God. And in your preaching there is a power in those words that has a way of touching the hearts and the minds of people that they know that this person is not like everybody or something's different about this person. See and Paul said it's with power and he said that he did not want your faith to be in the wisdom or the intellectualism of man but what's your faith to stand in?
The power of God. How do we know God too? How do we know that his words is true? Because he confirms it over and over and over by the power of the Holy Spirit.
See that's how we know that we're not serving a dead God. We're not serving a Jesus that died and never was raised from the dead. We know that he's alive because of the power of the Holy Spirit confirming constantly over and over and over that these words are true. Amen.
Let's go to another one. So now if we go over here to, well let's go to 1 Corinthians 4 and we're looking at 18 and 20. 1 Corinthians 4 verses 18 through 20. Okay you got that?
No. I'll just go and say this is Paul when he was writing his church that he was those that had come in and was trying to undermine the work he had done and trying to discredit him and trying to pull people away from Jesus Christ ultimately to follow them. And most of them were religious people that still was under the law and had not really embraced and accepted the grace of God and the new birth and the infilling of the Holy Spirit. They had come in and this is what Paul had to say about him.
You can read it now if you don't mind. Now some are puffed up as though I would not come to you but I will come to you shortly if the Lord will and will know not the speech of them which are puffed up but of power. Isn't it interesting? He said okay we're going to find out just how real you are.
Okay you know you say you're this and you say you're that okay show me your power. Show me your power. Notice how this is raised here. See that's how, now listen that's how you discern the difference between those that are real and those that are not.
Where's the power? Because he goes on and says that next verse 22. I guess that no 20 I'm sorry. He says for the kingdom of God is not inward.
He's talking about inward only. Okay? But it's in power. See it's power.
What makes the difference? Do we have the power of God in our life or are we just being religious? See all it takes is one decision and that's the decision it is that I'm willing to surrender my life to him. So you don't need this power if you've got the idea that you can do it yourself.
If you've got this thing figured out you know what you believe and you're not willing to believe anything else. You don't need this power but when you come to that place where Lord I need you I can't do this without you. Jesus said it as clearly as anybody could say it. He said I am the vine and you are the branches.
And then he goes on and says without me you can do nothing. That doesn't mean that you can't do anything at all because a lot of people out there are doing a lot of things. What he's talking about you can't do anything for the kingdom. You can't do anything that's according to my will until it's accomplished my plan and purpose in the earth.
He said because I'm the one that has to empower you and enable you by the Holy Spirit to do what you do. See. And so here he said he said so you know if you want to know who's right and who's wrong sometimes all you got to do is just like is there any power. And you know it's funny that we I remember once in the church that we were going to you know and actually still are you know you get people you know they give people opportunities to stand up your testimonies and everybody is a good testimony you know they tell about what God's done for me and it's good you know that the things they say is good and it gives glory and honor to God because of what he's done but then you'll be going along and there'll be one that'll stand up and you wouldn't even know it if you looked at him you know there's no outward sign that would give you any indication of what's getting ready to happen but they'll get up and give a testimony and it's different.
See it's different and the difference is it's just like oh see I can I'm sure everybody else can too but I can tell it's like oh my gosh. That one these were good but this one's different why because there was power in the words that were being spoken they were inspired by they were brought forth by the person of the Holy Spirit and saying you can tell that seeing people can tell that and when you're out just telling people about Jesus you need that power because people need to know that you're not just blowing smoke you're not just you know trying to be religious that you're talking about a Jesus that is resurrected it is alive and that does care about them right now and wants to come into their lives and change their lives. He has the power to change you and to help you to be the person that you really don't need to decide your heart what to be. Amen.
What's next? It's 1 Corinthians 1 17 we may need to look at this without the Amplified because I don't really shoot at those now but I didn't. 1 Corinthians 1 17 the King James says this for Christ the Messiah I think no I may rub this down in Amplified because that sounds like Amplified. Yeah I think I made it but you can like it just say 1 Corinthians you got it?
Is this Amplified? We're just going to read this out of Amplified. Sometimes you'll overlook some things sometimes and just the King James and the Amplified just all it simply does is takes these some of these words and expounds them so you can get a better idea of what's being said. The Amplified says this 1 Corinthians 1 and 17, it says for Christ the Messiah sent me out not to baptize and they start baptizing with water.
In other words that's not what he's called me to do. Now baptism is important, water baptism is important but that was not what God called him to do but notice it says but to evangelize. By preaching the glad tidings or the good news the gospel and that now listen and not with that with verbal eloquence. In other words he didn't call me out here just to try to intellectually convince you that Jesus is who he says he is.
Just across of Christ should be deprived of force and emptied of its power. Well you've got a little side thought right there that you could look at why is it that the churches had such a struggle in being effective and winning the lost and building strong churches? Is it because we've lost the power? See have we leaned back on?
Have we given in to some other things that have robbed us of the power of God? Have we compromised in areas hoping to be able to draw people in and to be what's the word I'm looking for attractive to them from the natural standpoint? See it's the power we, I really honestly believe that we ought to be drawing them by the power of God. You have a church.
You have a body of believers that has the power of God and operating in them on a regular basis where people's lives are being turned around, where miraculous healings are taking place, where people are being delivered. You tell me that word won't get out. And that is genuinely happening in the lives of people and it won't draw people into that place? See I think that's where sometimes I think we've missed it somehow and we've tried to do things from the natural standpoint instead of just leaning back on the Holy Ghost and letting him be who he is and work through us to do what he desires to do.
See really our success in life as far as I really believe in all my heart is really only going to be based on our success and what we accomplish that will stand the test of the fire is going to be what we accomplish by the power of the Holy Spirit and not ourselves as it been just dead works, something that we decided we needed to do or did we cooperate with the Lord and do it his way and let him and power us to do it. I think that's the works that will stand. Well and I think we're in a place too where people are looking for the real. That's why the church has such a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths is there was no power there.
They've tried that. They've done that and there was nothing there. And these days that we're living in now, I mean this crazy time right now, people are desperate. And you're looking for something that's going to change your world and the only thing that's going to do that is the power of God.
And it's in the name of Jesus and it's in the working of his Holy Spirit here on the earth. And the play church and the things that people have seen where you do steps one, two, three and everything's good. It's not helping them. It's not changing them.
They're not seeing anything out of it. So people are really, really, really that's why we need to step up when people come looking for it. We need to have it. We need to be able to give it to them, you know, to show them what's going to change them, to show them what's going to make their needs.
And until we have that, we're not going to be the ones that are going to be the attractive ones, we're going to be the ones that are going to help people. You know, you have to get this yourself and get it working in your life before you can reach out and help somebody else. Can't take somebody anywhere you've never been. And you can't give them anything you don't have.
Well, that's true. That's so true. You know, but I just know that's the amazing thing. Probably sometimes you almost think some of the most effective people that witnesses those that just got dramatically saved because they're excited.
You know, their lives were so dramatically saved. They were in the drugs or they were alcoholics or they had all these issues and all these problems. Now their lives just totally turned over upside down and they're so thankful for where they're at that it's just almost spontaneous for them to want to share it with other people. And the Spirit of God uses that because that's that new energy, you know, and he'll use that and it helps because it helps people to see, you know, where God can, you know, well, wow, if he did that for them, you know, he might do this for me.
And you don't have to be bad that bad. I forgot to do things in your life. You can be a good moral person and still die and go to hell. It's without, you get without Jesus Christ and that new nature on the inside of you and the person, the Holy Spirit, that's what makes all the difference in the world.
You got to have that. You got to have that. And we could go to Acts 8, 1 and 4, but we're not going to take the time to do that because that's when, since Jesus had told them, we read part of that in the book of Mark 16, you go back to Matthew and you get more of that great commission, you know, but Jesus told them, say, go get all the world, all the world, all the world means all the world and that's what an evening thing. All the world would have to include not just the Jews, but also what the Bible refers to as the Gentiles, okay, the non-Jewish people, okay, but they didn't go.
Well, by the time you get to after Acts, they still haven't really gone. Okay. And so Acts 8, and this could, they'll tell you, it could be possibly somewhere around 8, 9, 10 years has passed and they still haven't obeyed God. So what, now listen, what happens?
Stephen is martyred, before Stephen is martyred, James, the apostle James is martyred. And then they tried to martyred Peter, but the Lord, through the church's prayers delivered him. But then Stephen preaches and it's the religious crowd that stoned him and a part of that, part of that crowd was Saul who later became Paul. And so what happened because of their unwillingness to do what Jesus had told them and he said, this time we got to do this, this is important because guys, people are dying every day and some of those people are dying or those that shouldn't be in my kingdom.
See, while you're dragging your feet, they're dying and they're going to heal. He said, I can't have that. So what happens? He allows persecution to come and the church is scattered.
And the Bible says what they do, they went everywhere. They stand up on fire and they went everywhere preaching this gospel of Jesus Christ. And they didn't just go with elegant words, but they went with signs, miracles and wonders because then it goes on in that same chapter and talked about right on the heels of that, where Philip went down to Samaria. And there he preached the gospel and he cast out devils and there was healings and great things that happened.
And the Bible says that when they saw what God was doing through him, they saw something. Evidence that what the man was saying was true, it says they believed. They believed and were baptized and later on they were filled with the Spirit. Peter and John came up and they were filled with the Spirit and spoke with other tongues.
And so you can see that, that the church began with this power and it's still just as important today for us to have that same power in our lives. And there's so many more. You can go right on through the book of Acts, chapter 9, verse 36, chapter 9 verse 10, different things and but we'll get to those. Maybe in our next session we'll go on into those but right now again, we want to talk to you if you're out there and you've never made Jesus Christ the Lord of your life and you're out there and you're not living for him.
You know there's a lot of people I believe that are out there that are catching this and watching this and this is a God moment. This is a divinely orchestrated moment in time that God has given you the opportunity because he wants to change your life. He wants to help you. He wants to bless you.
He wants to spend eternity with you. So if you can pray this prayer with me and just simply mean it with all your heart. Say Jesus, I surrender my entire life to you. I can't do for me what only you can do.
I will serve you all the rest of my life and follow you. In the end, Satan, you are not my God. You are not my Lord. Jesus is my Lord.
Now Father, I thank you that I have believed on him with my heart and confessed him with my mouth. I believe that I'm born again and I thank you for filling me with your spirit with the evidence of speaking to other tongues and I thank you for it now in Jesus name. Now if you prayed that prayer let somebody know, confess that. Jesus said if you be ashamed of me before me and I'll be ashamed of you before my God and my father.
He said but if you will confess me before them, before me and I will confess you before my father and before the angels. So see that's how you still the deal. Let somebody know, let us know what God has done in your life today and I believe that God has great things in store for you. This is not the end.
This is only the beginning until we're able to see you again by God's very best be yours. Please connect with the Rise and Shine by visiting our Facebook page at facebook.com slash a Rise and Shine TV show or emailing us at a Rise and Shine TV at gmail.com. We look forward to connecting with you.